b rib,- Country •
re and
THE
MONTHLY
CHRONICLE
OF
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND
329 ENGRAVINGS.
1891
Printed and Published for Proprietors of the " Newcastle Weekly Chronicle " by
WALTER SCOTT, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE,
AND 24 WARWICK LANE, PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON.
IK w
JAN -8 1960
s£^5/Tv nc TrtR
Page.
The Press Gang in the Northern Counties 1
The Black Cock of Whickham *
The Nightingale and other Warblers 5
Prudhoe Castle and the Umfravilles 6
MEN OF MARK TWIXT TYNK AND TWEED. By Richard
Welford :— John Fenwick, 11 : Sir John Fife, 12;
Thomas Forster, 58 ; George, Francis, and Joseph
Forster, 60 ; Jonathan Langstatf Forster, 62 ;
Westgarth Forster, 105 ; William Garrett, 106 ;
The Gibsons of Hexham and Stonecroft, 108 ;
William Sydney Gibson, 154 ; Thomas Gibson,
156 ; Rev. Thomas Gillow, 157 ; John and
Benjamin Green, 224; Richard Gilpin, 226;
Edward Glynn, 228; Joseph Glynn, F.R.S.,
250 ; Sir Leonard Greenwell, 251 ; Thomas
Michael Greenhow, 251; William Gray, 253;
George Grey, 297; Robert Grey, D.D., 299;
Gilbert and George Gray, 300 ; The Sir George
Greys, of Falloden, 354 ; Henry Grey, D.D.,
356 ; Timothy Hackworth, 358; William Anthony
Hails, 394; George Hall, D.D., 396; Thomas
Young Hall, 396; Samuel Hammond, D.D.,
441 ; Rev. George Harris, 443 ; William Harvey,
444 ; Thomas Haswell, 498 ; Sir Arthur Hazle-
rigg, 500 ; The Headlams, 538 ; Robert Rhodes,
540.
Sir John Vanbrugh in the North 15
Sunderland Town Hall 16
Katterlelto and his Wonders 16
The Old Dispensary, Newcastle 20
Whitley-by-the Sea 21
The Bigg Market and the'Groat Market, Newcastle... 23
North-Country Fairies 26
Arctic and Antarctic Navigators 29
A Ramble Round York 32
George Barrington in Newcastle 36
NORTH-COUNTRT GARLAND OF SONG. By John
Stokoe :—
" Aw Wish Yor Muther Wad Cum" 38
" Billy Oliver's Ramble between Benwell and
Newcastle" 83
' ' The Gathering Ode of the Fenwyke" .... 118
" A U Hinny Burd" 195
"Dance ti Thy Daddy" 245
"The Brave Earl Brand and the King of Eng-
land's Daughter" 318
'The Keachi'the Creel" 342
"Luckey's Dream" 410
"My Love has 'Listed" 438
" The Pitman's Courtship" 510
A Delaval Letter 39
William Bell Scott 40
NOTES AND COMMENTARIES : —
St. Cuthbert's Beads, Old Street Cries, Poet
Close, Greenwells of Broomshields .... . 41
Page.
Thomas Ironsides, a Tyneside worthy ; Elizabeth
Isabella Spence, Brougham's First Brief, a
Westmoreland Mathematician, the High Level
Bridge, Meridian Pillar at Hammerfest, First
Telegraph Message between Newcastle and
London 90
Lady Peat's Property, a Peculiar Parish, the
Founder of the Salvation Army, George Wat-
son, mathematician, Mountaineering Feats in
English Lakeland, an Invitation to Marriage .. 137
Sand Desks, the Lough Family, " I'm Brown," S.
Boverick : Watchmaker, the City of Durham,
"Waterloo Wetheral," "Jessamond Mill" 333
The Polka, the Devil's Due, "Jessamond Mill,"
John Forster, a Durham Colliery Explosion 182
Years Ago, Joseph Glynn, F.R.S 330
James Crosbie Hunter, Sailing Coaches, the Lee
Penny, the Battle-Field, Newcastle ., 378
Kemmel's Path, Mease Family, Reminiscence of
the Stage Coach, Baptist Church in Newcastle,
Buried Alive 426
Jonathan Cay, a Venerable Dame, Jane and
Anna Maria Porter, the Threat of Invasion,
Carlyle's Estimate of the Folks o' Shields, a
Cumbrian Bidden Wedding 473
Lemmings, a Dreadful Winter, Ben Wells, the
Dancing Master ; Grey's Monument, Newcastle 523
North -Country Wit and Humour :— 43, 92, 139, 187,
235, 331, 379, 428, 475, 524, 572
North-Country Obituaries :— 44, 93, 140, 187, 236, 282,
331, 380, 428. 476, 525, 573
Record of Events :-45, 94, 141, 189, 237, 284, 332, 381,
429, 477, 525, 573
Two Notable Weardale Men 49
Sailors' Strikes on theTyne 52
The Gipsies of the Border 54, 100, 163., 205
Cotherstone and Stilton 57
A Bit of Auld Scotland 63
The Battle of Homildon Hill 65
George Fox in the North 68
Swarthmoor Hall 70
Sunderland Bridge 71
Views of Netherwitton 74
Shepherds' Numerals 77
The Village of Whittingham 75
St. Mary's Loch 80
The Percies and Westminster Abbey...' 82
The Brown Man of the Moors 84
TTncle Toby's Toy Exhibition 85
Bath Lane Church and Schools 86
The Burning of Sunderland Lyceum 86
The Flycatchers 87
Dr. Thomson, Archbishop of York 89
Anne Clifford, High Sheriff of Westmoreland 97
Craigie's Cross 102
II.
CONTENTS.
Page.
The Snowflake and Lapland Bunting 103
Dove Cottage, Grasmere 104
The First Mayor of Sunderland Ill
Wooler, Doddington. and Milfield 112
Nimmo of thn Rocking Tower 113
The Siege and Capture of Newcastle, 1644 114
Richmond, Yorkshire 119
The Murder of Capt. Berckholtz in Sunderland
Harbour 123
"Whisky Jack" 125
The Delaval Weighing Machine 126
Around Ford 127
Regner Lodbrog 128
A North-Country Bibliopole 131
The Castle Spectre : A Legend of Houghton 133
Penrith Beacon ;..'.., 134
Joseph Blackett, Shoemaker and Poet 135
"Billy Fine Day " 136
Henry Tennant 136
About "Boldon Buke" 145
Hewson Clarke, Author of " The Saunterer " 149
A -Ramble Round Richmond 151
The Kingfisher and the Dipper 158
Sir William Brereton's Visit to the North 161
A Visit to Bamburgh 165
A Lecrend of Cotherstone 173
North-Country Ghost Stories 174
Aydon Castle 176
John Wesley in Newcastle and the North 180
The Bishop of Peterborough 184
The Poet Close 185
Blythe Hurst, Blacksmith and Clergyman 193
The Massacre of Ambovna, 1623 195
John Graham Lough, Sculptor 199
The Legend of Su Oswald 203
The Pitman 208
"January Searle" 209
The Knaresdale Hall Ghost 210
The Author of "Auld Robin Gray " 211
Corbridge-on-Tyne 214
A Sunderland Poet : William Allan 221
The Hallgarth Tragedy 221
"The Amphitrite . 222
Newbiggin-by-the-Sea 223
" Ye Apothecarie : HisBooke" 230
Three Members of the Linnet Family 232
Ednam and the Poet of "The Seasons" 241
A Border Heroine , 246
New Post Office in Newcastle ...'. 248
New Banking Premises in Newcastle 249
Warkworth Bridge Tower 255
Woodhorn Church. Northumberland 256
Billy Purvis '. 259, 314, 373
Methodism in Newcastle 261
Ambleside, Windermere, and the Lake District 263
The Case of Thomas Fury 266
Stories of Smugglers 269
An Alnwick Prize Essayist 271
Cresswell Village 271
Bywell-on-Tyne 272
Barge Day on the Tyne 275
TheGiantCor 277
The Northumberland Household Book 278
The Dove Family 280
The Entry of Biahop Van Mildert into Durham 289
The Conyers Falchion 291
Dorothy Wordsworth 291
The Maddison Monument 294
A Reminiscence of Mrs. Montagu 295
Levens Hall, Westmoreland 296
The Bumler Box 297
Northumbrian Hermits 302
Arthur Rousbey, Vocalist 303
Culzean Castle, Ailsa Crag, and the Coast of Carrick. 304
The First Tyne Steamboat 306
St. Crispin's Day Celebrations 309
A Novel Gathering 311
The Bishop's Palace, Bishop Auckland 314
The Rums at Bearpark, near Durham 318
The Woodpeckers 320
Page.
Louis Dutens, the Eccentric Rector of Elsdon 322
Samuel Reay, Organist 325
A Week End at Bellingham 326
The Rising in the North 337
Two Border Poetesses 340
Frank Pickering's Fatal Flight 343
The Keep of Richmond Castle 344
The Village of Mitford 344
A Tyneside Showman 346
Newcastle and Carlisle : The Canal and the Railroad. 347
Lilburn Tower 351
"Lang Jack," a Tyneside Samson 352
A Riot on the Town Moor 353
Interior of Cragside 359
The Battle of Otterburn 362, 402
Four Members of the Crake Family 364
The French Drag«on and the Newcastle Editor 366
Scawfell Pikes 368
The Whitworth Doctors 370
The Nestor of the Tobacco Trade 372
Thomas Eyre Maeklin, Artist 373
The Derwentwater Veteran and Recluse 385
Aerial Armies 388
A Quaker Lieutenant 389
Sir Walter Scott in the North 390
Cleadon Village 392
Mr. Alderman Barkas 398-
The Weardale Linns 399
Allan Ramsay 404
The Picktree Brag 407
Tyneinouth Cliffs a Hundred Years Ago 407
The Market Place, South Shields 410
Mrs. Arkwright 411
Edward Elliott, of Earsdon 413
The Busty Seam 414
Jane and Anna Maria Porter 415
The Pitman's Saturday Night 416
Wordsworth and the Lake District 417
John Hodgson, the Historian of Northumberland 420
Members of the Partridge Family 423
The Capture of South Shields Fort by Scots . 426
Ada the Thoughtful, and Harald, Lord of War 433
Sir Gosselin Denville, Freebooter 436
A Shields Youth Hanged at Tyburn 439
St. Agatha's Abbey, Easby 440
John Horsley, Antiquary 445
Whitburn Village ' 448
The Battle of Otterburn : Its Doubts and Perplexities 450
Game Birds 453
Joyce's Patent Stove 455
Rothbury Town 457
The Ettrick Shepherd 459
John W. Brown, Artist 463
Wbitton Tower and Sharpe's Folly 464
The Baliols in Newcastle 464
The Northern Circuit Fifty Years Ago 467, 491
North-Country Slogans.... 470
The Pillar Rock 472
Aira Force 473
Plague and Cholera in the North 481, 553
John Lilburne, "Freeborn John " 483
Whickham Village 486
The Late Baron Watson 494
John Foster, the Essayist, in Newcastle .. ..495
The Keelmen's Hospital 496
Egglestone Abbey 497
"Shuffle, Darby, Shuffle " 503
Monkwearmouth Church . . 503
The Blackfriars, Newcastle 505
Brass Crosby, Lord Mayor of London 507
Newcastle from Gateshead 511
Lord Collingwood . 512
Our Parish Registers 517,558
The Battle of the Low Lights 519
The Mouth of the Tyne 520
All Saints' Church, Newcastle 521
Ned Corvan ..'„., 522
Windmill* 529
Elizabeth Smith, Linguist, &c 535
Tom Taylor, Third Editor of Punch, 542
CONTENTS.
in.
Page,
The Simonside Dwarfs 543
The Walls of Newcastle 545
Macready in the North 547
Memorials at Otterburn 550
The Duddon Valley 553
Mary of Buttermere 556
The Widdrington Family and Estates 559
The Rev. James Murray's " Travels of the Imagina-
tion " .. 563
Pape.
Three Members of the Warbler Family 565
Marsden Rock 567
The Castle of the Seven Shields 567
Longhorsley Tower 568
The Two Pitmen 569
The Historian of Durham 569
Dr. Arnold 571
Lloyd Jones ....« 571
Epilogue 576
Page.
Nightingale, Blackcap 5
Golden Warbler 6
Prudhoe Castle 6, 7, 8, 9
Gateway, Prudhoe Castle 8
Oriel Window, Prudhoe Castle ... 9
Arms of the Umfravilles 10
Suuderland Town Hall 16
Newcastle Dispensary 17
Bigg Market, Newcastle 24
Groat Market, Newcastle 25
Micklegate Bar, York 32
The Shambles. York 33
Barbican, Walmgate Bar, York... 33
The Fiddler of York 34
York Minster, from Monk Bar
and Market Place 34
York Minster Towers, from Peter
Gate 36
Kirk Yetholm and Gipsy Encamp-
ment 55
A Bit of Cotherstone 56
The Bell at Stilton 57
Both well Castle, Haddington 64
Nungate Bridge, Haddington 65
Swartbmoor Hall 71
Sunderland Bridge 72
Netberwitton 73, 74, 75, 76
Whittingham 80
St. Mary's Loch 81
Bath Lane Church and Schools ... 85
Pied Flycatcher 87
Spotted Flycatcher 88
Meridan Pillar, Hatnmerfest 91
Snowflake 104
Lapland Bunting 104
Dove Cottage, Grasmere 105
Wooler 112
Doddington Cross 113
Milfield, near Wooler 113
Richmond, Yorkshire 120
Marketplace, Richmond 121
Grey Friars Tower, Richmond ...122
Refreshment Room at Ford 127
Blacksmith's Shop at Ford 128
Ford Bridge 129
Penrith Beacon 134
Terrace Under Castle Wall, Rich-
mond 151
Richmond Castle 152
Swaledale from Willance's Leap... 153
The Convent, Richmond 154
The Kingfisher 160
. TheDipper 161
South Gateway, Bamburgh Castle 166
North Gateway, Bamburgh 166
Entrance to the Keep, Bamburgh. 167
Bamburgh Castle.. i/iW^m
Clock Tower, Bambnrgh .' 170
St. Aidan's Church, Bamburgh ... 171
Fame Islands from Bamburgh .... 172
Aydon Castle 176,177
Garderobe, Aydon Castle 178
Page.
Window at Aydon Castle 179
Tortures Inflicted in Amboyna.... 197
Green head, Birthplace of J. G.
Lough 200
Lough's Statuary, Newcastle 201
Lough's Milo 202
The Pitman — Bowler and Pigeon
Fancier 208,209
Corbndge-on-Tyne .. 214, 216
St. Andrew's Church, Corbridge .. 215
Pele Tower, Corbridge 217, 218
Figure at Corbridge 219
The Angel Inn, Corbridge 219
Old House, Corbridge 220
Newbiggin-by-the-Sea 223
St. Bartholomew's Church, New-
biggin 224, 225
Text of Apothecarie's Booke 231
Arctic Redpole, Mealy Redpole... 232
Mountain Linnet 233
New Post Office Buildings, New-
castle 248
New Banking Premises, Newcastle 249
Autograph of William Gray 255
OldTowerand Bridge, Warkworth 256
Woodhorn Church, Northumber-
land 257, 258
Ambleside, Stockghyll Force, and
Old Mill 264
Windermere Lake 265
Cresswell Village and Bay, North-
umberland 272
Churches of By well, Northumber-
land 273
Wood Pigeon, Rock Dove 280
Stock Dove, Turtle Dove 281
The Conyers Falchion 291
The Maddison Monument 294
Levins Hall, Westmoreland 296
The Bumbler Box 297
Culzean Castle 304
AilsaCrag 305,306
Invitation Card to Contributors'
Gathering 312
Bishop's Palace, Bishop Auckland 313
Billy Purvis Stealing the Bundle.. 317
Green Woodpecker 320
Spotted Woodpecker, Great
Spotted Woodpecker 321
Clock Tower, Bellingham Town
Hall 326
Rustic Bridge, Bellingham 327
Bridge over Hareshaw Linn 327
Bellingham 328
St. Cuthbert's Church, Bellingham 329
The CharltonSpur 329
Old Sword of the Charltons 329
'Roman Altar at Binchester 33+
Interior of Keep, Richmond Castle 344
Mitf ord, Northumberland 345
Lilburn Tower, Northumberland.. 352
Lang Jack's Castle 353
Drawing Room, Cragside 360
Page.
Fireplace at Cragside 361
Corncrake 364
Water Rail, Spotted Crake 365
Little Crake 366
ScawfellPike 368
Scawfell 369
Sailing Coach- : 378
Sir John Woodford's House, Der-
wentwater 386
Cleadon Village - 392-3
Weardale Linns .- 400-1
Tynemouth Castle and Cliff, 1779.. 408
Market Place, South Shields 409
The Pitman's Saturday Night ...416-7
Partridge, Red-legged Partridge,
Quail, and Virginian Partridge 424-5
St. Agatha's Abbey, Easby 440
Norman Arch, Easby Abbey ... 441
Whitburn Village 448
Whitburn Church 449
Game Birds : — Pheasant), Red
Grouse, Black Grouse 453-4
Roth bury 456-7
Thrum Mill, Rothbury 458
The Pool below Rothbury 459
Whitton Tower, Rothbury 464
Sharpe's Folly 465
The Pillar Rock 472
AiraForoe 473
Weekly Chronicle Cycling Cup 479
Door-case of the Lilburne Mansion 486
Whickham Church 486*
Whickham Village 487, 488, 489
Memorial Stone to Cuthbert How-
stan 490
Keelmen's Hospital, Newcastle ... 496
Egglestone Abbey 497
Monkwearmouth Church 504
Black friars, Newcastle 505
Newcastle from Hillgate 512, 513
The Mouth of the Tyne 520
All Saints' Church, Newcastle ... 521
The Lemming 523
The Gladstone Casket 527
Old Mill 529
Old Mill near North Shields 530
Chimney Mills, Newcastle 530
Windmill at Todd's Nook, New-
castle 531
Matthew Bank Farm, Jesmond ... 531
Cowgate Mill, near Fenham 532
Old Mill, Windmill Hills, Gates-
head 533
Round Mill, near North Shields... 534
Billy Mill, „ ., ... 534
Spittle Den Mill, Tynemouth .... 535
Burn Hall, co. Durham 536
Scene in Grounds of Burn Hall . 537
St. Nicholas' Steeple .'.. £41
Herber Tower, Newcastle 544
Turret, near St. Andrew's Church,
Newcastle 545
Map and Plan of Otterburn 551
IV.
CONTENTS.
Pa.se.
Battle Stones of Otterburn 552
Bridge at Otterburn 552
Duddon Valley 553
Stella Chapel 561
Page.
Sedge Warbler 565
Grasshopper and Icterine Warb-
lers 566
Marsden Rock 567
Pago.
Lonf*horsley Tower 568
Two Pitmen 569
Wesley Memorial Drinking Foun-
tain 574-
John Fife 31
William Bell Scott 40, 41
Alderman Thomas Hedley 44
R. W. Forsyth 46
Alice Simpkin, Violinist 47
James Uraggs 49
Thomas Forster 59
J. L. Forster 63
Dr. Thomson, late Archbishop of
York 89
Thomas Ironsides 90
George Walton 93
Amelia Ed wards, LL.D 94
William Garret 107
Andrew White, M.F Ill
John Wheldon 131
Joseph Blackett 136
Henry Tennant 137
John iDixon. C.E 140
M<5nie Muriel Dowie 143
Rev. Joseph Rorke 143
Whitworth Waliis 143
Wm. Sidney Gibson 155
Rev. Thomas Gillow 157
Esther Blythe 164
David Blythe 165
Dr. Mandell Creighton 184
Poet Close 185
Aid. Davidson 188
Aid. Dickinson 188
Rev. R. F. Proudfoot, B.A 189
James Horsley 189
E. A. Maund 189
Hon. J. B. Patterson 190
Aid. W. Temple 191
Rev. Blythe Hurst 193
John Graham Lough 199
" January Searle " 210
William Allan ..'. 221
Rev. Richard Gilpin 226
Edward Glynn 228
Prince Napoleon 240
T. M. Greonhow, M.D 252
T. H. Glenny 282
Henry Christie 284
C. Jurgenson 285
P. G. Halvorsen 285
Captain Bentzon 285
Catherine O'Hara 286
Chief-Constable Elliott 286
SirM. E. Grant Duff 287
Earl Percy 287
G. E. T. Smithsou 287
Captain Mackenzie 288
Gilbert Gray 300
George Gray 301
Arthur Rousbey 304
Samuel Reay 325
Sir George Grey 355
Henry Grey, D.D 357
John Harvey 372
Thomas Eyre Macklin 373
Billy Purvis 576, 377
Aid. Henry Nelson 381
Captain Cracknel! 381
Rev. A. D. Jeffery 384
Sir John G. Woodford 386
William Anthony Hails 394
Thomas Y. Hall 397
Aid. T. P. Barka- 398
Fanny Kemble (Mrs. Arkw right). 411
Edward Elliott 413
Jane and Anna Maria Porter 415
John Hodgson 420
Corporal Roscamp 430
Private E. Adams 430
Joseph Reed, jmi 430
Rev. George Harris 443
William Harvey 444
Walter Mavin 458
John W. Brown 463
Isabella Moscrip, aged 102 474
The Duke of Cleveland 477
Prince of Naples 477
W. Howitt 479
Robert Lilburne 486
Thomas Haswell 498
Sir Arthur Hazlerigg 500
Brass Crosby 507
Lord Collingwood 512
Ned Corvan 522
W. E. Gladstone, M.P 527
Elizabeth Smith, Linguist 536
Thomas De Quincey . .. 537
T. E. Headlam . ..538
Dr. Headlam 539
Tom Taylor 542
Lord Widdrington 560
Rev. James Murray . 563
Dr. Arnold . ... 571
W. M. Henzell . ... 573
B. J. Sutherland.. ... 575
Gbronicle
OF
NORTH-COUNTRY*LORE*AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 47.
JANUARY, 1891.
PRICE 6u
$)r*44 (gang in tftc iimrtfrtrn
JHE practice of impressing seamen to man the
Royal Navy commenced in the year 1355,
immediately after England had been deso-
lated from one end to the other by a
noisome pestilence, which had scarcely left a sincfle
country of Europe or Asia free from its ravages, and
which had swept away near a third of the inhabitants
wherever it came, about fifty thousand souls being com-
puted to have perished by it in London alone. It
was the year before Edward, the Black Prince, in-
vaded France, on the expiration of a short truce, and
won the battle of Poictiers, in which the French King
John was taken prisoner. The resources of England
being almost wholly drained, and every effort being
required to man the army and navy, the system of the
press-gang was introduced by royal proclamation.
In every emergency, subsequently to Edward III. 'a
time, impressment was adopted with more or less
rigour. Maitland tells us that, on the morning of
Easter Monday, 1596, during the reign of Queen Eliza-
beth, the Lord Mayor and aldermen of London received
tbe royal command to raise a thousand men with the
utmost expedition, whereupon they repaired with their
deputies, constable?, and other officers, to the churches,
and, having caused the doors to be shut, took the people
during divine service from their worship, till the number
was completed. The men so raised were marched the
same night for Dover. But Elizabeth having got advice
of the reduction of Calais by the Spaniards, the pressed
men returned to London in about a week after their
departure. In King William's time, when the press
were very active during the war with France, the coal
trade is reckoned to have suffered, in increased wages
to seamen only, to the extent of some millions sterling.
For the first three years of the war £9 a voyage was given
to commou seamen, who before sailed for 36s., "which,"
says Postlethwayt, in his huge folio, "Universal Dic-
tionary of Trade and Commerce," "computing the
number of ships and men used in the trade, and of
voyages made, at eight hands to a vessel, does,
moderately accounting, make £896,000 difference in one
year."
Particulars of a few of the more exciting incidents
connected with the operation of the impressment system
in the Northern Counties may now be recorded.
On February 6th, 1755, a smart press for seamen broke
out at Shields, when sixty or seventy able hands were
taken by the Peggy Uoop of war, which lay in a deep
part of the harbour near the Low Lights, ever afterwards
known as "Peggy's Hole." A few days later, there not
being a sufficient number of pressed men secured, the
" volunteer drum " was beat through the streets, offering
a bounty of £3 to each "gentleman seaman " who should
enter his Majesty's service. Next year, war having been
proclaimed against France, another very hot press was
made both at Shields and Newcastle, and several hundred
men were taken.
On the 30th March, 1759, an unfortunate affair hap-
pened at Swalwell. A press-gang went thither in quest
of men, but the inhabitants (Crowley's Crew) gave them
a severe drubbing. Next night the gang returned, and
another scufHe took place. One William Moffat, a
barber, was seized, and Mr. Bell, one of the chief in-
habitants, received fire stabs with a sword in different
parts of his body, in consequence of which he died.
Some others, on both aides, were dangerously wounded,
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{January
1891.
including the midshipmen who headed the gang.
Moffat made his escape, but a reward of £20 having
been offered for his apprehension, he was arrested at
Whitehaven by a man named Osborn, alias Captain
Death, so nick-named for his performance in singing a
celebrated ditty relating to the captain of the Terrible
privateer, whose servant he had formerly been. Moffat
was lodged in Carlisle gaol, and afterwards brought to
Durham, where he was tried at the assizes in August,
1759, but acquitted.
In the same year (May 14), about thirty impressed
men, on board a tender at Sunderland, forcibly made
their escape. The bravery of their leader was remark-
able. Being hoisted on deck by his followers, he wrested
the halbert from the sentinel on duty, and with one band
defended himself, while with the other he let down a
ladder into the hold for the rest to come up, which they
did, and then overpowered the crew.
The following year (1760), a tender sailed from Shields
with sixty impressed men on board. As soon as she had
got out to sea, the men found means to release them-
selves, and, getting possession of the vessel, took her
into Scarborough and made their escape, leaving the
lieutenant and his men battened down under hatches.
A few years later (1771), the impressed men on board the
Boacawen cutter, lying at Shields, found an opportunity
to overpower the watch on deck, and fifteen of them
escaped. The sentinel, in opposing them, lost three of
his fingers by the stroke of a cutlass, and an officer was
desperately wounded in the head.
On February 12th, 1777, about eight o'clock in the
evening, the impressed men on board the Union tender
at Shields rose upon the crew, took possession of the
ship, and, notwithstanding the fire from the other
tenders and from Clifford's Fort, carried her out to
sea.
A memorable affair occurred at Sunderland on Feb. 13,
1783. The sailors at that port, having got liberty to go
on shore, through the temporary cessation of impressment
at the close of the first American war, resolved to take
summary and condign vengeance on the persons who had
informed against them and their mates while the press-
gang was in active operation. The informers who were
caught were mounted upon stout poles or stangs, and
carried through the principal streets, exposed to the
insults of the populace. The women, in particular,
bedaubed them plentifully with rotten eggs, soap suds,
mud, &c. The drummers of the North York regiment of
Militia (the Black Cuffs), quartered in the town, got
orders to beat to arms, and the soldiers paraded the
streets, which had the effect of clearing them. Amongst
the informers slanged at this time was Jonathan Coates,
of Arras's Lane, Sunderland, commonly known as " Jotty
Coates," who, after undergoing severe punishment on the
etang, reached his home nearly dead. During the night,
he heard a noise, which he supposed to be the infuriated
populace coming after him again, when he crawled into a
narrow space between Arras's and Baines's Lane, where
he died. The popular fury ran so high that his relatives
durst not attempt to bury him in daylight, and his body
lay in his house until late in the evening of the 20th,
when some militiamen carried it to Sunderland Church-
yard, where it was interred without any funeral ceremony.
The register of burials thus records the interment : —
"Jonathan Coates, February 20th, 1783."
In February, 1793, the seamen at Shields, Newcastle,
Sunderland, Blyth, and all along the eastern coast,
entered into resolutions to resist any attempt to press
them. On Tuesday, the 19th, they got hold of the press-
gang at North Shields, and, reversing their jackets, as a
mark of contempt, conducted them, accompanied by a
numerous crowd, to Chirton toll-bar, where, dismissing
them, they gave them three cheers, and told them never
again to enter Shields, or they should be torn limb from
limb. On the 18th of the ensuing month, the sailors to
the number of 500 assembled in a riotous manner, armed
with swords, pistols, and other weapons, and made an
attempt to seize the Eleanor tender, in order to rescue the
impressed men on board. But their design was rendered
abortive by the activity of the officers of the impressment
service. The seamen, next day, contemplated going to
Newcastle to break up the head-quarters of the gangj
but, hearing that a strong civil and military force (includ-
ing the Dragoons and North York Militia) were ready to
receive them, they dispersed, after having treated one
George Forster, a member of the gang, with the utmost
cruelty at Howdon Pans. On the 26th April, most
extraordinary preparations for impressing were made by
the crews of the armed vessels lying in Shields harbour
That night, the regiment lying at Tynemouth barracks
was drawn up, and formed into a cordon round North
Shields, to prevent any person from escaping. The
different press-gangs then began their rounds, when
sailors, mechanics, labourers, and men of every descrip-
tion, to the number of about two hundred and fifty, were
forced on board the armed ships.
It would be tedious to describe, or even enumerate, the
various press-gang riots, similar to the above, which took
place on the Tyne and Wear almost every season down to
the peace of Amiens. After the resumption of hostilities
in 1803, the like scenes began again to be acted. The coal
trade was constantly being thrown out of gear, so to
speak, through the best men on board the colliers being
dragged away, and the keelmen likewise forcibly pounced
upon. In the month of April, 1804, a young seaman,
named Stoddart, being pursued by the press gang down
the Broad Chare, Newcastle, jumped into the Tyne to
escape, and was drowned in attempting to swim across
to Gateshead.
Where brute force would have failed or been out of
place, all sorts of discreditable arts were tried by the
press-gang. Jonathan Martin, the man who set fire to
January \
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
York Minster, relates, in bis autobiography, how he was
inveigled by one of the gang. He says : —
In my twenty-second year (1804), I removed to London,
my mind being intent on travelling to foreign countries.
One day, while viewing the Monument, a man accosted
me, perceiving that f was a stranger in town, and
inquired if I wanted a situation. I informed him of my
desire to go abroad. He said he could suit me exactly, as
a gentleman of his acquaintance had a son on board a
frigate on the Indian station, who wanted a person of my
description, and that he would give me 32s. a week,
besides my chance of prize money, which he assured me
would I e great. I agreed to go as a substitute for this
man, unconscious that I was in the hands ot the press-
gang ; but I was soon undeceived by my pretended friend
lodging me in the rendezvous, where I remained until I
was removed on board the Enterprise, with a number of
other impressed men. When I came to be sworn in, I
found myself on a footing with tbe rest of my unfortunate
companions.
Strange incidents occasionally took place in connection
with the press system. In 1813 (February 18) a sailor
named Bell, belonging to the Close, Newcastle, was
impressed, and safely lodged in the house of rendezvous.
In the evening, his sister, a young woman under twenty,
formed the resolution of attempting his rescue, and, for
that purpose, went to take a "long farewell" of her
brother, who was to be sent to the tender in the morning.
She was readily admitted to an interview, but, in order to
prevent the possibility of escape, brother and sister were
bolted and barred, for a few minutes, in a room by them-
selves. During this short space, they managed to
exchange clothes, and, on the door being opened, the
young man, "snivelling and piping his eye, "walked off
unmolested in female attire, while his sister remained to
fill the situation of a British tar. "It would be diffi-
cult," says a writer in the European Magazine, who tells
the story, " to describe the rage and disappointment of
the gang on discovering how they had been duped ; and
crowds of persons went to see the heroine, who received
several pounds from the spectators as a reward for her
intrepidity and affection. She was soon restored to her
liberty by order of the magistrates."
The head-quarters of the gang in Newcastle were at the
Plough Inn, in Spicer Lane, where a room down the yard
was the "press room." The gang was at one time com-
manded by Lieut. Frazer, two midshipmen, a man named
Corby, and another named Richardson. Both the latter
had been in the coasting trade before the war, and subsided
into river pilots after its close. One of them was years
afterwards " tyler " of a Freemasons' Lodge, and, falling
into reduced circumstances, found no small difficulty in
obtaining the usual benevolence of the brethren in con-
sequence of his past misdeeds.
The " regulating room " was in that part of the Low
Street of North Shields called Bell Street, near the
"Wooden Dolly," on the Custom House Quay. The
"regulating captain" was one Charlton, who had under
him a lieutenant, named Flynn, and two midshipmen,
named Fidler and Bell. Two tenders, the Eliza and the
Lyra, took their turns on the station in "Peggy's Hole,"
to carry off the sweepings of the gang — one of whom, by
the bye, was a one-legged man, named Harry Swallow-
to the Lemio, the guard-ship at the Nore.
We are indebted to a well-informed writer, whose
article appeared in tbe Newcastle Weekly Chronicle several
years ago, for the following particulars, which seem neces-
sary to complete our present sketch : —
Besides the regular gang, there was a small knot of
amateur spies and informers, who travelled the country
for miles round, tracking the sailors to Morpeth and other
inland parts, if they sought shelter with their friends
from forcible abduction. These vagabond auxiliaries of
the gang, skilful to recognise the sailor's roll through the
disguises of long-tailed coats, leather aprons, drab gaiters,
and other vain subterfuges, represented themselves to be
in biding, lured the sailors to their own dwellings, and
then gave secret information to the gang. It fared ill
sometimes with these gentry when they were found out.
On one of these occasions, in the year 1812, a spy, who
repaired to tbe regulating room at Shields to receive the
head money for the men be bad betrayed, was smuggled
down a trap-door leading on to the shore, but was recog-
nised and followed. He soon fled for his life, with a mob
of sailors and keelmen at bis heels, up the Low Street, and
took shelter in a house in Bartleman's Bank. The door
was broken open, and he was thrown down, like a fox
to a pack of hungry hounds, but doubled on his pursuers,
who followed him full cry till he was run to earth in the
hothouse in Squire Collingwood's gardens at Cbirton.
Scourged with whin bushes, he was made to run the
gantefope to the Low Lights. Tradesmen put up their
shutters, and the peaceable inhabitants shrunk within
doors, for tbe disturbance had assumed the dimensions of
a riot. Opposite the tender the mob gave three hearty
cheers to let tbe imprisoned seamen know what was being
enacted. The men, battened under hatches, by way of
response, " sallied " the tender till she rolled almost gun-
wale under, and the officer on board ordered the armed
crew to tire into tbe hold upon the unarmed men if they
did not desist. Under these threats something like order
was restored. The spy was rescued from the bands of his
tormentors by a rush of the friends of peace who came to
the assistance of the two constables, then the whole civil
force of North Shields, and he was dragged, panting,
bleeding, mud-bedraggled, wounded, and half-dead, into
tbe Northumberland Arms, to limp home under the cloud
of night, and resume his honest labours for the public
good. In 1815 he had another narrow escape for his life.
At Low Heaton Haugh, then called "Dunny's Green,"
he was tarred and feathered, beaten by the women — who
put stones in their stockings for the purpose — and. he
owed his life to the forbearance of the men he bad
betrayed, who rescued him from his more merciless tor-
mentors of tbe other sex.
The press-gang drove many thousands of active, able-
bodied British seamen into the American merchant navy
as well as sent them a-privateering against their fellow-
countrymen in tbe last American War. Indeed, that war
was partly caused by the wanton exercise of the right of
search claimed by the British Government, whose officers
were accused of taking naturalised American citizens out
of American vessels, on the ground that they were his
Majesty's born subjects, and pressing them into King
George's service. On the other hand, it was no uncommon
thing for British seamen, captured by the enemy, to
recognise old shipmates in the masters and sailors
by whom they were made prisoners. Under this abomin-
able system, it was estimated that there were at least
forty thousand British seamen, in tbe year 1812, navi-
gating merchant ships in neutral vessels under cover of
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
ts*
\ i
American protections. That was when the whole tonnage
of the United Kingdom iu the merchant and transport
service employed only about 120,000 men.
Impressment, as may be inferred from what we have
said, laid its unsparing hands upon useless landsmen as
well as upon seamen ; and, notwithstanding the fact that
they were always inefficient, it continued to be the prac-
tice, so long as the system lasted, to receive on board his
Majesty's ships any landsmen whom the gang could pick
up, if they were not physically disqualified. Lord
Collingwood, who deservedly earned the honourable title
of the Sailors' Friend, was ever adverse to impressment,
which he was of opinion might be dispensed with, even in
war time. Soon after the Mutiny of the Nore, he laid a
plan before the Admiralty for recruiting the navy by
raising yearly several thousand boys, whom he would
have had taught and prepared in ships of the line before
they were sent into smaller vessels. But, like many
other excellent schemes of the kind, it was never carried
into effect, though the modern training ships, such as the
Wellesley, may be called a modification of it.
The system of impressment has not been put in force
for many years now, nor is it likely that it will ever be
revived.
JlUCH interest has from time to time been
excited in the origin and meaning of a couplet
^_^_ that is well-known on the banks of the Tyne.
It has recently been revived by a correspondence which
has taken place in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle. The
lines run thus : —
The Black Cock of Whickham, he never ran away,
But once on the Sunday, and twice every day.
One writer explains that the " black cock " was a
certain rector who, being too fond of his glass, often ran
away from his duties, while another asserts that the term
was appliud to Charles Attwood, the celebrated politician,
whose career has been sketched in the Monthly Chronicle
for 1888, p. 56. But Mr. William Bourn writes from
Whickham : — .
The couplet has been applied not only to Charles
Attwood, but to any celebrity, and especially to runners,
rowers, and bowlers, that either were trained in or
belonged to Whickham. When the lines were composed,
I am not prepared to say. They have been repeated for
at least 150 years, old people now living having heard
them sung by'their grandfathers.
Why the couplet was written may be more easily
explained. Cock-fighting was once a favourite sport
of the nobility and gentry in the neighbourhood, as
well as of the keelmen and pitmen. There is an entry
made in the books at Gibside of Sir J. Bowes engaging
workmen to make eight cock-pits at Whickham, one of
which— and I believe the last— has lately been filled up at
Windy Hill, about a mile out of the village. There was
another famous cock-pit at Dunston Hill, and one on the
site where the Swalwell Station in built. The last vestige
of the brutal sport has now disappeared from the village.
There were several famous breeds of cocks. One of them
belonged to Sir J. Bowes, being white with yellow backs.
Another belonged to Sir H. Liddell, white with " brass
wings. There was also a breed of black cocks, lo whom
it belonged I am unable to ascertain. But undoubtedly
it was one of this famous breed which has obtained for
itself such a world-wide reputation for courage and
endurance. It must have lived two centuries ago, and
hence the guesses about the origin of the lines.
The tune sung and played to the couplet repeated is, 1
believe, strictly local, and rather inspiring. By reason of
the roving habits of North-Countrymen, it is known m
nearly all our colonies. A friend of mine who had been
in Australia informed me that he was both startled and
pleased on one occasion, when he and others were trans-
acting business in the bush among the wilds of that
country, to hear the tune played by a fiddler. It turned
out that the player was a Sunderland man who had gone
to make his fortune as a goldfinder, and had taken his
fiddle with him.
Mr. John Stokoe, of South Shields, the compiler of the
"North-Country Garland of Song," agrees with Mr.
Bourn as to the improbability of a song having ever been
sung to the tune, which is essentially a fiddlers' tune.
The intervals, he says, show it to be of the usual type of
reels, possessing all the best characteristics of the " reel
rhythm," although he has never seen it in any collection
of reels printed north of the Tweed. Mr. Stokoe adds :—
When the Antio.uarian Society of Newcastle began in
1857 to collect the'melodies and ballads of Northumuria,
the committee made a close search for the songs of which
only scraps of words were known, such as " Shew's the
Way to Wallington," "Sir John Fenwick's the Flower
AmangTbem," "Fenwick of Bywell," "The Black Cock
of Whickham," &c., &c. ; and I regret to say in few in-
stances only were they successful, failing altogether in
the four I have named.
The tune subjoined is taken from "Northumbrian
Minstrelsy," published in 1882, edited by Mr. Stokoe and
the Rev. J. Collingwood Bruce, LL.D.
THE BLACK COCK OF WHICKHAM.
January!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGSND.
Eft* $f afttiicgtrl* antt atfter
^CORDING to Morris, the nightingale
(Sylvia luscinia) is found in Italy, France,
Spain, and Greece, and the more temperate
parts of Siberia, Sweden, Holland, Den-
mark, Germany, and Russia. It is known also in Asia.
Asia Minor, and Syria, and in Egypt, along the Nile,
Nightingales are plentiful in England. They have been
seen in the neighbourhood of Doncaster, and near York,
at Skelton, about five miles north of the ancient city ; near
Beverley, Barnsley, Leeds, and Sheffield ; Cumberland, as
far north as Carlisle. Woods, groves, plantations, and
copses are the niehtingale's favourite resort, but it is also
found in gardens, even in the neighbourhood of London,
and also among thick hedges in shady and sheltered
situations.
Nightingales feed on insects of various sorts, including
spiders and earwigs. The young are fed principally with
caterpillars. Male : Weight about six drachms ; length,
six inches and three-quarters. The upper bill is blackish
brown, with a tinge of red ; the lower one is pale
yellowish, and dusky brown at the tip ; iris, dark brown ;
the feathers of the eyelids brownish white ; head, crown,
neck on the back, and nape, uniform dull chestnut
brown ; chin and throat, dull greyish white ; breast, pale
greyish brown, but lighter lower down ; back, reddish
brown, varying considerably in different individuals, some
being more red and others more grey. The wings, of
eighteen quills, have the first quill feather very short;
the second equal in length to the fifth ; the third the
longest ; the fourth almost as long. They extend to the
width of ten inches and a half ; primaries, secondaries,
and tertiaries, reddish brown ; the inner webs dusky
brown. The tail, which reaches an inch and a Quarter
beyond the closed wings, is rufous brown, and rather
rounded at the end. It is straight and rather long ; the
feathers rather broad. Under tail coverts dull yellowish
white. The female resembles the male, but is rather less
in size.
The nest is generally placed on the ground in some
natural hollow in the roots of a tree, on a bank, or at the
foot of a hedgerow.
The blackcap warbler (Sylvia atricaptila) is a spring
and autumn migrant. It is such a fine songster that it
is sometimes called the mock nightingale. It must not,
however, be confounded with the black-headed bunting.
"This charming songster," says Mr. Hancock, "is found
in all our denes and thickets where there is a dense
growth of underwood or scrub, formed by the blackthorn,
bramble, rose, and honeysuckle. Here it constructs its
nest, and finds the seclusion in which it delights. It
arrives in April and leaves us in September, and at that
time may be met with on the coast. Individuals, how-
ever, winter in the district. Mr. Dale, of Brancepeth,
Durham, shot a male on the 15th December, 1848, in his
garden, where it was feeding on the berries of the privet;
and about two years afterwards the same gentleman
killed a female, likewise in December, and near the same
place." The Rev. J. G. Wood waxes eloquent in speak-
ing of the song of this bird, which, in some respects, he
rates even higher than that of the nightingale. "With
the exception of the nightingale," he remarks, "the
blackcap warbler is the sweetest and richest of all the
British song-birds, and in many points the voice of the
blackcap is even superior to that of the far-famed
Philomel."
The male bird averages from five to six inches in
length, sometimes a little more. The bill is dusky-hued ;
and the crown of the head, or "cap, "is black, slightly
flecked with a lighter tinge. The chin and root of the
bill to the gape is yellowish orange up to the eye, and
merges into a bluish-grey patch which runs to the
shoulder ; iris, dark brown. The back is brownish ash-
coloured, the wing coverts being darker and edged with
black. The throat, breast, and under parts are ash-
coloured, with a tinge of grey beneath. The tail, grey
beneath, is coloured above like the wings, rather long.
6
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
I Januar j
\ 1891.
and square at the end. The female resembles the male,
but her plumage gent-rally bos a more brownish tinge.
She is a trifle larger, or rather longer, than her mate, and
her cap, unlike that of the male, is reddish brown.
The food of the blackcap warbler in summer is chiefly
insects and caterpillars, but it is also fond of garden fruit
and wild berries. On a sunny summer's afternoon it may
often be seen fluttering about the trunks of trees, picking
off the metallic-hued flies which love to bask on the warm
boles. Often the bird catches flies on the wing by a rapid
dart from some low branch.
The garden warbler (Sylvia hortenaisj is a spring and
autumn migrant. "This warbler," says Mr. Hancock,
" takes up its residence, during its summer sojourn with
us, in sequestered localities similar to those chosen by its
rival in song, the blackcap. The nest and eggs of the two
species are very similar ; and their song is so very much
alike that it is very difficult to distinguish them." The
bird arrives in this country about April, and leaves early
in September.
The male bird is about six inches long. The bill
is dusky brown, the base and edges of the lower man-
dible yellow, and the inside of the mouth a bright orange.
The iris of the eye is dark brown, with a small speck of
white. The crown of the head and the upper part of the
back are greyish brown, the plumage down to the root of
the tail, above, being of a lighter tinge, with a dash of
olive. The wings and tail arc nearly the same colour as
the head and upper part of the back. The neck on the
sides is brownish grey ; chin and throat, yellowish white,
the lower and upper parts tinged with reddish brown, as
are the sides; the remainder yellowish white, almost
white below. The tail is straight and slightly rounded at
the end ; and the toes and claws are greyish brown. The
female closely resembles the male in size and appearance,
but is rather lighter coloured in plumage above, and
greyer below.
The nest is sometimes placed among nettles, on which
account the bird is often called the nettle creeper.
antt tftr
Wmfvabilltti.
pRUDHOE, from Proud Hoe, the proud hill,
or Prut How, the swelling mound, is a
prosperous mining village on the south
bank of the Tyne, some nine miles or BO
west of Newcastle. The river at this place begins to
show traces of that beauty which, higher up, at Stocks-
field and Riding Mill, renders the Tyne one of the most
January!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
charming of North-Country streams. On the north bank,
the picturesque village of Ovingham, in which parish
Prudhoe is situated, nestles amongst its trees, the tower
of its ancient church being a rare feature in the land-
scape. On a stately mount between the river and the
village of Prudhoe stands the fine old castle of the Umfra-
villes. Lon^ has it been in ruins, though to-day the
modern mason has been at his patchwork, building up
a nineteenth century dwelling-house, as well as he
could, in the midst of mouldering, tottering walls.
The first of the Umfraville family who came into
Northumberland was a companion of William the
Conqueror — Robert cum Barba, Robert with the Beard.
To him the barony of Prudhoe was granted for the
honourable service of defending the country against
wolves and the King's enemies with the sword which
William himself wore when he entered Northumbria.
The old barony extended to Harlow and Welton
in the parish of Ovingham, Inghoe in the parish of
Stamfordham, Chipchase and Birtley in the parish of
Chollerton, Little Bavington right away in the parish
of Throckington, even to Capheaton and Harle and
Kirkwhelpington in the parish of Whelpington, and
also included the manor and chapelry of Little Heaton,
or Kirk Heaton.
Do yon ask what the Urufravilles did to entitle them
to fame? They did what others did in the times in
which they lived ; helped the Norman kings and barons
to rul« England, no easy task at that time ; fought in
their wars, took part in the lone Border struggles with
the Scots, and worked to re-make Northumberland after
it had been almost, what with Danes, what with Nor-
mans, and what with Scots, blotted out. He who
built the oldest portion of the castle of Prudhoe,
Odenel de Umfraville, was one of the chief supporters of
Henry II. against the aggressions of the Scots. When it
was built, not without much sweating and wearing of bones
and muscle* on the part of the peasantry on the estates,
Odenel defended it, like the noble soldier that he was,
against the army brought by William the Lion, in 1174,
to devastate England. In that invasion his own castle of
Harbottle was taken by the Scottish King, the castle of
Warkworth was captured and destroyed, and Carlisle and
Werk were surrendered. At Newcastle the Lion King
was repulsed, and then betook himself to Prudhoe, but
there again his attempt was frustrated, and he was
afterwards surprised and taken prisoner with some of his
attendants at Alnwick. Jordan Fantosme, in his metrical
chronicle, tells us that Prudhoe was admirably defended.
Odenel de Umfraville, fearing the garrison too weak to
hold the castle, rode away on horseback day and night
tillJie succeeded in getting together four hundred knights
to help him. After three days' continual assault, the
Scots, who had made no impression whatever on the
defenders, abandoned the siege, having first, in their dis-
appointment and chagrin at not being able to do more
damage, ravaged the gardens, the cornfields, and the
goodly orchard, in which they barked all the apple
trees. Fine sport this for the noble warriors of a king's
army \
Richard de Umfraville, who died in the eleventh year of
the reign of Henry III., having lived all through King
John's reign, was engaged in the chief transactions in the
North during the whole of his life, and took a prominent
DISTANT VIEW OF PRUDHOE CASTLE.
8
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/January
1891.
part in resisting the usurpation and exactions of that
monarch. Richard was, too, a companion of Coeur da
Lion in the East, and we learn from Harding that, when
the King had concluded a three years' truce with
Saladin, "home he went" —
And of Acres he made then captain
The Baron bold Sir Kichard Umfraville.
Richard's son, Gilbert, although nothing has come
down to us of his deeds, is highly extolled by the
chronicler, Matthew Paris, who terms him " the
illustrious baron, the defender of the North, and the
flower of chivalry." His son, also Gilbert, was made
Earl of Angus under peculiar circumstances by Edward I.
He was first styled Earl of Angus in a charter granting
him a market at Overton, on his Rutlandshire estate, in
the fifty-first year of Henry III. But he was not sum-
moned to Parliament under this title till the fifth year of
Edward I., and, yet, several times later, be is sum-
moned, not as Earl of Angus, but as Gilbert de
Umfraville.
Gilbert, the third Earl of Angus, married Matild* de
Lucy, an heiress, who had as her second husband Henry
de Percy, Earl of Northumberland, to whom she brought,
besides her other great possessions, the castles of Cocker-
mouth, Warkworth, and Prudhoe. These estates were
settled on the Earl of Northumberland on condition of his
quartering the arms of Lucy — namely, gules, three lucies
argent — with the Percy bearings of or, a lion rampant,
azure, in all shields, banners, and coats-of-arms, as may
now be seen. Thenceforth Prudhoe shared the for-
tunes of the Percies, and by them was later to be
held rebelliously against the Crown. The aged Earl
of Northumberland and his son, the gallant Hotspur,
who considered themselves chiefly instrumental in placing
Henry IV. on the throne, became dissatisfied with that
monarch's wretched administration, and rebuked the
king and his council for their want of consideration of the
Percies, to whom they were so indebted for their ser-
vices on the Scottish marches, and to whom the
king himself was under considerable pecuniary obliga-
tions. Their reasonable appeals being slighted, the
Percies took part with Owen Glendower in his Welsh
outbreak. The fiery Hotspur perished at Shrewsbury,
and the Earl of Northumberland was obliged to take
refuge across the Border, whence he made various raids
and ineffectual attempts to create insurrections. The
earl was finally killed at Bramham Moor, his body being
quartered and exposed at Lincoln, York. Newcastle, and
January \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
9
Berwick. Meantime, Henry personally besieged Wark-
worth, and Prudhoe and Alnwick were compelled to sur-
render. The castle and barony of Frudhoe, with the
rest of their estates, were forfeited, but were afterwards
restored to the Percies, who, with slight breaks, have
ever since retained them.
During the Wars of the Roses, the castle of Prudhoe
'
.y v ! - -I Y •..<. ,
was kept in a state of fortification, but there is no note-
worthy incident connected with it. After the accession
of the Tudor line, it was neglected, and allowed to fall
into decay. Lodge says it was tenanted in 1557
by Henry Percy, brother of Thomas, Earl of North-
umberland ; but two years later it is described as
"old and ruinous, being walled about, and
in form not much unlike a shield hanging
with one point upwards, situate upon a
high moate of earth, with high ditches in
some places, all wrought with man's hand
as it seemeth, and is of cement, all the scite
of it, with, as it seemeth, a little garden
plat, and the bankes, by estimatcion, sc. iii
acres. There is within the scite, and
without the walls, an elder chapell, which
hath been very fair, and covered with
slate."
Prudhoe Castle is entered from the
south-west by a strong gateway and barbi-
can, which latter is assumed, from the
character of the masonry, to be the latest
portion of the structure. From marks OK
the stones it is estimated that it was built
at the close of the reign of Edward I.
by Gilbert de Umfraville, second Earl of
Angus, or by his nephew, third earl ;
and it is conjectured, according to these
same stone marks, that the workmen who
built it laboured also in a similar capacity
at Dunstanburgh and Alnwick. At the
time when the barbican was built, the
upper chamber in the gateway tower was converted
into a chapel, which, it is worthy of note, contains
the first oriel window that was ever made in England.
Various theories have been propounded to account for
this notable departure, some averring that the room
was not large enough to contain an altar, and
consequently a portion of the building was carried out
on corbels to give the requisite space. But the most likely
way of accounting for it is one given by Mr. Cadwallader
J. Bates, who knows perhaps more about the old North-
umbrian castles than anybody living. He thinks that,
the topmost storey, above the chapel, being used as a
sleeping apartment, probably by the priest, and it being
against all practice to have any inhabited structure above
the altar, this oriel window was carried out beyond the
walls of the gateway, so that nothing — especially no such
thing as a bedroom — should intervene between the most
sacred part of the chapel and the vault of heaven.
Another notable feature in the architecture of the gate-
way is the purity of moulding in the very fine double corbels
at the base of the inside arch. Moreover, except in the
Cathedral at Durham, it is uncommon to find two heads,
as here, side by side, in a corbel. The outer and inner gate-
ways, connected by strong walls, werejn ruins as early as
in Queen Elizabeth's time, but they are believed to have
carried a covered way. The interior of the castle walls
is an indeterminate ruin, a conglomeration of crumbling
towers, of which the noblest are the remains of the grand
old keep, which still overtops all the other buildings.
Hutchinson, who has accurately described Prudhoe
10
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f January
( 189).
Castle as be saw it, says : — "The first gateway is formed
by a circular arch ; and by the fragments and broken
walls it evidently appears that it was originally flanked
with various outworks, and had a tower. This gate gives
admittance to a covered way, leading to the inner gate,
about 30 paces in length. There is a sallyport opening on
each side to flank the walls and defend the ditch. There
is no appearance of a portcullis in either gateway. The
second gateway is also formed by a circular arch, above
which is a high tower, the windows showing that it
contained three tiers of apartments. A lattice or open
gate still remains jointed with studs of iron. The roof of
the gateway is arched in semi-circles, with an aperture in
the centre from whence those in the upper chamber might
annoy an enemy who bad forced the gate. From thence
you enter an area, now so blocked up by the buildings of
a farm-yard and tenement that it is not possible to form
any idea of its original magnitude, though it appears by
the other parts that an open area had surrounded the
great tower, which does not show any remains of com-
munication with the outworks, but seems to have stood
apart on an eminence in the centre. The outward wall
was defended on the angle to the south-west by a large
square bastion with loopholes ; to the north-west by a
circular tower containing several tiers of low chambers,
singular in their form and height. The inhabitants
could not have stood erect in them at the time of defence.
Towards the river, and northward, the wall is guarded
by several small square bastions, and towards the south-
east a small mount, placed within the walls, overlooks the
ditch which guards the southern side and terminates at
he brink of the cliffs. The large tower is in ruins, only
the southern wall now standing, and not one bastion
remains entire, they being all in ruins towards the area.
A passage runs in the centre of the wall from bastion to
bastion. Steps ascend in several places from the area to
the top of the wall, which is broad enough to allow the
trmed men of the garrison to pass each other, covered
with a parapet."
After Mr. Hutchinson's time, the structure suffered con-
siderable dilapidations, and part of the main tower tumbled
down ; but the Duke of Northumberland subsequently
put the whole in a state of repair, and adopted measures
to preserve the remains. Apartments were also built
within the area of the castle, but in a most wretched
taste, quite out of keeping with the venerable walls, for
the accommodation of a resident steward.
The older parts of the castle were probably erected
during the reigns of Stephen and Henry II., when so
many other baronial fortresses were built. The barbican
and chapel are said to belong to the reign of Edward I. or
the early part of that of his unhappy successor ; but the
lancet windows must have been put in subsequently.
From an inquisition held in the 18th year of King
Edward II. it appears that Robert de Umfraville held on
the day of his death, sixteen years before, the castle and
manor of Frudhoe, with an orchard belonging to the
manor. The castle and orchard were worth £1 per
annum in times of peace, but worth nothing then, on
account of the destructions of the Scots and the poverty
of the country. The pigeon-house was worth one shilling
per annum in times of peace, then nothing, for the
pigeons were destroyed. One hundred and twenty acres
of land in demesne was worth sixpence per acre per
annum in times of peace, then nothing, for they lay waste
in the lord's hands for want of tenants. Six acres of
meadow were worth in times of peace sixpence per acre
per annum, then twopence. And five bondages, each
containing a toft and sixteen acres ot land, were then
worth nothing per annum, for want of tenants. This
gives us a curious insight into the state of the North of
England six hundred years ago.
The arms of the Umfravilles are : Gules, a cinquefoil
within an orle of crosses palonce or. The crest is : Out of
a mural coronet gules, a griffin's head issuant, ermine.
The coat of arms may be seen sculptured on the battle-
tfrafiwille.
ment of the south front of the walls of the Eladon
parsonage — one of the most interesting buildings in
the county. These arms are, as Hodgson conjectures,
those of Sir Robert Taylboys, who was descended from a
branch of the Umfravilles. The inscription below the
arms is R. D. Rede, which, being interpreted, signifies,
Robertus Dominus de Rede, or, BS the vulgar tongue hath
it, Robert, Lord of Rede. It may, however, refer either
to Sir Robert Taylboys, as stated above, or to Sir Robert
Umfraville, who died in 1436, shortly after some important
repairs had been made to Elsdon Castle. It may not
be out of the way to draw attention to the similarity of
these arms of the Umfravilles to those of the Umfrevilles of
Langham, in Essex, and no doubt the latter are a branch
of the same Norman family that came over with the
Conqueror. They are : Gules, an orle of crosses flory,
and cinqfoil or ; and the crest is an eagle's head coupt
(couped) p'per (proper) out of a ducal crowu or.
January
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
11
ffitn at itfarfc '
SSelforl).
foh.it /munch, /.£.&.,
ATTORNEY AND ANTIQUARY.
SEVERAL members of the race of Fenwick
have become at various times citizens of
Newcastle ; a few of them have achieved
. _ distinction in the public life of the town.
Nicholas Fenwick, to whom Ambrose Barnes surrendered
his alderman's gown, and Vicar March dedicated his
sermon, "The False Prophet Unmasked," filled the office
of Sheriff in the municipal year 1678-79, and was Mayor
in 1682-83 and 1697-98. Robert Fenwick became Mayor
in 1708. Nicholas Fenwick (2) obtained the shrievalty in
1713, and was five times Mayor-1720-21, 1726-27. 1736-37,
1746-47, and 1747-48. He contested the borough as Par-
liamentary candidate on three successive occasions (1727,
1734, and 1741), and in each instance wat successful. His
town residence was the mansion in Pilgrim Street, after-
wards converted into the Queen's Head Inn, and now the
home of the Liberal Club; his country seat was at
Lemington, near Alnwick, where he distinguished him-
self in forestry, for which he was honoured with the gold
medal of the Society of Arts. Cuthbert Fenwick.
passing through the shrievalty in 1719-20, filled the office
of chief magistrate in 1727-28, and 1739-40. William
Fenwick was sheriff in 1732, and John Fenwick was
elected an alderman in 1836.
John Fenwick, the last of the series, attorney-at-law,
known to his contemporaries as "John the Baptist,"
claimed descent from the historical family at Wallington,
through one Ambrose Fenwick, who, he asserted, was a
son of Sir William Fenwick, of Wallington, and therefore
brother, or half-brother, to Sir William Fenwick, of
Meldon, whose mother (Sir William of Wellington's
second wife) was the famous Meg of Meldon. It is to be
observed that no such person as this Ambrose occurs in
Hodgson's elaborate genealogies of the Fenwicks, and if
Mr. Fenwick's claim be well founded, it must be assumed
that Mr. Hodgson overlooked him. To whom Ambrose
Fenwick was married does not appear, but it is stated
that the Rev. Edward Fenwick, Vicar of Stamfordham,
in the reign of William and Mary, was his immediate
descendant. From that point all is clear. There was a
Rev. Edward Fenwick, who succeeded Ralph Fenwick,
A.M., in the living of Stamfordham about the end of
Charles the First's reign, and hnld the appointment for
many years. He married in May, 1685, a daughter of
Sir Francis Liddell, of Redheugh, who is supposed to
have been the Sheriff of Newcastle in 1640, and the
Mayor of that town in 1654.
Upon the death of Sir Francis, the Rev. Edward
Fenwick, in right of his wife, became possessed of
Redheugh, and having two sons destined for the Church
he exchanged that property with his " relative," the Earl
of Derwentwater, for the advowson of Simonburn, one of
the richest rectories in the diocese. The earl had
married Catherine, one of the daughters of Sir William
Fenwick, of Meldon, and would, therefore, if Ambrose
were a brother or a half-brother of Sir William, bp a near
relative indeed. His lordship entered at once into
possession of Redheugh, for the occupant of the rectory
of Simonburn was over ninety years of age, and it was
supposed that no great delay would occur in effecting a
complete interchange. But almost directly after the
transaction had been arranged, the Rebellion of 1715
broke out. Lord Derwentwater, as is well known, was
one of the leaders in the insurrection, was attainted a
rebel, and all his property became forfeit to the Crown.
Thus the Rev. Edward Fenwick found himself deprived
of his wife's estate, and shut out of Simonburn, through
110 fault of his own — truly a hard case.
Pending suits against the Government for the restitu-
tion of one or the other of these properties (which were
resisted on the ground that the exchange was simoniacal),
in December, 1730, the baffled clergyman died, leaving to
his two clerical sons but a poor inheritance. The elder of
them, Ambrose, had succeeded to the living of Stamford-
ham on the resignation of his father in 1719; the
other son, Edward, had been inducted vicar of
Kirkwhelpington in 1720. Ambrose married Elizabeth,
daughter of Mr. Bradley, attorney, at Gateshead, and
died childless in 1732. Edward thereupon embarked in a
new suit to oust the mominee of the Crown from Simon-
burn, and, being unsuccessful, died 'heartbroken in
July, 1734, leaving a widow, two sons, and six
daughters in comparative poverty. Edward, his eldest
son, was brought up by Mr. Fenwick, of Bywell, and
designed for holy orders, but preferring a trade,
he was bound apprentice to Mr. Toppin, a saddler,
at Hexham. Subsequently he entered the army, and
died abroad. His eldest son, also named Edward,
was befriended by Sir Walter Blackett, who, it is said,
believing him to be entitled to the estates of the cele-
brated Dorothy Windsor, took possession of one of them
in the name of the infant, and, being ejected, secured a
sum of money for the youth, which was paid over to him
when he had served his time at Hexham to his father's
business of a saddler. This Edward Fenwick married
Mary, daughter of John Shield, of Catton, and became
the father of John Fenwick, attorney, the subject of the
present article.
John Fenwick was born at Hexham, April 14, 1787.
His father intended him to follow the sea, towards which
he had a boyish predilection, and with that view he was
taught navigation by George Brown, a local mathema-
tician, for many years editor of the " Newcastle Tide
Tables." At the age of fourteen he went as cabin boy in
12
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
r January
a Shields vessel, stayed long enough to be promoted to
the cook's galley, and then, conceiving a disgust at his
surroundings, returned home and was articled to a New-
castle attorney. On the 9th of June, 1814, he married
Ann, youngest daughter of Abram Rumney, head master
of Alnwick Grammar School, and began to make his way
in the town. The first number of Mr. Joseph Clark's
Northumberland and Newcastle Monthly Magazine
(January, 1818) contains an article from his pen, dated
"Shield Field, November 20, 1817," introducing a case
relating to the practice of the Mayor and Sheriff's Court,
in Newcastle — the publication of which extended over
several subsequent issues, and was supposed to correct
some errors into which Wallis in his "History of North-
umberland," and the Rev. John Hodgson in the "Picture
of Newcastle," had unwittingly fallen. Before long Mr.
Fenwick had become connected with the public life of
Newcastle in many different directions. A staunch and
argumentative Baptist, he interested himself in most of
the leading Nonconformist movements of the day, while,
as an evangelical dissenter, he co-operated with members
of other denominations in promoting general schemes of
piety and benevolence. Among these latter may be
noted the providing of a cemetery for the interment of
Nonconformists at the junction of Elswick Lane with
Arthur's Hill — a project that received its first impulse
from a speech which he delivered in Newcastle in 1825,
and afterwards published as a pamphlet.
Moving thus actively in public matters, he became in
time local treasurer to the Baptist Missionary Society,
the Religious Tract Society, and the Newcastle Benevo-
lent Society, and a member of the managing committees
of the local Indigent and Sick Society, the Sunday School
Union, the Bible Society, the Bethel Union, the Anti-
Slavery Society, and kindred organisations. A founder
and active promoter of the Newcastle and Gateshead
Law Society, he was honoured by election to the suc-
cessive offices of vice-president and president of the
society ; an early nr.ember of the Newcastle Society of
Antiquaries, he filled in after life the post of treasurer
to that flourishing institution.
At the elections which followed the passing of the
Municipal Reform Act of 1835, Mr. Fenwick was nomi-
nated as one of seventeen suitable persons to represent
the burgesses of South St. Andrew's Ward in the
Reformed Town Council. He was not elected, but at
the first meeting of the new Council he was appointed
an alderman, receiving twenty votes, being one vote
more than Mr. James Hodgson, who stood at the
bottom of the list. For some reason or other the
position did not fit Mr. Fenwick. He attended eight
out of twenty meetings of the Council, and then
resigned.
Mr. Fenwick was associated with John Trotttr
Brockett, John Adamson, and others in the formation
of the Newcastle Typographical Society. Though he
wrote very little himself, he printed more tracts in the
society's name than any other member, numbering indeed
nearly a third of the whole series.
To the " Archeeologia j3£liana " Mr. Fenwick con-
tributed nothing of his own, but he produced from his
extensive collection relating to the Derwentwater family
materials which enabled Mr. Longstaffe and the Rev.
James Raine to add to the first three volumes of the
octavo edition of that excellent publication a series of
papers of great interest and value. In the first volume
appear— "Francis Radclyffe, First Earl of Derwent-
water, "and "Sir Ed ward Radclyffe, of Dilston." In the
second volume are "The Heirs General to Radclyffe of
Derwentwater " and " Extracts from the Accounts of the
Steward of Sir Francis Radclyffe, Bart., at Dilston, from
June, 1686, to June, 1687"; while in volume three come
"The Markets, Fairs, and Mills of Morpeth," and "Dis-
continuance of an Action against a Recusant. " His son,
John Clerevaulx Fenwick, contributed to the same
volume (iii.) an interesting paper on " Bagpipes and Pipe
Music."
Mr. Fenwick died in Newcastle on the 10th of April,
1867, at the age of eighty.
/itt,
POLITICAL AND MUNICIPAL REFORMER.
Among the fiery leaders who, sixty years ago, conducted
the campaign upon Tyneside in favour of Parliamentary
Reform and Municipal Freedom, the most dashing, if not
the most daring or the most enduring, was the popular
doctor, the bold huntsman, and the polished gentleman,
who was known throughout the Northern Counties as
"young Mr. Fife."
John Fife was a son of William Fife, a Newcastle sur-
geon, who practised his profession, at the beginning of
the century, in Denton Chare, and afterwards till his
death in 1839, at the house which still occupies the space
between the west end of that narrow thoroughfare and
the junction of Westgate Road with Collingwood Street.
Born in 1795, and brought up to his father's calling,
"young Mr. Fife" rapidly made his way in the town.
A high-spirited young man, of polished address and
courteous manners, abounding in wit and gallantry, able
to ride to hounds, and conduct himself bravely in a
drawing-room, he became a general favourite. His
abilities in these directions helped him to a fortunate
marriage. On the 26th of March, 1818, he was united at
All Saints' Church to Elizabeth, second daughter of
Joseph Bainbridge, a well-known solicitor, who lived in
Pilgrim Street, in a house he had built for himself, and to
which, in honour of the great military hero of the day,
he had given the name of Wellington Place.
About the time of his marriage, Mr. Fife, having taken
up his freedom in the Incorporated Company of Barber
Surgeons and Chandlers, began to practise on his own
Januarrl
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
13
account in Newcastle. Fortune favoured him. The
Corporation, noting his abilities, made him, in 1819, one
of the town coroners; the Barber Surgeons, for similar
reasons, elected him, in 1821, one of their stewards. A
movement which he inaugurated the following year gave
him wide popularity among the labouring classes. He
had made diseases of the eye a special study, and in
March, 1822, in conjunction with Mr. T. M. Greenhow,
brother-in-law of Harriet Martineau, he started, upon a
very modest scale, in Brunswick Place, a medical charity,
known in after years aa the Newcastle Eye Infirmary.
Becoming associated with some of the leaders of advanced
thought in the town, and evincing sympathy with their
principles, he was invited to co-operate in public move-
ments of a political character. But to these allurements
he turned, while his father-in-law lived, a deaf ear. In
December, 1823, Mr. Bainbridge, undergoing an opera-
tion in London for aneurism, suddenly died, and then the
obstacle to Mr. Fife's entry into political life was re-
moved. Strengthening his intimacy with local leaders,
and extending his influence among the people, he waited
for an opportunity to show his strength. The oppor-
tunity was delayed. At the time of his emancipation
political opinion in Newcastle was practically stagnant.
"The great election" of 1826 stirred it a little; the
struggle for Catholic emancipation produced a ripple or
two; but for the most part the stream of political
agitation in the North of England was'standing still.
All of a sudden, in July, 1830, a revolution broke out
in France, spread to Brussels, passed over to Brunswick
and Saxony, and affected, more or less, every throne in
Europe. In this country the democracy, cowed by the
Mauchester massacre ten years before, were encouraged
to lift up their heads and raise their voices once more.
The Whigs, dexterously availing themselves of the
democratic upheaval, joined forces with the proletariat in
order to weaken the Tory Ministry under the Duke of
Wellington, and agitate for Parliamentary and Adminis-
trative Reform. In Newcastle, the two parties, Whigs
and Radicals, met in Mr. Charnley's shop, and projected
a town's meeting to be held in the Guildhall, for the
purpose of attesting the "sympathy of Englishmen with
the cause of liberty in France." At this meeting, held on
the 7th September, 1830, the Mayor in the chair, Mr.
Fife made his first public appearance on the political
platform. Some stirring speeches were delivered — so
stirring, indeed, that they attracted the attention of the
Age newspaper, which poured out upon the speakers the
vials of its wrath in the following choice language : —
Mister- Alderman Cramlington was there, and a very fit
fellow he is for such society ; and John Bowes Wright
was there, the traveller, him wot told the meeting what
he saw when he was in Paris ; Doctor Headlam and his
hat, and Mister Fitfey and his stays, were both there ;
and Tom Doubleday, sonnet writer and soap-boiler, was
there, but he did not say six words — he was Ashamed of
his company ; and Aleck Reid, the auctioneer and pawn-
broker, was there : and Ralph Park Philipson was there ;
and the Green-eyed Monster was there ; and William
Irving Wilkinson was there, the man wot wants to be
called a squire ; and, in fact, all the desperate upon or
about the town were there, . . . creatures who are as
unknown in good society in England as they are to the
inhabitants of Timbuctoo . . . the scum and dregs of
the town and neighbourhood. Let the quacks of New-
castle, medical and political, stick to their own business.
Let them St. John Long their patients, or dabble on in
coab and grindstones ; but do not let them deal in politics
or revolutionary humbug. Emulsionary Headlam and
Sarsaparilla Fife may do very well for the coalheavers
and skippers of Newcastle, but they ire no more fit to
embank the liberties of Europe than are the beavers on
the lakes of America to prevent the outpouring of the
waters at the Falls of Niagara.
Once embarked upon a political career, Mr. Fife's zeal
was limited only by his opportunities. He was one of the
leading spirits in the formation of the Northern Political
Union and one of the most effective and energetic
speakers at the public and private gatherings of that
triumphant organisation. To his skill in tactics the
Union owed no small part of its success. While Larkin
thundered forth fiery invective, Attwood threw out
scathing satire, and Eneas Mackenzie emitted moral
platitudes, Fife planned and plotted, marshalled and
manoeuvred. Possessing a suavity of manner that soothed
the turbulent, and cultivating a polished rhetoric that
disarmed the rebellious, he could plead, argue or de-
nounce with equal facility and effect. Yet, while never
losing his temper, nor allowing himself to be drawn into
excess of language, gesture, or demeanour, he knew how
to "take occasion by the. hand " and mould it to his pur-
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{Jauuur:
1891.
pose. When in the summer of 1831, the burgesses of
Newcastle met, under the presidency of the Mayor, to
petition the House of Lords in favour of the Reform
Bill, and a weak petition was submitted by the Whig
section of the Reform party, he outmanoeuvred them,
drove the baffled Whigs out of the room, was put into the
seat which the Mayor had occupied, and obtained from
the excited burgesses an enthusiastic vote for a much
stronger petition which Mr. Attwood had conveniently
found in his pocket. When the Lords threw out the Bill,
he was the chief organiser of the great October demonstra-
tion upon the Town Moor, the leader in the subsequent
march of three hundred men from Tyneside to Durham
to prevent Lord Londonderry's " lambs " from breaking
up a Reform meeting, and the proposer of the resolution,
already adopted by the Birmingham Radicals, which
pledged the members of the Northern Political Union to
pay no taxes until the Reform Bill became the law of the
land.
At the Newcastle Spital meeting, on the 15th of May,
1832. Mr. Fife struck the keynote which Charles Larkin
expanded into a howl of defiance against the throne and
the aristocracy that echoed and re-echoed all over the
kingdom. Quoting a speech of Fox against the Sedition
Bills of 1795, in which that impassioned orator asserted
that Parliament might pass such bills, and they might
even receive the Royal sanction, J*et be so unconstitu-
tional that obedience was no longer a moral duty, and
insurrection itself be justifiable, and adding the emphatic
declaration, "In these principles I will live and die," Mr.
Fife continued —
Here is an immense multitude, and is there one man
who will not join me in holding up his right hand and re-
peating after me — "In these principles I will live and
die ?"
The response, a writer in the Northern Tribune tells
us, was instantaneous. A forest of hands were uplifted
in imitation of the speaker, and in solemn cadence the
vast multitude ejaculated that memorable vow— "In
these principles I will live and die." Scarcely had the
hands disappeared when a forest of oak saplings was up-
lifted, and remained there for some minutes, amidst pro-
found yet most significant silence. Then the speaker
resumed —
The House of Commons yet stands between this
country and a revolution. If it only prove that it is the
representative of the nation, the people may obtain their
that cry
is disregarded, until privilege of Parliament ceases to
exist, or is grossly violated, then, and not till then, shall
I, for one, exclaim, " To your tents, O Israel ! "
With the passing of the Reform Bill, Mr. Fife con-
sidered that to a considerable extent victory had been
won, and that the fight should now be left to the enlarged
constituencies. Finding himself in a minority upon this
and other questions in the Council of the Political
Union, he withdrew, and, after a brief existence, the
organisation itself came to an end. But, although acting
no longer with Attwood and Larkin, he avowed himself an
earnest reformer still, and, being shortly after his retire-
ment elected a member of the committee of the Newcastle
Mechanics' Institute, he proved the sincerity of his
avowal by presenting to the library a copy of Fame's
"Rights of Man." For the next few years, although he
published a letter to Lord Howick in favour of household
suffrage, triennial Parliaments, and vote by ballot, he
concerned himself chiefly in the struggle for municipal
reform. At the Michaelmas Guild of the burgesses in
1833, he headed a party of " independent voters " whose
criticisms of the ruling powers were remarkably pointed
and unusually free. Towards the close of the proceedings,
which were stormy and protracted, Mr. Fife and Mr.
George Clayton Atkinson were nominated for the office of
sheriff. Mr. Fife lost, and Mr. Atkinson was elected
amidst the groans and hisses of the burgesses.
In the summer of 1834 Mr. Fife sustained a heavy
bereavement in the death of his wife, and, for a time, he
withdrew from active participation in public work. But
as soon as the Municipal Reform Act was passed, he
emerged from his seclusion, and threw himself once more
into the arena of local conflict. At the first election
under the new Act he was returned at the head of the
poll for the ward of St. Nicholas, every man in the ward
but thirty-seven having given him a vote. Upon the first
occasion that the Reformed Council assembled Mr. Fife
was appointed an alderman ; at the second meeting of that
body he originated a discussion upon the use and abuse of
the Mansion House, kept it going meeting after meeting,
and never ceased to agitate till that famous resort of con-
vivial burgesses was dismantled, and its contents sold to
the highest bidder. At Michaelmas, 1838, he was elected
Mayor. He had fairly earned his promotion, and none of
his opponents raised a hand against it.
In his election to the Mayoralty Mr. Fife's popularity
reached its culmination ; before his year of office expired
it had received serious damage. Into the details it is
unnecessary to enter. They have been printed over and
over again, and may always be read in Richardson's
"Table Book," in Gammage's "History of the Chartist
Movement," and in "The Odd Book " of Thomas Ainge
Devyr. It is sufficient here to state that in the summer
of 1839 the townspeople were seriously disturbed by
Chartist meetings and processions, accompanied by stone-
throwing, window-smashing, and other mischief ; that the
Mayor, as chief magistrate, intervened for the prevention
of such disorders; and that, failing to secure peaceable
obedience to his commands, he called out the military, and
broke up a Chartist demonstration at the point of tho
bayonet. For these services he was denounced as a
traitor, a renegade, and a second Judas Iscariot by those
who bad beforetime been bis warmest friends and sup-
porters. With the denunciations of the Chartists and
their friends still ringing in his ears, on the 1st July, 1840,
January!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
15
he was knighted by the Queen " as a mark of approbation
of the manner in which he had sustained the office of
chief magistrate under very critical circumstances."
Sir John was elected Mayor of Newcastle again in 18W,
and he continued for many years to take an active part in
the public life of his native town. Not, however, in the
sphere of political conflict in which he had won his early
fame. With advancing age his interest in politics,
shaken by the events of 1839, declined, and although he
took an active part in the Anti-Corn Law Agitation,
being chairman of the League meetings in Newcastle, he
gradually settled down into a mild and colourless Whig.
When the next wave of Parliamentary Reform swept
over the country, assuming the attitude of offended
dignity contemplating past services, he stood aloof, and
there the new school of Reformers left him. Meanwhile,
the fervour which distinguished his early career had
found a new channel. The vapouring of certain French
colonels in 1859 turned the thoughts of Englishmen to the
use of arms, and Sir John's soldierly instincts pushed him
into the forefront of the agitation. He took the chair at
a meeting held in Newcastle in the summer of that year
to promote the volunteer movement, and became the first
president of the club which shortly afterwards developed
into the 1st Newcastle Rifle Volunteer Corps. Of that
corps he was made lieutenant colonel, and he filled the
post to admiration. He was proud of his volunteers,
thirteen companies strong ; the volunteers were proud of
Sir John, who looked every inch a soldier; Newcastle
was proud of them all together.
Engrossed in volunteering, Sir John lost to some extent
his interest in matters municipal as well as political. He
had formed county connections, and began to consider
himself as much a country gentleman as an alderman of
Newcastle. When, therefore, in 1862, the farmers and
dealers attending Newcastle Cattle Market fell into a hot
dispute with the Corporation, Sir John, conceiving that
they had reason for their complaints, made various
proposals for settling the dispute, and upon these being
rejected, accompanied by some heated personal remarks
from one or two lively members of the Council, he
resigned his office, and nothing could induce him to
resume it. Failing health compelled him, in December,
1868, to relinquish his command of the volunteers, and
from that time to his death, at Reedsmouth, on the 15th
of January, 1871, the people of Newcastle saw but little
of their gifted fellow-townsman.
Sir John Fife was in the commission of the peace for
his native borough and for the county of Argyle; a
deputy lieutenant ; an M.A. of Durham ; and a knight in
the English League of the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem. In religion he was a Churchman — an earnest
advocate of the establishment of a bishopric in Newcastle.
For thirty years he filled the office of surgeon to the
Newcastle Infirmary, and, besides founding the local Eye
Infirmary, was one of the early promoters of the New-
castle College of Practical Science, in which, for some
years, he officiated as a lecturer.
in tfte
NUMBER of valuable documents relating to
the Pelhain family have been recently ac-
quired by the Manuscript Department of the
British Museum. Amongst them are several letters from
Sir John Vanbrugh, the famous architect, written be-
tween 1715 and 1723. One of these, addressed to Thomas
Pelham, Duke of Newcastle, afterwards the well-known
Prime Minister, relates to Castle Howard and to a visit
of the Duke of Wharton to York. It runs as follows : —
Castle Howard, Augt Sth, 1721.
I have no other business to trouble your Grace with a
letter upon, but to thank you for your warrant. The
rest is only to remind you, of my constant wishes (others
would say prayers) for your health and happyness where-
ever I wander. And amongst those good wishes, one is,
that you were here at this time, to see in its beauty
(warm weather too) the most delightful place I ever
beheld. Many new charms open this year, that never
appear'd before, and many more will next, that people do
not dream of now : If I take in what a third will pro-
duce (bar more Southsea storms) I believe here will bo
(beyond all content) the top seat, and garden ~>i England.
Of the house 1 say nothing : The others I may commend,
because nature made them ; I pretend to no more merrit
in them than a midwife, who helps to bring a fine child
into the world, out of bushes boggs and bryars.
I was at York all last week. A race every day, and a
ball every night ; with as much well look't company, as
ever I saw got together. The Ladys I mean in chief. As
to the men the Duke of Wharton was the top gallant.
The entertainments ending on Friday. He declar'd it
the company wou'd stay in towue one day more, he wou'd
treat the jockeys with a plate, the Ladys with a ball, and
all together with a supper. T'was done accordingly, and
my Lady Milner, who had all along been bis partner,
was now his Cjueen. When supper was ended, he in-
vited all the good company to meet him again that day
twelve month, on . he same terms ; with many decent and
good complimts. to the inhabitants of York and York-
shire for the honour they did him, and hop't wou'd do
him again. To which they gratefully bow'd, as who
wou'd say, yes. But his Grace, thnn bethought himself,
of one civil thing more, and said. That unless my Lady
Milner wou'd absolutly engage to be there too, he was
olF, as to the rest of the company. Upon which she
look'd she did not know how, and all went home to
He is now here, for two or three days, & we have jok't
off the affair of the House of Lords on both sides. Here's
the house full of company, which I like better when it's
emptye, so am going to morrow to Lumley Castle, and
Delavals, which will take me up a fortnight. I shall
then return to York.
Here is another letter of Sir John Vanbrugh's ad-
dressed to "Brigadier William Watkins in Scotland
Yard," who at that time was one of his colleagues at
the Office of Works, and held the post of "Keeper of
H.M. Private Roads and Conductor and Guide in the
Royal Progresses," at a salary of £200 a year : —
York, Augt. ye 26th, 1721.
Cou'd you see bow busy I have been ever since I writ
to you last, you wou'd easily forgive my being so long
16
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/January
I 1891.
before I did it again. I return'd but last night from the
north (for here you must know we are in the south)
where I have been near this three weeks finding a vast
deal to do, both at Delavals and Lumley Castle. Since
it is not easy, to go there often, I resolv'd to do all the
service I cou'd while I was there now.
The Admiral [Delaval] is very gallant in bis operations,
not being disposed to starve the design at all, so that he
is like to have a very fine dwelling for himself now, and
his nephew &c. hereafter.
Lumley Castle is a noble thing, and well deserves the
favours Lord Lumley designs to bestow upon it : In order
to which, I stay'd there near a week, to form a general
design for the whole, which consists, in altering the house
both for state, beauty and convenience, and making the
courts gardens and offices suitable to it ; all which I
believe may be done, for a sum, that can never ly very
heavy upon the family. If I had had pood weather
in this expedition, I shou'd have been well enough diver-
ted in it ; there being many more valluable and agreeable
things and places to be seen, than in the tame sneaking
south of England.
I am going in three or four days again to Castle Howard,
where I must spend a week or ten days, to do what is
necessary there. My Lord Carlisle going on with his
works as usual ; by which the seat is wonderfully improv'd
this last year. Two years more, tho' they won't
com pleat all the building, will so beautify the out-
works, of gardens, park, &c., that I think no
place I ever saw, will dispute with it, for a delight-
full dwelling in general!, let the criticks fish out
what particular faults they please in the architec-
ture.
Here are several gentlemen in these parts of
the world, that are possess'd with the spirit of
building, and seem dispos'd to do it, in so good
a manner, that were they to establish here a sort
of a Board of Works to conduct the affairs, I
do verily believe, they wou'd sooner make Hawks-
moor a commissioner uf it, than that excellent
architect Ripley. "
It appears from a further letter, dated Castle
Howard, August 20, 1723, that the great archi-
tect had a jovial time of it in the North. "I
have been drinking waters at Scarborough three
or four days, "he says, "and am to return thither
with Lord Carlisle, for a few weeks more, and
Boon after that, I point towards London."
£aiuit
j]EW towns even in the North of Eng-
land have made greater strides ot
late years than the important town
at the mouth of the Wear. Its population has
increased by leaps and bounds; its residential
suburbs have grown in beauty year by year ;
and its public buildings have kept pace with
the march of improvement and prosperity. The
latest addition to the architectural attractions of
Sunderland is the new Town Hall. This edi-
fice, erected at a cost of about £50,000 from
designs by Mr. Brightwen Binyon, of Ipswich,
was opened with much ceremony on Nov. 6,
1890. The style of architecture is described as
Italian renaissance. It will be seen from the
accompanying engraving that the new building is really
a handsome pile.
Hatttrftltjr awtr fttd
tlje late latntjs ffllepljan.
Katterfelto, with his hair on end
At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.
COWPKK.
jjATTERFELTO flourishes as a fly in the
precious amber of classic song. Em-
balmed in enduring verse, he is perpetu-
ated for all time, wonderstruck by his
own wonders. With " hair on end " he comes stream-
ing down to the light and life of the passing
day, few knowing anything more of him than the
StJXDEBLAND TOWN HALL.
January!
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
17
poet's picture portrays. Familiar as be was when
the portrait was drawn, he lives for the most of men
in these lines alone ; and yet, scattered up and down
over the island, relics must remain of him in sundry
household corners, in the form of magnets, hygrometers,
"fire- machines," and other articles of his merchandise,
sold to his customers at the close of his performances
when the last century was growing old and about to
depart. He was vending them in Newcastle while ex-
hibiting his mysterious " Morocco Black Cat " to ad-
miring throngs, and ministering to that love of rare
sights and strange spectacles which belongs to our race.
When Cowper, in the year 1785, published his "Task,"
and affixed to Katterfelto the words we have taken for
our motto, there were readings and recitations in Free-
masons' Hall, London ; and his "John Gilpin" was one
of the most popular pieces in the programme. It was
read by Henderson, the famous actor; and none were
more warm in their applause than Mrs. Siddons. The
poet heard, of course, of the sudden celebrity into which
he had been lifted by his " citizen of credit and renown ";
but his friend Unwin, in communicating to him the fact
of his metropolitan popularity, slily admonished him that
he had a competitor for fame in "The Learned Pig."
The times were sensational then as now. Our ancestors
were as fond of marvels and excitements as their descen-
dants ; and in 1783, when the suggestion was made to
Cowper that led to the prodaction of "The Task," the
world was running after novelties and wonders. It gave
crowded audiences to Katterfelto, who, according to his
own account, was " the greatest philosopher in this king-
dom since Sir Isaac Newton," but is classed among
" mountebanks " in " Chambers's Book of Days," and has
been brought more recently under notice as one of the
"quacks of the eighteenth century.'' It was in the
latter years of that century that balloons became the
fashion and the rage. "Senators, philosophers, ladies,
everybody," wrote Walpole near the end of 1783, gazed
aloft at balloons. "I am tired of reading about them in
the papers, " said the Right Hon. Frederick Montague to
Mrs. Delany in 1784 ; and in the same year there were
adventurous journeys above the earth in Northumberland
and Durham. On the 8th of May, little more than two
months from the first ascent of Blanchard at Paris in a
hydrogen balloon, "the ingenious Mr. Jackson, of
Hutton Rudby," as the Kewcaatle Chronicle reported at
the time, " entertained the inhabitants of Stockton and
environs with that fashionable amusement, an air-
balloon " ; and we learn from Sykes, the Newcastle
annalist, that on the 9th of August "a balloon was set
off from the Sandhill, Newcastle, by Mr. Clarke, Jun.,
for the benefit and enlargement of an eminent teacher,
then in Newgate for a debt contracted when in a bad
state of health," the sum thus benevolently collected
amounting to £33, "which answered the intended pur-
pose."
Balloons went up, other "fashionable amusements"
courted public favour, and the weekly newspaper had a
word for them all. Cowper was among -its readers in his
rustic retreat : and with "the folio of four pages" before
him —
that map of busy life,
Its fluctuations and its vast, concerns.
he Closed his fireside picture of what was going on in the
world beyond his shutters with the lines —
Ethereal journeys, submarine exploits,
And Katterfelto, with his hair on end
At his own wonders, wondering for his bread.
Katterfelto came to Newcastle "for his bread :> in 1787 ;
18
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f Jan'iary
\ 1891.
and "The Learned Pig "visited the town in the same
year. In 1784, when Johnson was in his native Lichfield
for the last time. Miss Seward told him of " the wonder-
ful learned pig, which she had seen at Nottingham, and
which did all that we have seen exhibited by dogs and
horses." He had also, while remaining in his old city,
"three letters on one day about the air-balloon"; and
shortly after he left, being in Oxford, and considerate of
the gratification of his faithful negro servant. " he sent
Francis to see the balloon fly."
Wonders have ever been in request. " Dogs were made
to bark and bite, "says the poet; but patient preceptors
have taught them more, and turned a penny by their
accomplishments. There were "learned dogs" going
about the country, as may be seen by Mrs. Delany's
letters, in 1760. One could dance a hornpipe. Another
told what o'clock it was, and could spell. The third
could even speak a word or two ; barked his own name ;
" his voice, indeed, a little hoarse, but the words tolerably
distinct." Such clever companions were the attraction
and astonishment of their little day. The world
ran after them ; for every generation must have its
amusements. When Bonaparte was carrying his eagles
over Europe, and England was apprehensive of inva-
sion ; when the health of the Sovereign excited uneasiness
and there were Ministerial difficulties and Parliamentary
perplexities ; " in the midst of all this," wrote Sir Gilbert
Elliot ia 1804, "everybody goes to see ' Valentine and
Orson," and weep over the death of a bear." No little
excitement, doubtless, there was on the banks of the Tyne
in 1787, when the intimation was made of Katterfelto's
coming visit to Newcastle with his Cat, immediately
preceding in the Newcastle Chronicle the announcement
that "The Learned Pig" was also on the road thither.
It was in the month of February that there was
exhibited in the Long Room of the Bigg Market
"that most astonishing animal, the learned or scienti-
fic pig from Charing Cross, and last from Sadler's
Wells." Its ingenious tutor had "taught a turtle to
fetch and carry " ; had "overcome the timidity of a hare,
by making her beat a drum " ; had "perfected six turkey-
cocks in a regular country dance"; had "taught three
cats to strike several tunes on the dulcimer with their
paws, and to imitate the Italian manner of singing" ; and
now, above all, "he had conquered the natural obstinacy
and stupidity of a pig, ty teaching him to unite the
letters of any person's name," and tell "the number of
persons in the room, the hour and minute by any watch,
&c., &c." This docile creature had no sooner arrived in
the Bigg Market, " than the curious of all degrees
resorted to see him " ; and after the interview, " the most
penetrating frankly declared that neither the tongue of
the most florid orator, uor pen of the most ingenious
writer, could sufficiently describe the wonderful perform-
ance." Some one having suggested at Lichfield, in
Johnson's presence, "that great torture must have been
employed ere the indocility of the animal could have been
subdued," the doctor, never at a loss in controversy,
ascertained from Miss Seward that it was three years of
age, and at once replied :— "Then the pig has no cause to
complain ; he would have been killed the first year if he
had not been educated; and protracted existence is a pood
recompense for very considerable degrees of torture. "
A generation earlier, a "Learned Dog" had been in
Newcastle, more learned than all the three dogs put
together seen by Mrs. Delany in 1760. He " read, wrote,
and cast accounts, answered various questions in Ovid's
'Metamorphoses,' Geography, Roman, English, and
Sacred History ; knew the Greek Alphabet, &c. " ; and
could distinguish all the colours of the rainbow. It was
in the reign of George the Second that this wondrous
exhibition was witnessed on the Tyne. But whether, on
his way from London to Edinburgh i» the reign of
Elizabeth, "Banks's Horse," the "dancing horse" of
Shakspeare, also paused to display his skill in Newcastle,
is either not noticed in our annals or we have overlooked
the record.
Every year our forefathers had some remarkable amuse .
ments, some new attractions, by which they were
strangely interested ; and great, apparently, was the
excitement produced by the visit to the North, in the
month of May, 1787, of Dr. Katterfelto. With what
extent of display and ceremony " the noted philosopher,'
when "on his way from London to Edinburgh," came
along Tyne Bridge, we have not been able to discover ;
but here, in the "Book of Days," is the account of bis
" turn-out " at the time he visited Durham in 1790 or
1791: — "His travelling equipage consisted of an old
rumbling coach, drawn by a pair of sorry hacks ; and his
two black servants wore green liveries with red collars.
They were sent round the town, blowing trumpets, and
delivering bills of their master's performances," which
were as manifold as they were marvellous. It was on
Tuesday, the 29th of May, 1787 (the day after his arrival
on the Tyne), that this itinerant philosopher gave his first
discourse in Newcastle, "at St. John's Lodge, Friar
Street"; and, "among the polite circle," the room
received for the occasion the title of "The Temple of
Instruction." Those who entered its portals paid for the
course of eight lectures ten shillings. Single lecture, half-
a-crowu. "Back seats for servants one shilling only."
At the close of his first lecture, and "for that night
only," Dr. Katterfelto was to "show many of his occult
secrets.".
By day and by night "The Temple of Instruction " was
open to an admiring public. Every noon there was the
Doctor's Wonderful and Grand Mechanical Exhibition,
"only two shillings." His Perpetual Motion was visible
at the same charge. But half-a-crown was the figure for
admission to his newly-invente,d Solar Microscope. And
how various the matters treated of at the evening
lectures ! " Philosophical, Mathematical, Electrical,
January!
1891. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
19
Maguetical, Optical, Physical, Chymical." And over
and above this wondrous round, we have " Pneumatic,
Hydraulic, Hydrostatic, and Stynographic Arts," the
whole illustrated by apparatus which had "cost him
about £7,000 !"
"Our learned gentlemen in this town and neighbour-
hood " are described as bavin? " received the doctor with
great joy " ; and verses were written on " hearing his
lectures and his laudable explanation of the various arts
made use of- by sharpers to obtain illegal fortunes at the
expense of the credulous, at St. John's Lodge, last Tues-
day " (that is, on the 29th of May, 1787). The poet's
eulogy was printed at the time ; and after the lapse of
more than a century, three or four of his lines may
be produced again :—
His curious apparatus gives a charm,
While his experiments keep genius warm ;
High o'er all mean device he proudly soars,
And hidden fraud ingeniously explores.
Among the "curious apparatus" thus renowned in
song, there was, as we have already shown, his Grand
Solar Microscope, "whereby were seen the greatest
wonders of natural history, which beggar all descrip-
tion " ; and in the forenoons of June 18, 19, and 20, when
this instrument was to be exhibited, visitors would be
privileged to witness "above 5,000 live insects in a drop
of beer the pize of a pin's head, and 40,000 in a small drop
of clear water," &c., with more than " 500 other curious
and uncommon objects ; likewise several curious crystal-
lizations ot salts, which never were seen at Newcastle
before." But, if cloudy, he would, at the hours men-
tioned, show "his Grand Perpetual Motion, and his
various other occult secrets." Moreover, every evening
during the Race Week, after his philosophical lecture
there were surprising feats in dexterity of band. " Ex.
pecting to be very much crowded every day and evening '>
while the races were in progress, Dr. Katterfelto expressed
a wish that the public, " the ladies particularly, would
send their servants one hour before the lecture, to keep
places for them, in the day-time as well as in the
evening."
Katterfeko's famous " Morocco Black Cat " formed one
of the prime attractions of the Temple of Instruction in
Low Friar Street— the cat " which won £3,000 in
London, and had surprised the most of the very first
nobility in the kingdom." It accompanied its wandering
owner wherever he went, till in the autumn of 1790 it was
ruthlessly snatched from among his treasures at Man-
chester. A paragraph of the 4th of September in that
year records this "most horrid and daring robbery."
"Some incorrigible depredators" had "run away with
the renowned and wonderful Dr. Katterfelto's black cat."
But either the rare animal had been recovered, or a
fitting successor had turned up, for in future years puss
was still in the programme.
In the year that was marked by the abstraction of the
cat, Dr. Graham was advertising his intention to come to
Newcastle. He was to give six lectures in the Assize
Week of 1790, by which " he would endeavour to lead his
audience gently and affectionately by the hand along the
sweet, simple, and obvious paths of great, venerable,
ever-constant, ever-young, and ever-beautiful Nature,
and of consequent temporal happiness, up to that ever-
lasting felicity which we all hope finally to obtain."
Such are some of the words that were addressed to our
townsmen by "Dr. Graham, from Edinburgh"; and
here, as elsewhere, his " earth baths " were exhibited
before the eyes of wondering crowds. (Sea Monthly
Chronicle. 1887, page 157).
In 1798, Katterfelto was again in these Northern parts ;
and at Sunderland, on the 28th and 29th of August, not
only ladies — bat gentlemen, not only civilians, but
soldiers — were "much alarmed and surprised " by seeing,
with the help of the Grand Solar Microscope, "above
90,000 wonderful live insects in a drop of beer, water,
milk, and vinegar, and most of them as large as eels, and
some as rats and mice." "Mites in cheese were seen as
big as cats"; and some poet of the Wear, "a lover of
arts and sciences, on seeing Dr. Katterfelto's grand ex-
hibition before a large company of ladies and gentlemen
at Sunderland," wrote Hnes extempore — the same lines,
by a strange coincidence, which had been printed in
Newcastle in the year 1787 ! Again we read in the
Newcastle Chronicle —
His curious apparatus gives a charm,
While his experiments keep genius warm :
High o'er all mean device he proudly soars,
And hidden fraud ingeniously explores.
From the Wear Katterfelto came to the Tyne. New-
castle was revisited in September ; and on this occasion
his arrival was commemorated by a paragraph headed
"Movements of Great Men." "Mr. Pitt," said the
writer, "arrived in London, laat week, from Burton
Pynsent, in good health. And, from Sunderland, a few
days ago, in this town, that wonderful philosopher, Dr.
Katterfelto." Among his rarities he brought for ex-
hibition "a most wonderful diamond beetle"; with also,
for sale, a variety of miscellaneous wares : — "Six different
kinds of phosphorus " of his own manufacture ; "magnets
from one shilling to a guinea"; "a most valuable
tincture for the toothache," two shillings a bottle, that
"never failed of curing instantly"; a new invented
hygrometer, of the size of a watch or snuff-box,
foretelling to all the world changes of weather in a
quarter of an hour, revealing to travellers the damp-
ness of a bed, and ascertaining for gardeners the
proper heat of a hot-house; yet, for half-a-crown, any-
body might have it. A bottle of new-invented powder,
to be acquired for the same small sum, would "light a
pipe or a candle, or fire gunpowder." Two and six were
favourite figures with Katterfelto. He had a half-crown
fire-machine, of new contrivance, for discovering in the
dark the hour of a watch, or lighting a match or candle
on land or sea; and he also cured, "on very low terms,"
20
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
{January
1891.
many different complaints. " Sprains, bruises, rheu-
matic pains," £c., yielded to a most valuable tincture,
costing no more than a crown a bottle; and while he
remained in Newcastle he "performed many capital
cures." For a single shilling he showed, on cloudy days,
his large loadstone of 491bs., his mechanical museum, his
wonderful diamond buckles ; and with tens of thousands
of other insects, "a live flea" would loom out in his
microscope "as big as an ox," and "mites in cheese"
attain the dimensions of "his black cats." His black
cats, moreover, were to be " lifted up in the air by his
string magnet," and he would " magnetize any lady or
gentleman's knife for a shilling."
Through the month of October, and into the middle of
November, Katterfelto was lingering in the shadows of
St. Nicholas ; and during his prolcngsd stay " the whole
cry at Newcastle, particularly among the curious and
learned ladies and gentlemen," was this: — "Those that
have not seen Dr. Katterfelto's solar microscope exhibi-
tion have seen nothing." Night after night he gave
lectures on Electricity, the Power of the Four Elements,
Fixed Air and the Air Pump ; "and after his lectures he
would also show and discover several of those arts and
feats that are now exhibited by Jonas, Comas, Boaz,
and Breslaw," in all of which he was ready to give lessons
on very low terms. Once more, also, there were " verses
written extempore " after witnessing the wonders ex-
hibited by "Dr. Katterfelto, M.D." These lines, open-
ing as below, throw additional light upon the character of
his performances : —
His ship beyond description lies.
When well observed by curious eyes ;
The guns, no thicker than a straw,
Go off by philosophic law,
Without the help of match or fire
Which all applaud and some admire.
There was a "fountain playing both tire and water,"
and "a watch and hour-glass that stood still, or fell into
motion, at his command."
Sir Ruffia's face, as grim as death,
Blows out the candle without breath,
And lone-headed harlequin
Without match or fire lights it again.
His famous black cat, I protest.
Surprised me more than all the rest ;
And by dexterity of hand,
He shows how gamesters gain their end.
There was a lapse of more than ten years between the
two visits of the great wonder-maker to Newcastle. In
the interval, the Literary and Philosophical Society had
been established, and had removed from its quarters in
St. Nicholas' Churchyard to the Old Assembly Rooms in
the Groat Market. It was in the society's former rooms
that Katterfelto received patrons during his stay in 1798 ;
and ere his departure, those who had neglected their
privilege — who were delaying their visit to the cat and the
conjuring — were admonished to repair their error while
there was yet an opportunity. " Several hundred persons,"
it was expected, "would repent in a short time in
Newcastle and the neighbourhood, that they had not seen
his solar microscope exhibition and large loadstone."
But some, probably, of the tardy absentees supplied the
omission at the last moment, and saw, burning in water,
"the new and most surprising chymical strong light, "
prepared "last week," and announced on the 10th of
November, 1798, in the latest of the Katterfelto
advertisements inserted in the columns of the Newcastle
Chronicle.*
STitc
|T. JOHN'S LODGE, Low Friar Street,
where Katterfelto performed his wonders in.
1787, was erected in 1777 by the members
of the Masonic order. It contained, says
Mackenzie, an excellent organ-, and two paintings by
Bell, one representing St. John, the other a portrait of
Mr. Francis Peacock, roper, the Grand Master of the
Lodge. A Greek inscription was placed on the front of
the building, signifying, "The darkness comprehendeth
it not." Extravagance and the introduction of politics
ruined the Lodge ; and Mr. Alderman Blackett, who had
a mortgage on the hall, sold it and the other property
of the fraternity for £320.
The initiation of the project for the establishment of a
Dispensary as an appendix to the Infirmary, but in no
way antagonistic to that institution, is due to Dr. Clark,
a local practitioner, and Mr. Anderson, a philanthropic
surgeon. At the outset the physicians of the Infirmary
opposed the proposal ; but when it was explained that the
medical department was to be open to the whole of the
resident faculty, all opposition ceased, and arrangements
were made for carrying out the scheme. Accordingly, a
meeting of the governors was held on September 29, 1777,
Mr. John Baker, mayor, being in the chair, when the
regulations for the management or the new charity were
confirmed.
The object of the promoters was "to give advice and
medicine to that numerous class of sufferers whose cases
excluded them from the Infirmary, but also to extend the
limits of the healing art." The Dispensary for the first
four years was located in an entry at the foot of the Side ;
then it was removed to an entry in Pilgrim Street, below
the Queen's Head Inn, and known as Dispensary Entry.
Its career of usefulness having extended, the governor*
decided upon the purchase of a lease for fifty years of St.
John's Lodge, Low Friar Street, from the Incorporated
* Katterfelto, described as a tall thin man, dressed in a black
ffown and square cap, is said to have been originally a soldier in
the Prussian service. In one of his advertisements he stated that
he was a colonel in the "Death's Head" regiment of Hussars.
Not long before his death, which occurred at Bristol, he was
committed by the Mayor of Shrewsbury to the House of Correc-
tion as a vagrant and impostor.
January 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
21
Company of Saddlers, which, with the necessary fittings,
cost £626 2s. W. The building consisted of "a hall for
the meetings of the governors, a shop and waiting-
room for patients, two consulting-rooms for the phy-
sicians and surgeons, an electrical room, and lodgings
for the apothecary and his assistant, with a small labora-
tory behind the building. "
The building in Low Friar Street in course of time
became too small to meet the demands of the population
of a growing district, and it was resolved in 1837 to build
the present Dispensary in Nelson Street, which was
opened in August, 1839.
Our drawing of the old Dispensary seen on page 17,
is copied from Mackenzie's " History of Newcastle."
Several changes have been made in the external and in-
ternal appearance of the place, which now bears the name
of the Sadler's Wells Inn, -so that its aspect at the
present time varies somewhat from the original design.
IJHITLEY, to judge from the derivation of the
name, which means the white lea or pas-
ture, was founded by some family of Anglian
settlers. Whitley-by-the-Sea, as it is now
called, so as to distinguish it from Whitley Chapel and
Whitley Castle, also in Northumberland, is referred to in
ancient documents and maps as : — Wyteley, Witelei,
Hwyteleg, Witelithe, Wheteley, Wytheleye, Whitlaw,
Whitlathe, and Whitla?.
The earliest mention of Whitley is found about the year
1100, when Henry I. conferred it, with other possessions,
on the Priory of Tynemouth. It is again referred to in
the charter of Henry II., Richard I., -and John, confirm-
ing to the priors their possessions and liberties.
In 1291, Whitley came very prominently before the
notice of Edward I. and his council, in connexion with an
event of soms importance in the history of Tynemouth
Priory which had taken place the previous year. The
facts are these : — Walt«r Fitz Nicholas charged John de
Whitley, Gilbert Audre, and William de Cowpen, with
robbery and breach of the peace, stating that, at noon of
the Sunday next before the Feast of S.S. Simon and Jude
—this would be October 22nd, 1290— they had entered
his house at Whitley, during his absence, broken open the
door of a chamber with an iron hatchet, and taken
from a chest which they found there, two over-
tunics or gowns belonging to a certain woman, one
ot them green, the other blue, worth two marks ; two
cloths of Raynes, worth one mark ; forty ells of woven
linen, to the value of ten shillings; and two napkins and four
towels, worth together twenty shillings. The defendants
were cast into the Prior's prison by William Steward, the
Prior's coroner, and kept there from the Feast of St.
Martin (Sunday, the 12th Nov., 1290) to the Wednesday
next before the Feast of St. Nicholas — this would be
Nov. 30th, 1290. On this last named date the Justices of
the King, William Heron, Richard Knaut, and Robert
Bertram, came to Tynemouth and demanded that the
prisoners should be brought before them for trial. This
the Prior refused to do, on the ground that
they, the justices, were interfering with his prero-
gatives. Before the Feast of St. Hilary — January 13th,
1291 — th« Prior caused his own Court to be summoned,
and on Sunday, January 15, Walter Fitz Nicholas made
his appeal against John de Whitley and Gilbert Audre.
William de Cowpen, it appears, had died in prison. The
Prior's bailiffs found they had no power to hold the ap-
peal, and it was quashed. The prisoners, though they
claimed the right to acquit themselves in the Court of
King's Bench, were committed again to prison, and re-
manded from time to time until after Easter, when they
were set free by the King's writ. The question of the
legality of the Prior's action was afterwards re-
ferred to the King in council, at Norham, who deputed
Gilbert de Thornton and others to consider it. The con-
clusion they arrived at was that the Prior had exceeded
his authority in resisting the justices and retaining the
prisoners. The consequence was that the judicial privi-
leges which the Priors had enjoyed for nearly a century
were forfeited, and not restored for nearly eight years.
The appeal which had originated all these proceedings was
subsequently tried, when the defendants were acquitted,
and it was found that Walter Fitz Nicholas, the appellor,
was maliciously abetted by Brother Martin, the cellarer
of the Priory, William de Kirkeby, a monk of the same
house, and others. Bail was given for the Prior to make
fine with the King ; William Steward, his coroner, was
fined half-a-mark ; and the appellor 20s. The Prior's fine
was afterwards compromised by a payment of 20s.
The next fact in the history of Whitley connects it with
the Crusades. Pope Nicholas the IV. had granted to
Edward I. the first-fruits and tenths of all ecclesiastical
possessions for six years to defray the expenses of an ex-
pedition to the Holy Land, and so a valuation was made
of the spiritual and temporal goods of the Priory, on
March 26th, 1292, when the yearly rents from Whitley
were returned at 20s., and the tithes at 9 marks.
About the beginning of the fourteenth century,
the manor of Whitley was held from the Prior of
Tynemouth, by a singular feudal fervice called
the Conveyes, which seems to have originated with
John da Whitley — probably the person charged with rob-
bery— in the time of Master Simon de Walden, the Prior
in 1301, and during the following 19 years. At Christ-
mas, all the servants and tenants of the Priory, the
"keelers," who served in the barges, and other depend-
ants, with the horses and dogs of the Priory, were to come
to Whitley. At the outskirts of the village, the Lord of
the Manor was to meet them and receive them in a fitting
22
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{January
1891.
manner. They were to be hospitably entertained »n the
Feast of the Holy Innocents (Dec. 28th), and the day fol-
lowing. For most of the company fresh meat, cheese,
and good ale were to be provided, but the esquires and
men of their own rank were to have a whole hen between
every two of them for the second course at supper. The
horses also were to have half-a-boll of good oats each.
Whitley must thus have been the scene of much feasting,
drinking, and merry-making six hundred years ago. As
horses and dogs were among the guests, it is supposed
that hunting formed part of the entertainment.
On the 9th April, 1345, Edward III. granted to Gilbert
de Whitley a license to crenellate his manor-house at
Whitley. To crenellate a houso was to place battlements
upon it, crenelles, or embrasures, being the square
openings between the merlons. Before this could be
done, the sanction of the Crown was necessary. The fact
of the Lord of Whitley building a strong tower on his
estate at this time is an evidence of the insecurity felt,
even so far south as this, during the Edwardian wars with
Scotland. This Gilbert de Whitley was probably the
same person mentioned in the Sheriff of Northumberland's
accounts for 1356 as "the Master and Supervisor of the
King's work in the Castle of Newcastle." The tower
built at Whitley by Gilbert de Whitley, in 1345, is in-
cluded in the list of castles and fortalices drawn up in
1415. At that time it was in the possession of the Prior
of Tynemouth.
After the suppression of monasteries, Whitley was held
under the Crown for a time. By a grant of Edward VI.,
dated the 8th December, 1551, it came into the hands of
Dudley, Earl of Warwick, who was created Duke of
Northumberland. It was demised in 1557 to Thomas,
Earl of Northumberland, for 21 3'ears ; and by virtue of a
grant made by Queen Elizabeth in 1570 to Sir Henry
Percy and his son Henry, and afterwards to Thomas, Sir
Henry's son, for life, it remained in the Percy family until
1632, when the last of the three grantees died. On the
16th of May, 1634, the King's Lordship of Tyne-
mouth Shire, which embraced "five tenements of
husbandry* in Whitley worth £8 6s. 8d. per annum ;
a cottage with five butts of arable land, called • Our Lady
Land,' worth 8s. per annum ; a little orchard there,
worth Is. 4d. per annum ; the tithe of hay of all the town
aforesaid, valued at 2s. 6d per annum ; the pannage or
take of swine there, worth 20s. per annum; twenty
quarters of barley called ' bigge,' and ten quarters of oats
for the aforesaid five tenements of husbandry in Whitley,"
was granted to William Scriven and William Eden, of
London, Esquires, to be held at a yearly rental. These
possessions wer» conveyed on the 16th March, 1640, to
Algernon, tenth Earl of Northumberland. They after-
wards came into the hands of the Duke of Somerset on
his marriage in 1682, with Elizabeth, the heiress of
Joscelyn, the eleventh Earl of Northumberland. They
subsequently passed by inheritance to her grand-daughter,
Elizabeth Seymour, who had married Sir Hugh Smithson,
a Yorkshire baronet, afterwards created Duke of North-
umberland, and have since been retained by their descen-
dants.
An important event in the history of Whitley would be
the opening of the colliery there. In 1656 it is supposed
to have been working and shipping its coals from Culler-
coats. On November 29th, 1673, the Earl of Essex and
William Pierpoint, Esquire, leased the coal mines in the
township and precmts of Whitley to John Dove for 21
years. The next lessees of the colliery seem to have been
Nathaniel Blakiston, Henry Hudson, and Abigail Carr,
who were- working the mines in the early part of the
eighteenth century. The Hudsons, who now come on the
scene, were a wealthy Quaker family belonging to New-
biggin. The Henry Hudson referred to above, by his
marriage with Sarah, daughter of John Dove, of Whitley,
gent., allied himself to another wealthy and influential
Quaker family, which had much property in the district.
He died on June 17th, 1737. His son, Henry (b. 1720, d.
1789), in 1772, added the wings to Whitley Hall, which is
now occupied by Mr. M, W. Lambert. In 1820, the hall
was sold to the Duke of Northumberland.
In 1789, a fat ox, belonging to Mr. Edward Hall, of
Whitley, had immortality conferred upon it, for, on April
10th of this year, Messrs. Beilby and Bewick published a
large copper-plate (10| ins. by 7 ins.) of the famous
animal, drawn and engraved by Thomas Bewick. " The
Whitley Ox " weighed 187 stones at the Public Weigh
House on March 21st, 1789.
In January, 1790, Lady Tyrconnel, the lovely daughter
of Lord Delaval, narrowly escaped being drowned on
Whitley sands, at least so it would appear from an entry
in the Seaton Delaval Cellar Book, which is as follows :—
"January 31st, 1790.— 1 Bottle Sherry, 1 Bottle Port, and
1 Brandy for the Post-boys, etc., to drink, by Lady
Tyrconnel's order after she got home, when overturned
upon Whitley sands, and nearly lost." The accident
probably occurred at the mouth of Briardene Burn, which
the old road over the links crossed. Whether it was due
to any of the "high jinks " for which the Delavals were
famous, is a matter for conjecture.
In July, 1795, the following regiments were encamped
at Whitley:— The 37th Regiment of Foot, Royal Lanca-
shire Volunteers, North Yorkshire Militia, and a consi-
derable park of Artillery, commanded by Lord Mulgrave.
The camp broke up in October.
On the 16th of July, 1797, a terrible thunderstorm
occurred at Whitley. At the camp there the lightning
set fire to the whins placed as a facing to the sheds of the
East and West Lothian Cavalry, and, the wind blowing
briskly, the whele line was almost instantly in a blaze ; three
of the horses were struck dead at once, and two more nearly
suffocated. The remainder were saved by the men having
cut their; collars on the first alarm. The poor animals,
quite frenzied by the lightning, the thunderpeals,
January!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
23
and the fire, galloped off in various directions ; several of
them, between eight and nine o'clock in the evening, came
foaming through the streets of Newcastle to the great
danger and terror of the inhabitants.
During the first quarter of the nineteenth century the
collieries, the magnesian limestone quarries near Harden,
and the ironstone mines on the Links, were all being
actively worked. Considerable quantities of the stone
were conveyed by waggons on a rail-road to the L»w
Lights, North Shields, and there shipped for exportation.
A miner employed at the colliery in 1833 was the father
of William Crawford, the member of Parliament for Mid-
Durham, who died July 1st, 1890. On November the
22nd, 1839, the colliery and lime works were advertised
"to be let." "Mr. Hugh Taylor of Earsdon"-
so ran the paragraph — " will afford any informa-
tion and treat for the letting of the whole." In
1848, the colliery was laid in, the stock being sold by
auction in May of that year. The colliery seems to have
been sineularly free from accidents of any magnitude,
though in 1835, 1836, 1838, 1839, and 1841, several
casualties and explosions of fire-damp had taken place,
attended more or less with loss of life. The last man
killed at the colliery was William Boag, an innkeeper,
who was in a tub suspended by a rope over the mouth of
the shaft taking up some wood when the knot in the rope
slipped and he was precipitated to the bottom. In conse-
quence of the laying in of the colliery the population of
the village, which in 1841 was 749, had decreased to 431
in 1851.
The Felling Artillery Corps were encamped on Whitley
Sands in September, 1862. A local song, entitled
"Whitley Camp," was written on the occasion by Mr.
Edward Elliott, of Earsdon, in which, after depicting the
warriors "fierce as untyem'd goats," and "their little
huts, like sugar loaves, all pointin' te the sky," he de-
scribes the effect «f their practice with the Armstrong
gun:—
The greet round shot went plish-for-plash
Inte the tortured deep ;
They myed the crabs an' lobsters hop,
An' the fish cud get ne sleep.
On the 14th of September, 1869, the Prudhoe Memorial
Convalescent Home was opened by the Dowager Duchess
of Northumberland, in the presence of a distinguished
and fashionable company. The Northumberland Village
Homes, founded by Mr. James Hall, of Tynemouth, have
been located at Whitl«y. The first six homes were opened .
in 1880, and since then four more have been erected — two
in 1884 at the cost of Mr. and Mrs. Donkin, and two in
1888 at the cost of Mr. John Hall.
In 1864, the Church of St. Paul was erected at the cost
of the Duke of Northumberland, the bells in the tower
being presented by Sir Charles Mark Palmer, M.P.
The population of Whitley, which in 1801 was 251, is
now probably over 3,000.
W. W. TOMLINSON.
Qrftc 23ttrg JHar&ct antf tftc (great
JlIFTY years ago the Bigg Market, New
castle, presented an old-world appearance,
with its quaint shops and quainter hostel-
ries. As will be seen from our drawing,
which depicts a number of old houses at the west side
of this thoroughfare, one of the widest in the town,
the change, as compared with the present aspect of the
place, is remarkable.
The house to the left, with the lamp-post in front
of it, was the Golden Lion, a noted resort of
carriers, farmers, and country people who came
into the town to sell their produce. Mr. Ruther-
ford, the landlord of the Golden Lion, did not
occupy the whole of the building, for the room to the
right of the entrance was used as a barber's shop. The
premises in the yard behind often served as a mart for
calves.
The next house, the Unicorn, was rather a superior
hostelry, the landlady being one Rachel Dixon, who was
respected by everybody. Farmers and carriers were to be
met with here also in considerable numbers, and there
was a general aspect of comfort and snugness about the
place.
The next building, rather more pretentious than any
other in the sketch, was occupied by a couple of trades-
men.
Then we come to the Fighting Cocks, an inn of the
old school, kept by a bluff, hearty Boniface named Roger
Heron. The entrance was through an archway, and
although a numerous array of tradesmen's signs met the
gaze few would have conjectured that in the yard behind
almost every known craft was at one time carried on.
Amongst those who were to be found in the yard about
fifty years ago was a gold-beater named Armstrong,
whose shop was identified by the gilt arm and mallet
which was to be seen above the signboard ;*a file-cutter
named Bambro ; and a shoeing smith named Stephenson,
father of Mr. Clement Stephenson, veterinary surgeon,
of Newcastle. A man named Hudson had a foundry
at the bottom of the yard, which, it may be explained, ex-
tended as far as the rails of St. John's Church, West
Grainger Street not having then been made. In the same
yard might be found plumbers, cabinetmakers, wood-
turners, joiners, brassfounders, glassblowers, and many
others.
Immediately in front of the Fighting Cocks Inn, and a
few yards above the present pant, there was a large
fountain with troughs for cattle. It will be noticed that
to the right of the principal entrance to the Golden Lion
and to the left of the lower front window of the Fighting
Cocks are mounting or " louping-on" stones for the use of
24
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
January.
1891.
January}. NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
25
>? j£> <A
•vVVv*
,, " ;. '..'?•-"': ' • I':" ""-"" Mfgri
!; :^ >i?f^«?M^r^ I,
^ ; PiiUliffiWS 2? '
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26
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f January
horsemen. One of these stones is preserved by the
Society of Antiquaries in the Old Caatle.
Much of the old Groat Market, shown in our second
engraving, has long since disappeared. All the quaint
houses seen on the right-hand side of the picture were
removed when the present Town Hall was built. More
lately some of the houses to the left have given place to
modern edifices. But the conspicuous figure of a horse,
forming the sign of an inn, still remains.
The pillars noticed to the right are a portion of what
was, half a century ago, called the new Corn Market,
which was built by a company in 1839 at a cost of
£10,000. Mr. Richard Grainger, " who found Newcastle
crumbling bricks and left it stone," had previously
offered the Corporation the free and exclusive use of the
newly-built Central Exchange Art Gallery, on the con-
dition that it should be used as a corn market. Mr.
Grainger also promised to rebuild the front elevations of
the houses in the Groat Market and the Cloth Market in
the Gothic style of architecture, and remove all the old
buildings in Middle Street and Union Street lying
between the two thoroughfares. This offer was, however,
rejected by the Newcastle Council on October 4-, 1837.
But the new Corn Market, before twenty years had
elapsed from the time of the rejection of Grainger's pro-
posal, had to make way for the new Town Hall buildings,
the foundation stone of which was laid in August, 1855.
Our drawings are reproduced from photographs, taken
some years ago, which have been kindly lent us by Mr.
W. Parry, photographer, of South Shields.
SHE oldest fairy tale in the world is believed
to be one written on papyrus for the edifica-
tion of the young Egyptian Crown Prince,
Seti Manephta, the son of Pharaoh Rameses
Mi-amun, who ruled in Thebes fourteen hundred years
before Christ, and at whose court Moses was educated.
This curious papyrus was unfolded by a learned German
in 1863, and a literal translation of its contents was read
by him to a Berlin audience in the winter of that year—
thirty-two centuries after it had been written.
A good-sized library would be required to contain all
the rich fairy literature that the human imagination has
created, since the days of Moses and Aaron, Jannes and
Jambres. Fickle fancy has no more pleasant field to
revel in, but we must not allow her to roam to a distance
here. We must stay at home, and speak only of our own
North-Country Fairies.
Brand, in his "Antiquities," under the heading "Fairy
Mythology," has gathered together a mass of interesting
items, but most of them are drawn from places more or
less far away. All he says with regard to the "good
people " in this part of the country is : —
I have made strict inquiries after fairies in the un-
cultivated wilds of Northumberland, but even there I
could only meet with a man who said that he had seen
one that liad seen fairies. Truth is hard to come at in
most cases. None, I believe, ever came nearer to it than
I have done.
Mr. Henderson, in his "Folk-Lore of the Northern
Counties of England," has likewise but few references to
the fairies of Northumberland and Durham. He tells us,
indeed, of the Elf Stone, which " is described as sharp,
and with many corners and points, so that, whichever
way it falls, it inflicts a wound on the animal it touches."
"Popular belief," he adds, "maintains that the elves
received these stones from old fairies, who wore thorn as
breast-pins at the fairy court, and that the old fairies
received them in turn from mermaidens." They are in
reality flint arrow heads, fashioned by our ancestors in
what is known as the Stone Age, and now familiar to
frequenters of local museums, where they may be se«n of
all shapes and sizes.
We are most of us familiar with those ourious natural
phenomena called Fairy Rings. Some attribute them to
tl e growth of fungi, spreading from a centre ; others
think they are caused by lightning ; but the vulgar
opinion is that they are spots where the fairies have been
dancing in a ring by moonlight, and have trodden down
the grass with their tiny feet.
Fairies have a perpetual memorial in a remarkable kind
of small stones in a rounded or spiral form, as if produced
by the action of a lathe, which are frequently picked up
after rain or thaw, in the beds of some of the smaller
Northumbrian streams, such as the Beaumont, and like-
wise in the Elwin or Allan, whicli falls into the Tweed
from the North, a little above Melrose. They are com-
monly known as fairy cups, dishes, cradles, and bonnets,
according to the particular shape they assume.
While Friday is the witches' Sabbath, Wednesday ia
that of the fairies. Every Friday, however, the "good
people " are declared to divert themselves with combing
the beards of goats.
In the olden time, it was not uncommon for the servant
girl in a farm-house to discover, when she rose with the
sun or before it, that the floor had been clean swept,
and every article of furniture put into its proper place,
by some kind sleight-of-hand fairy during the night. But
servant girls get no such supernatural nocturnal help
now, but must do the needful work themselves.
The fairies were formerly much addicted to stealing the
most beautiful and witty children they came across, and
leaving in their places such brats of their own as were
prodigiously ugly and stupid, mischievously inclined, or
of a peevish and fretful temper. These elfish imps were
termed "changelings." Some will have it that the "good
people " could only exchange these weakly, starveling,
ill-conditioned elves for the more robust children of
Jyminryl
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
27
Christian parents before baptism, and that they could not
do so even then if a candle was always kept burning
at night in the room where the infant lay.
The fairies used to be heard patting their butter on the
slope of Pensher Hill, when people were passing in the
dark. A man once heard one of them say, "Mend that
peel !" Next day, going past again, he found a broken
peel lying on the ground. So he took it up and mended
it. The day after that, when going along the road with
a cart, he saw a piece of bread lying on a stsne at the
root of the hedge, at the identical place, with nice-look-
ing fresh-churned butter spread upon it; but he durst
neither eat it himself nor give it to his horses. The con-
sequence was, that before he got to the top of the
" lonnin," both his horses fell down dead. And thus was
he eoudignly punished for his want of faith in the fairies'
hjncnir. What is commonly known as Fairy Butter is a
certain fungous excrescence, sometimes found about the
roots of old trees. After great rains, and at a particular
stage of putrefaction, it is reduced to a consistency
which, together with its 'colour, makes it not unlike
butter; and hence its name. When met with inside
houses, it IB reckoned Incky. Why so, we cannot tell.
There are several round green hills in Durham and
Northumberland which were formerly supposed to be in-
habited underground by the fairies. We have met with
people who said they knew this to be a fact, because
sometimes in a fine still summer night, they have them-
selves lain down on these green hills, with their ears
close to the ground, and have heard piping, fiddling,
and dancing going on far down in the interior. When
questioned as to whether ths sounds might not rather
come from some neighbouring village or gipsy encamp-
ment, they would reply, " No, it was the fairies ; every-
body knew it was ; hundreds had heard them." Indeed,
almost every circular mound in the North must once have
been thus inhabited, if all tales be true. One such place
is the site of the old. fortress of the Conyers family, at
Bishopfcon, called the Castle Hill. Another is a remark-
able tumulus between Eppleton and Hetton, consisting
entirely of field stones gathered together. At the top of
this is a little hollow, called the Fairy's Cradle, and
there the fairies formerly used to dance to the music
made on a peculiarly sweet-toned pipe by a supernatural
minstrel. Ritson speaks of some fairy hills at Billing-
ham, and Mr. W. H. D. Longstaffe tells us of a very
famous one at Middleton-io-Teesdale. called the Tower
Hill, close to Pounties Lane (vulgo County Lane,
originally Pont Tees Lane). A person informed Mr.
Longstaffe that his grandmother frequently asserted that
she had seen the fairies go from that hill to the
Tees to wash themselves and to wash their clothes
also. Moreover, she once found a fairy, like unto
a miniature girl, dressed in green, and with
brilliant red eyes, composedly sitting on a small
cheese-like stone near her house. She took this
strange creature into the kitchen and set it by
the fire, and gave .it some bread and butter, with sugar on
it, which it ate, but it cried so bitterly that she was
obliged to carry it back to where she found it. She,
however, kept the elfish stone, and it may be in existence
until this day. The old woman preserved it most reli-
giously, not suffering it to be touched, and always had it
under the table in the pantry, for what purpose is not
stated.
Ritson deduces " Ferry Hill " from " Fairy Kill. " At
Hartlepool there are Fairy Coves, while the upper
valley of the Wear abounds with Fairy Caves. Near
Marsden, in one of the limestone caverns with which that
neighbourhood abounds, is "the Fairy's Kettle," a
circular hole in the rock, about five feet deep, filled with
pellucid salt water, the sea covering the place at spring
tides, and occasionally leaving a few little fishes in it, to
swim gaily about in a fairy-like fashion, as in an
aquarium of Nature's own forming.
While the foul fiend used to appear in the shape of a
black dog, and his poor deluded hags, the witches, in that
of a hare, the fairies were wont at times to assume that of
a cat. The following tale is told confirmatory of this : —
A Stamdrop farmer was crossing a bridge at night, when
a cat jumped out, stood right before him, looked him in
the face earnestly, and at last, opening its mouth like
Balaam's ass, said in articulate vernacular North-Country
speech : —
Johnny Reed ! Johnny Reed !
Tell Madam Mumfort
'At Mally Dixon's deed.
The farmer came home and told his wife what he had
seen and heard, when up sprang their old black cat, which
had been sitting cosily beside the fire, and, exclaiming,
" Is she? Then aa mun off '." bolted out at the door and
disappeared for ever. It was supposed she was a fairy in
disguise, and that she had gone to attend the funeral of a
relative, through whose death she might Rave come in for
some legacy.
Chathill, near Alnwick, boasted of a large Fairy Ring,
round which the children used to dance. But if they ran
round it more than nine times, some evil, it was thought,
was sure to befal them. So they would go the appointed
number, but never more.
Henhole, on the north side of Cheviot, is a chasm in the
midst of green slopes and heathy solitudes, so deep and
narrow that the rays of the sun never enter, and where a
small patch of snow, called a "snow egg, "is frequently
to be seen at midsummer. Some hunters were one day
chasing a roe, when they heard issuing from the depths of
the ravine the sweetest music they had ever heard. For-
getting the roe, which bounded away unheeded, they
were impelled to enter to see who the musicians were,
but they could never again find their way out Only one
who had been left behind, owing to his being worse
28
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
|J»anary
1:91.
mounted than the rest, hesitated when he came to the
brink of the " hole," and came back to tell the tale.
A widow and her son. a wilful little fellow, in or near
Rothley, in the parish of Hartburn, famed in the days of
Border "raids," were sitting alone in their solitary
cottage, one winter evening, when the lad refused to go
to bed, because, as he averred, he was not sleepy. His
mother told him that, if he would not go, the fairies
would come to take him away. He laughed, however,
and sat still by the fire, while his mother retired to rest.
Soon a beautiful little figure, about the size of a child's
doll, came down the wide chimney and alighted on the
hearth. " What do they ca' thoo ?" asked the astonished
boy. " My Ainsell," was the reply, "and what do they
ca' thoo?" "My Ainsell," retorted he, and no more
questions were asked. Shortly they began to play
together, like brother and sister. At length the fire grew
dim. The boy took up the poker to stir it, but in doing
so a hot cinder accidentally fell on the foot of his strange
playmate. The girl set up a terrific roar, and the boy
flung down the tongs and bolted off to bed. Immediately
the voice of the fairy mother was heard, asking " Who's
done it?" "Oh! it was my ainsell," screamed the girl.
"Why, then," said the mother, "what's all the noise
aboot ? Thor's nyen te blame. "
A cottager and his wife at Netherwitton, on the banks
of the Font, were one day visited by a fairy and his
spouse, with their young child, which they wished to
leave in their charge. They agreed to retain it for a
certain period, after which it was to be taken back. The
fairy woman gave them a box of ointment with which to
anoint tho child's eyes ; but they were noc on any account
themselves to use it, or some misfortune would befal
them. For a long time they carefully avoided letting the
least particle stick to their fingers ; but, one day when his
wife was out, curiosity overcame prudence in the man's
mind, and he anointed his eyes with the forbidden stuff,
without any noticeable effect. Some short time after,
however, when walking through Longhorsley Fair, he
met the male fairy and accosted him. The elf started
back in amazement, but, instantly guessing the truth,
came forward and blew in the cottager's eyes. The effect
was instantaneous. The poor man was struck stone
blind. And the fairy child was never more seen.
A farmer, riding home at midnight past Fawdon Hill,
was surprised to hear the sound of music and jollity in so
lonely a place. On coming nearer, he became aware of a
door open in the hill side, and through it saw a large
company of strange-looking dwarfed people seated at a
splendid banquet. One of the attendants, perceiving the
stranger, came forward and offered him a cup full of
liquor, which he accepted ; but, instead of drinking the
contents to his entertainers' health, he prudently spilt
them on the ground, .and, putting spurs to his horse, fled
incontinently. The swiftness of the beast enabled him to
bafHe his pursuers, so that he bore away the empty vessel,
which was afterwards found to be made of some unknown
substance, possibly selenium. This is a very old story,
first told by a monkish chronicler, named William of
Newbury, who died in 1208, and who is said by his
translator, the Rev. Joseph Stevenson, to have been " in
criticism in advance of his age, and freer from prejudice
than might reasonably have been expected." William
concludes his narrative by telling his readers that the
identical fairy cup, having come into the possession of
King Henry I., was presented by that monarch to
Alexander I., King of Scots, who had married Sybilla,
one of his numerous illegitimate daughters.
Once upon a time a particularly clever midwife, well
known as " the howdie " for many miles round, flourished
somewhere about Elsdon. A messenger on horseback
came and called her out of bed one night, and told her
that she must instantly rise and go with him to the place
where he had hastily come from, a good distance off,
where a lady, whose friends could afford to pay her hand-
somely, was in sore want of her attendance. She must,
however, submit to be blindfolded, as the expected event
was to be kept a secret. The man gave her something in
hand by way of earnest, and she consented to mount
behind him on a pillion. Then fast, fast away they rode.
Arrived at tbeir destination, the howdie was introduced
into the room wherein the lady lay, and the bandage was
removed from her eyes. It was a very neat and comfort-
able place, but a place she had never been in before.
After she had successfully performed her office, and the
relieved mother was as well as could be expected, the man
got from an old crone who was sitting in the room a box
of ointment, with which she was tuld she must anoint the
baby, but to be careful not to let it touch her own
person. She accordingly did as she was bid, having no
mind to try any such experiments on herself, as she did
not know of what the stuff consisted. But, feeling an
itching in her eye, she put up her hand unconsciously,
and now saw everything in a different light. Instead of
a cosy room, it was a wood she was in. There was a
hollow moss-grown trunk instead of a fireplace. Glow-
worms supplied the place of lamps, and the lady was
evidently a fairy woman. But though mightily aston-
ished, the howdie retained her self-possession, finished
her task, was again blindfolded, got mounted behind her
mysterious conductor, and returned safely home, with a
good heavy purse of fairy money in her pocket. One
market-day soon after, she saw the old crone who had
handed her the box, and likewise been her pay-mistress,
gliding from one basket to another, among the farmers,
and hinds' wives, passing a little wooden scraper along
the rolls of butter, and carefully collecting the particles
thus purloined into a vessel hung bv her side. After a
mutual but silent recognition, the old lady inquired,
" What eye do you see me with ?" " With the left eye, "
was the innocent answer. " Well, then, take that !'"
cried the crone, as she startled her with a sudden, sharp
January 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
29
puff. From that moment the poor hbwdie was a one-eyed
woman.
Another version of the story is that it was a certain
country doctor who received the eye salve from his elfin
conductor, and that, after he had anointed his eyes with
it, he saw a splendid portico in the side of a steep hill,
to which he was taken by his guide. He entered, and
found himself in a gorgeously furnished hall, fit for a
royal residence. On coming out, after performing his
office, another box was put into his hands, and he was
told to rub his eyes with its contents. He rubbed only
one eye, however, and with it saw the hill in its natural
shape, palace and portico having vanished. Thinking
to cheat his conductor, he feigned to rub the other eye
also, and then galloped off home. But, afterwards, see-
ing the fairy husband stealing corn in Morpeth Market,
he accosted him, with the same melancholy result, losing
for ever the sight of both eyes.
It was with tales like these that our grandmothers and
great-grandmothers entertained their hopeful offspring.
W. B.
Arctic & Antarctic
F the two circumpolar oceans, the Arctic and
the Antarctic, some of the most daring and
successful explorers have been North-
Country men. The discoverer of Hudson's
Bay was, there is reason to believe, a native of this part
of the country. Old family traditions of the name con-
firm the alleged fact, which cannot, however, be histori-
cally established, owing to Henry Hudson's birthplace
and early life not having been deemed worthy of record.
We need do little more than allude to Captain Cook,
whose father was an Ednam man, who was himself
born at Marton, near Middlesbrough, and who served his
apprenticeship to the sea on board a Newcastle collier,
belonging, it is true, to Whitby owners. Cook's dis-
coveries ranged from latitude 71 dees. 10 mins. south, to
70 degs. 41 mins. north, and he occupies the foremost
place among modern explorers. Captain Weddell, who
reached latitude 74 degs. 15 mins. south, in January, 1823,
was also, if we are not misinformed, a North-Country
man ; and we may confidently claim old Willy Scoresby,
born at Cropton, in the North Riding, and his even more
distinguished son, Dr. William Scoresby, who, in their
voyage to Greenland in 1806 (the father filling the place of
captain, the son that of chief mate), sailed in the high
latitude (by observation) of 81 degs. 12 mins. 42 sees.,
little more than five hundred nautical miles from the pole
This fact, as it had been previously unexampled, long re-
mained unsurpassed in the annals of polar navigation «
for though Parry, in his voyage of 1827, succeeded in
reaching a higher parallel (82 degs. 45 mins.) by the joint
aid of boats and sledges, yet his ship had been unable to
advance beyond 79 degs. 55 mins. • It was not till the
year 1871 that the American ship Polaris, commanded by
Captain Hall, reached a higher latitude than the
Scoresbys (84 degs. 16 mins.).
Captain F. R. M. Crozier, of the Terror, Sir John
Franklin's comrade in his last melancholy voyage, was,
we believe, a Ramsgate man, though his family connec-
tions lay in Blyt'u or Shields, if we are not misinformed.
He was chosen as Franklin's lieutenant, on account of his
being an experienced Arctic and Antarctic navigator,
who had accompanied Sir James Clark Ross to the South
Polar regions, and it was he who assumed the command
after Sir John's death, and endeavoured as a forlorn hope,
but in vain, to reach the Great Fish River with the
survivors of the expedition, one hundred and five in num-
ber— all doomed, with himself, to perish in the trackless
frozen wilderness. His name is perpetuated in Crozier
Channel, leading out of Banks Strait, northward, and in
Cape Crazier, on the dreary western shore of King
William Land. Lieutenant Fairholm, who also perished
with Franklin, was a Berwickshire man, born, we believe,
at Greenkuowe, near Gordon, his paternal estate. On*
of the crew of the Erebus or Terror, we forget which, was
John Handford, son of James Handford, of Sunderland.
Lady Franklin got his father and mother into an alms-
house in London. Rear-Admiral Swinburne, a much
esteemed friend of Sir John Franklin, and one of the
earliest supporters of the final expedition sent in search of
him (McClintock's), was a scion of one of our oldest and
most respected Northumbrian families.
Captain John Balleny, who discovered Sabrina Land
in 1839 — a tract of the southern circumpolar continent,
long known as Terra Australis Incognita — sailed origin-
ally, we have been told, from Berwick-on-Tweed.
Captain (Admiral) Collinson, who passed three winters
in the icev and worked his ship, the Enterprise, right
along the North American coast, from Behring's Strait to
Cambridge Bay and back, across sixty degrees of longi-
tude, in 1850, 1851, and 1852, was born in Gateshead.
His father, the Rev. John Collinson, was rector of thafi
parish from 1810 to 1840, and afterwards rector of
Boidon, where he died in 1857. Captain Collinson
penetrated the furthest eastward from Behring's Strait
that any v<jssel has yet reached ; and he named the
point at which he was obliged by the ice to turn to the
west again, on his homeward route, Gateshead Island.
In the British Museum, among the Arctic Expedition
Relics, is a portrait of the Esquimaux dog "Daddy,"
brought home by the captain to Boidon Rectory, where it
died. A very beautiful flag, given to Captain McClintock
by Lady Franklin, on his departure on the search expedi-
tion, bearing her ladyship's name in white letters upon a
red ground, and margined with white embroidery, was
worked by the sisters of Captain Collinson. It was
hoisted on the occasion of McClintock's having at length
completed the sole object of his voyage— acquired
30
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/ January
1891.
possession of the Franklin Records, picked up by Lieu-
tenant Hobson on the shore of King William Land.
One of the most intrepid of our Arctic explorers was
Captain Christopher Middleton, supposed to have been
born at Newtcn Bewley, near Billingham, South Dur-
ham, about the beginning of the last century. There is a
detailed biography of him in Brewster's " History of
Stockton." We there learn that Middleton was bred to
the sea, and was engaged for some time in the fur trade,
in one of the Hudson's Bay Company's vessels. Recom-
mended by a.Mr. Dobbs, who was impressed with a
conviction that a passage might be found from the
Atlantic into the great Western Ocean, by an opening
not far distant from the course annually taken by the
Company's ships, he received from the Admiralty the
command of the Furnace for the purposes of discovery,
and had also put under his orders the Discovery junk,
which was commanded by Mr. William Moor, also
a, Billingham man. They left England in the summer
of 1741, wintered in Churchill River, and, as soon as the
ice allowed next year, began to sail up Sir Thomas
Roe's Welcome, through which they hoped to be able
to make their way westward. Their attention was soon
attracted by an inlet or river, which they called the
Wager, six or eight miles in breath, opening in the right
direction. They Bailed up it a little way, but ere long
found, to their mortification, that it would not afford
them the passage they sought, because the tide of
flood constantly came from the eastward, or in at its
mouth. Some twenty miles further north they came to
another opening, thirteen leagues in width, and doubled a
cape or headland, from which the trending of the
land gave them the greatest joy, all believing that this
would prove the extreme north-east point of America.
Middleton, therefore, gave it the name of Cape Hope.
But when the fog cleared away the next day they
experienced a sad reverse ; for they found the land to
extend westward of north, making a deep bay ; and
standing on towards the bottom of that they plainly saw
they could not proceed above six or eight miles further,
the bay being land-locked. Under these disappointing
circumstance*, Middleton gave it the name of Repulse
Bay. He now tried to find an outlet from the Welcome
on the eastern side, but in this also he was unsuccessful.
Landing, and walking twelve or fifteen miles, he
ascended a very high mountain, from which he obtained
a full view of a strait, eighteen or twenty leagues in
length, and seven in breadth, but completely frozen from
side to side, and seemingly as impermeable as a solid
rock. This hard and fast locked and sealed waterway,
which retains on the chart the name of the Frozen Strait,
leads out of the Welcome back into Hudson's Strait, as
Middleton, from the set of the tide, concluded it did.
On coming home with this account of what he
had seen and done, he was very much blamed for
not having prosecuted his search further. It was more
than insinuated that he had been bribed by the directors
of the Hudson's Bay Company, whose trusted servant he
had been, with the sum of five thousand pounds, in order
to stifle inquiry and prevent discovery ; for the influx of
private traders into these seas might have led to their
profitable monopoly being broken up — a thing to be pre-
veuted by any means short of murder. This Frozen
Strait, it was said, was all a chimera ; indeed, some of
his petty officers swore it was. Middleton strenuously
denied the bribe, and maintained the correctness of his
representations. But his patron Dobbs refused to believe
him, and the Lords of the Admiralty, after hearing all
parties, were dissatisfied with his explanations. Captains
Parry and Lyon, long afterwards, substantially verified
his account, which varied from theirs only in such
minutiie as may be accounted for by the use ot imperfect
nautical instruments. This confirmation of his state-
ments came, of course, too late, except to clear
his character for veracity long after his death, which
took place in 1770. Brewster says that " neither
emolument nor honour graced his latter end," and
that, "dejected probably in spirits, he retired from
public employment, and, having married his ser-
vant, he had a large family, aud, it is said, died
poor." We learn from the "Annual Register," however,
that he was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society, and
received a medal "for his curious observations in the
discovery of the North-West Passage in 1740." His latter
years were spent at Norton, where he died. The follow-
ing is the entry of his burial, 1770 :—" Feb.' 15, Christ.
Middleton, master and commander in the Royal Navy."
Some of his papers and journals, it appears, came into
the possession of the parish clerk at Norton, who gave
them to a young sailor of the name of Robinson, who
was shipwrecked and lost his life on the coast of Jutland,
and the papers, we conclude, were lost with him.
Middleton's correspondence with the Hudson's Bay
Company is still extant, we believe, in manuscript, in the
company's archives. His "Narrative" was published in
London shortly after his return.
As Middleton's failure did not shake the general
opinion respecting the possibility of the North-West
Passage through Hudson's Strait, a reward of £20,000
was offered by Parliament for the discovery ; and a new-
expedition under the direction of private persons, with
Mr. Dobbs's assistance, was fitted out for the purpose.
Captain Moor, who had been Middleton's associate, was
appointed to the command. As he seems to have been
but a poor scholar, though doubtless a good seaman, a
Mr. Henry Ellis was sent out with him, engaged by the
committee of management, to write a narrative of the
voyage. The expedition consisted of two vessels — the
Dobbs galley, of 180 tons, and the California, of 140 tons,
the latter commanded by Captain Francis Smith.
Having sailed on the 20th of May, 1746, they made the
land on the 21st of August, on the west side of the
January!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
31
Welcome. Five days afterwards, the Dobbs grounded at
the entrance to Port Nelson, about seven miles from York
Fort, but she was got off without material damage. The
governor of the fort had no mind to promote their
designs, and some time was wasted in disputes with him.
It was then judged to be too late in the season to attempt
explorations that year, so they sailed up Hayes or Nelson
River and moored in a creek, about two miles above the
fort, where they wintered. They resumed the search, or,
more correctly speaking, commenced it, next year, on the
24th of June. But all they did was to sail up Wager
Strait, where they were again disappointed in not find-
ing a passsage, and then cursorily examining another
strait to the northward, which appears to have been
either Middleton's Frozen Strait or the entrance to
Repulse Bay, and where they had no better success. "A
difference of opinions," says Brewster, "prevailed be-
tween the commanders and among the officers as to the
propriety of proceeding to the examination of the bay,
consistent with their instructions. The greater part
were evidently indisposed towards any further research,
urging the advanced season of the year, though it was
only the 7th of August. After this, nothing was done or
attempted. After a council — surely an inglorious council
— they determined to bear up for England." On the 29th
they reached the westward entrance of Hudson's Strait,
and arrived in Yarmouth Roads on the 14th of October,
1747, having been absent one year, four months, and
seventeen days. After this really fruitless voyage,
Captain Moor, adds the historian of Stockton, ''soon
retired from the service ; prudently cast anchor in his
own neighbourhood of Greatham, where he married
Mary, sister of Ralph Bradley, Esq., of Stockton, in
1757, where he continued to reside, and died at that place
in 1765."
A more noteworthy local name connected with North-
West Passage exploration is that of Captain William
Christopher, a native of Norton, who sailed from Fort
Churchill in the summer of 1761, in the sloop Churchill,
belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company, the directors of
which had, in the intervals since Moor's luckless attempt,
risen above the narrow prejudices of their predecessors,
and resolved to make some amends for the obstructions
thrown in the way of former voyagers. Christopher
made his way up Cbesterneld Inlet, through which a
passage had, from Ellis's account of it, been generally
expected ; but finding the water turn brackish, which
showed that he was not in a strait, but in a river, he
returned. The ensuing summer he was ordered to repeat
the voyage in the same ship, and Mr. Norton, in a cutter,
was appointed to attend him. This time they ascended
the Chesterfield Inlet again, and found it to end in a
large fresh water lake, completely land-locked and fed by
small rivulsts, at the distance of about one hundred and
seventy miles from the sea. Several other inlets were
afterwards examined, from latitude 62 degrees to the
south point of Main ; but none of them offered the pass-
age searched for, the deepest not running above three
or four miles inland. So the result of these explorations
was only negative. Captain Christopher settled with his
family at Stockton, in comfortable circumstances, after
having left the company's service; and he died, in the 60th
year of his age, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he bad gone
for medical advice. His remains were interred at Norton.
Turning to the southern hemisphere, we find that one
of the most important discoveries ill high latitudes in
that part of the world was made by a Blyth man, Mr.
William Smith, commander of the brig William, of
JBiyth. He was on a voyage from Buenos Ayres to
Valparaiso, in the year 1819, when, on the 19th of
February, having stretched far to the south, he sighted
land in lat. 62 deg. 40 min., and near the longitude of 62
W., about two leagues off. Hard gales, with flying
showers of snow and fields of ice — a combination of
adverse circumstances — prevented at that time an ex-
ploration of the coast; and on the brig's return to the
Kiver Plate in the following month of May similar cir-
cumstances prevented further discovery. But, on a
subsequent voyage from Monte Video to Valparaiso, in
October of the same year, the William again made
the land, in lat. 62 deg. 30 min. S. and long. 60. deg. W.,
by chronometer bearing distance about three leagues.
Captain Smith ran along the coast, which seemed to be
that of a continent, fringed with islands a good way, and
effected a landing at several points. He found the
country barren and covered with snow, but seals and
spermaceti whales were in abundance. He named it
New South Shetland. It is now known to be an ex-
tensive archipelago, partly if not wholly volcanic, and
almost without a vestige of vegetation, but with several
good harbours. Ever since its discovery it has been the
great seat of the seal, sea-elephant, and whale fisheries
in those seas. One ship'i crew has been known to catch
as many as twelve thousand seals in one season along its
shores ; and the number taken off the islands, durimj the
years 1821 and 1822, chiefly by American vessels, is com-
puted by Captain Weddell at 320.000. Blyth Bay, in
Desolation Island, is that in which the William first
came to anchor, and Smith's Island, named after her
commander, is the westernmost of the group. It is the
highest and most forbidding of the whole, rising to more
than two thousand feet above the sea level, and covered
with eternal snow, except only where the surface is too
precipitous to let it lie. The black dismal rocks contrast
painfully with the glaring white, and give a very weird
aspect to the scene, which is like nothing that meets the
eye in more temperate regions. Captain Smith thought
he saw pino and fir trees growing in many places, as he
ran in a westward direction along the coasts for two or
three hundred miles ; and he reported that the country
had upon the whole the appearance of the coast of Nor-
way ; but no subsequent voyager has seen any trees on
32
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{January
1891.
any part of New South Shetland, or the lands adjacent,
not oven grass or shrubs. The only vegetation, ap-
parently, consists of moss and lichens. But the riches of
the sea make up in some measure for the poverty of the
land. W. B.
Hawfcl* Knuittf
JHE city of York, in its inner and outward
aspect, spans the centuries so completely
that it would be difficult to find a better
compendium in stone of British history.
Here we have tangible memories of Britons, Romans,
Saxons, Danes, and Normans — aye, and even of those
hapless Jews who, after attaining wealth and power,
perished so tragically in the revengeful outbreak of the
twelfth century.
But before we touch that lurid page, let us recall other
incidents in York's story that are infinitely more
pleasurable. We shall not quibble over the names suc-
cessively borne by the city; but it seems indisputable that
the Romans first gave it importance under the title of
Eboracum, and that the Danes anticipated the modern
appellation of "York" by dubbing it Jorvik— the initial
letter having the sound of "y." The beautiful Minster,
which is so commanding a feature in the vale of York, can
claim connection with those remote times, for Con-
stantino the Great, proclaimed Roman Emperor here
From Harp«r'» Magazine.
"
, 1889, by Hirptr 4 Brothen.
MICKLEGATE BAR, YORK.
January 1
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
33
about A.D. 306, is believed to have given, on the very
spot where the sacred edifice now stands, his gracious
permission for the first preaching of Christianity in the
city. On this spot, too, Paulinus baptised the North-
umbrian monarch Edwin ; and if we descend into the
crypt of the present-day Minster we may view the
remains of Edwin's first church, or at least of the original
building reared by Archbishops Thomas and Rogers.
Saxon crypts, however, as in Hexham Abbey, are not
inspiring regions, and the decidedly "elevating" in-
fluence of a climb to the top of the central tower of the
Minster is much more to be recommended. Here the eye
roves over a goodly prospect of the broad -acred county; and
on a fine summer or autumn day one is not, even at this
lapse of time, inclined to dispute the Chevalier Bunsen's
opinion that we see before us " the most beautiful and
most romantic vale in the world, the vale of Normandy
excepted." The description seems all the more faithful
when we remember that Normandy retains its sweet
simplicity, while York, on the other hand, is familiar
with the screams of locomotives, and boasts of
having the largest railway station in the United King-
dom.
Circled by its white walls, however, there is in York
city much that is quaint, and picturesque, and rich in
historic associations. The modern spirit of research has
laid bare the remains of Roman walls, villas, and palaces,
with many curious evidences of military aud domestic
pursuits, as well as samples of architectural ornamenta-
tion and personal adornment. The clustering streets,
with their strange nomenclature, such as the Shambles,
tell their own story, helped out here and there by grim
turrets and frowning gateways. Micklegate Bar, at the
head of one of the principal streets, is eloquent with its
embattled turrets and stone warders, which frequently
From Umi-sk's iuoizi>«. Copyright, loaf,
THE SHAMBLES, YORK.
had for company in the "good old days" the heads of
those who gave offence and had not wit or luck enough
to escape the penalty. A ghastly procession has walked
.
ftw llura'i Xiurax
Copyright, 1889, by Harper 4 Brother..
BARBICAN, WALMGATE BAR, YORK.
3
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
(January
I 1891.
these battlements ! Then, in contrast with the trim
wails of the Castle, there is the ancient tower of the
Cliffords, with its savour of William the Conqueror,
while over the 1'oss lies the glcoiny keep at Fishergate,.
and not far ahead is Walmgate, celebrated as being the
only "bar" that remains
in England with barbi-
can complete. Walm-
gate is indeed a mine of
memories, possessing in
its forbidding front and
jealous, spiteful port-
cullis the clue to the
right reading of many a
page of history.
But Jewbury, close
by, now stirs up recol-
lections of the part
played in York by the
forerunners of the
Rothschilds, and re-
kindles the interest in
the Israelites of " Ivan-
hoe." The Northern
capital was soon fixed
upon by the Jews as a
favourable centre, and
here, William of Newburgh assures us, they attained
1:1
From Harp«r'i Magazine.-- Copyright.
1889, by Harper 4 Brothera.
THE FIDDLER OF TOBK,
CABVED ON THE TOP OF A
JIINSTEB PINNACLE.
"the luxury and the pomp of kings." But, while they
grew fat upon usury, the Crusadere. who had sought their
aid, with many others groaning under extortions, felt the
strain too great to bear, and forthwith resolved tp wipe
out their bonds with the sword. Five hundred Hebrews
took refuge in the Castle, and here they were besieged by
the populace clamouring for the blood of the " Jewish
dogs." Not thus, however, were they to die. An aged
rabbi, perceiving their desperate straits, counselled a,
"free surrender of life to Him that gave it," whereupon
the Jews hid or destroyed all their wealth, set fire to the
Castle, and plunged their daggers first into the hearts of
their women and children and then into their own bosoms.
Not without a shudder, therefore, do we think of what
befell the dwellers in Jewbury.
Monk Bar, which receives its name from the general
who played a part in the Restoration of the Stuart
dynasty, is considered to be the most perfect of the feudal
type of such remains in the country. In this respect,
therefore, both as regards Walmgate and Monk Bar,
York is of special interest to the antiquary. But one
need not pause at the corbelled and embattled turrets, or
tha rudely sculptured defenders who, standing in the act,
have not yet made up their minds to hurl their missiles of
rock. A rich field lies around, and, turn where one will,
there is ample food for study and reflection. Go to the
Mansion House, for instance, and there look upon the
sword of state presented by the Emperor Sigismund, and
Fr3m Harper'* Magazine.
Copyright, 18S9, bj Harper 4 Brother.,
EAST END OF YORK MINSTER, FROM MONK BAR.
January!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
35
upon the cap of maintenance given by Richard II. when
he made William de Selby the first Lord Mayor of York,
the cap to be worn — as faithfully observed to this day —
by the mayoral sword-bearer in all presences on all state
occasions. " My Lord Mayor " keeps up considerable
pomp, and within his own jurisdiction takes social
precedence of all except the sovereign and heir-apparent ;
yet the office has pone a-begging more than once, some of
the elected having paid a monelary consideration to
YOHK MIXHTER, FBO.M TUB MARKET PLACE.
escape from serving. Surely the manifold associations of
the Guildhall, gathered with the roll of centuries, and
crystallized in the stained glass windows and fine oak
carvings, ought to invest with dignity and lustre the
duties of " My Lord Mayor " I
Next to the abodes of civic power we might place
that curious relic, the King's Manor House, which
carries us back to the time of the Tudors and the
Stuarts, for this was the scene of royal receptions, and
here Charles II. held Parliament. Now,
I as a school for the blind, it is the county
! memorial of William Wilberforce, and
I Puritans may eay it thus serves a better
I purpose. Another spot sweet to the
antiquary is the Merchants' Hall, in
Fossgate, which at one stroke, so ripe is
this memorial of the past, takes three
centuries off the world's record. One
might almost expect to encounter on the
step one of those worthy old souls
whose excellent motto is sculptured over
the entrance with the arms of the Cor-
poration : Dieu nous donnc bonne ad-
venture.
But all this while we have been sen-
sible of the influence of the towering
Minster — an influence that must be felt
rather than described. Churches and
charities there are in plenty, and the
student may rejoice in chance specimens
of Gothic and Norman architecture, or
go into raptures over the remains of St.
Mary's Abbey, dating from the Con-
quest, and celebrated for its rich and
powerful monks. But the glory of York
is its Minster. Built in the form of a
cross, it seems the embodiment of peace
and sanctity, while its grand proportions
and stately spires fill the mind of the
beholder with a sense of awe. Fresh
beauties appear at every point, and no
one can weary of contemplating the
delicate tracery of this exquisite piece of
cathedral architecture. The heart burns
at the mere thought that Jonathan
Martin, in a mad freak, sought to
fire this marvellous edifice, and one is
thankful that the design of the incen-
diary was frustrated. Carved on the
top of one of the pinnacles, it may be
noted, is an antique figure which bears
the quaint appellation of "The Fiddler of
York." The interior of the Minster is iu
keeping with the exterior. Let the visitor
enter, and he will realise the full power of
this "sermon in stone." As he stanJs
by Hwp«r A Brothers.
36
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{January
1—
1891.
beneath the central tower, and gazes in admiration at the
works of art that chastely adorn this monument of man's
faith, he is sensible of a sacred influence around him,
and it only requires the rare melody of the choir at even-
song to make all that is spiritual in his nature vibrate in
harmony with the magnificent conception which fills the
Minster and dominates the city.
3Sffrringt0tT irt
pORGE WALDRON, alias Harrington, was
a famous pickpocket towards the end of the
last century. But Harrington was much
more than a common thief. His educa-
tional advantages placed him head and shoulders above
the ordinary criminal level, while his superior manners
and gift of speech showed that, if it had been his fortune
to have commenced life under more favourable conditions,
he would have achieved a respectable position in society.
But his adverse circumstances and false start in life
were entirely due to his own misconduct.
Waldron was born at Maynooth, County Kildare, in
1755. When he had entered his sixteenth year, he at-
tracted the attention of a dignitary of the Church of
Ireland, who placed him in a grammar school in Dublin,
the object being to prepare him for the University. In
an evil moment, he quarrelled with a school-fellow, older
and stronger than himself. Getting the worst of the
fight which ensued, he stabbed his comrade with a pen-
knife. The youth was subjected to discipline for this
offence; but this, instead of having a deterrent effect,
only increased his feeling for revenge. After robbing
the schoolmaster, he escaped from the school-house, and
wandered aimlessly about the country.
While at Drogheda, he joined a company of strolling
players, with whom he remained for a time. The
manager of the troupe, who had previously been con-
victed for fraud and was at the time in fear of capture,
was young Waldron's counsellor and friend. It was at
this man's suggestion that the young fellow assumed the
name of Barrington. Owing to a tolerably pleasing
address, he soon made his name as an actor ; but, fearing
that success in the profession would expose him to the
attentions of his friends, he relinquished what might
have been an honourable career. Acting on the advice
of his evil counsellor, he adopted another profession —
that of a "gentleman pickpocket."
After relieving many Irish gentlemen of their watches
and trinkets, he transferred his operations to London.
Ranelagh Gardens were then in the full flood of popularity
—the resort of the rank and fashion of the time. Here
he managed to pick the pockets of the Duke of Leinster
and Sir William Draper of considerable sums. In 1775
we find him at Bath, where, pretending to be a gentle-
man of fortune, he had no doubt many opportunities of
replenishing his exchequer. On his return to London, he
went to Court on the Queen's birthday, disguised as a
clergyman, and not only picked several pockets, but found
means to purloin a diamond order that adorned the breast
of a nobleman. But perhaps the most daring of his
ventures was the attempt to rob the Russian Prince
Orloff .of a gold snuff-box, set with brilliants, and valued
at £30,000. Following the prince to Covent Garden
Theatre, he contrived to secure the treasure, but was
caught in the act by Orloff himself. For this offence
Barrington was prosecuted ; but he presented so plausible
a defence that liberation followed.
Trouble, however, overtook the audacious thief in 1777,
in which year, being convicted of theft, he was sent to the
hulks for three years. But fortune did not yet desert
him, for, owing to his good conduct in prison, he was
liberated at the termination of the first year.
Six months afterwards he was again convicted of theft,
MINSTER TOWERS, YORK, FROM PETER GATE.
January 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
37
and again sentenced to the hulks, this time for a period of
five years: Once more good luck attended him. Having
nearly wrecked his constitution by an attempt to destroy
his life, his pitiable condition excited the compassion of a
gentleman of rank, a visitor to the hulks, who obtained
for him n free pardon on condition that he quitted the
kingdom. The condition was, of course, accepted, and,
being provided with money by his benefactor, he de-
parted for Dublin.
Within a very short time afterwards he resumed his old
practices. Apprehended on a charge of stealing the
watch and money of a nobleman at a theatre, he made so
effective a defence in court that he was discharged. We
next find him in Edinburgh, and subsequently in London
again. Arrested for violating the condition of release, he
was imprisoned for the remainder of his term in Newgate.
Soon after the expiration of his captivity, he was charged
with stealing the watch of Mr. Haviland Le Mesurier, at
Drury Lane Theatre, but eluded the vigilance of the con-
stable, and so escaped once more.
Harrington wandered about the country in various dis-
guises, and eventually turned up in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
The circumstances of his arrest there are detailed in the
following extract from the Newcastle Chronicle of July 5,
1788:—
On Friday evening, the 27th ult., as the Rev. Mr.
Warilow, of this town, was going into the boxes of the
theatre, a man genteely dressed came up to him, and at-
tempted to take the watch out of his pocket; but having
pulled it in an oblique direction, it stuck fast, and Mr.
Warilow, perceiving his intention, laid hold of his arm ;
he, however, immediately got it disengaged, and walked
up into the green boxes, where he stood looking on the
stage till Mr. W. went to him and accused him of the
attempt, which he denied with great firmness and
hauteur, and affected to be much insulted by the sus
picion ; he then walked down stairs, and into the oppo-
site green box, but, seeing Mr. W. determined not
to leave him, he went again down stairs, and walked
carelessly out of the theatre, when Mr. W., having pro-
cured a constable, he was apprehended in the passage
leading to the Flesh Market. He underwent an imme-
diate examination before Mr. Alderman Rudman, and,
being unwilling to give a satisfactory account of himself,
he was committed to the custody of a sergeant-at-mace
till next morning, when lie was again examined before the
Court of Aldermen ; he there said his name was Jones,
but, that circumstance being doubted, a sailor was
brought into court, who made oath that he knew
him to be the renowned pickpocket Harrington ;
he was thereupon committed to Newgate, and in-
telligence sent off to the Public Office in Bow
Street, an advertisement having been published
from thence in February last, charging him with
having picked the pocket of Haviland Le Mesurier,
Esq., of a purse containing twenty-three guineas and a
half, and offering a reward of five guineas on his commit-
ment. On hearing of his apprehension, the lady who
travels with him, and calls herself his wife, immediately
set off, in their one-horse chaise, towards the south, but
returned again the same evening, in a different convey-
ance, to the Old Queen's Head, in Pilgrim Street, where
she was discovered by one of the sergeants, who con-
ducted her before a magistrate, to undergo an exami-
tion. She said her name was Johnson, and that
her father was a waiter at a tavern in York ; but
no information could be gained from her that could lead
to a discovery of any malpractices of herself or her hus-
band. She still remains in the custody of a serjeant-at-
mace ; but, being far advanced in pregnancy, if no hopes
remain of gaining any criminating matter from her
evidence, humanity would seem to plead much for her
enlargement. Notwithstanding Mr. Harrington's dex-
terity, it appears that he has been rather unsuccessful
here, as we do not find that any losses have been sustained
from the exercise of his art, though it is imagined he was
the person who attempted to pick the pockets of his Grace
the Duke of Northumberland and two other gentlemen in
the theatre. Mr. Harrington, should this be really him,
is a man of genteel appearance and address, about five
feet ten or eleven inches high, slender make, of a dark
complexion, and has sharp, piercing eyes; he was dressed
in a drab coat and round hat. Some of the Bow Street
people are daily expected to arrive here, to convey him to
London.
A fortnight later the ingenious thief was still in
custody, as appears from the following paragraph
extracted from the Newcastle Chronicle of July 19 : —
The supposed Mr. Barrington still remains in custody
here, Sir Sampson Wright not having yet thought proper
to despatch messengers to convey him to London. He at
first, indeed, desired he might be despatched by sea, but
that method was, we imagine, deemed too insecure to be
adopted. He has been visited in Newgate by a great
number of gentlemen, whom he receives in the most polite
manner. We could, however, have wished that some-
what more delicacy had been observed in conducting that
business ; it must be grating to him, and we cannot con-
ceive how anyone can derive pleasure from such a visit.
Another extract from the same source, dated July 26,
1788, gives particulars of the prisoner's removal : —
It having appeared by the certificate of Henry Colling-
wood Selby, Esq., Clerk of the Peace for the county ot
Middlesex, and by the affidavit of John Townsend, that
George Barrington stands indicted at the general sessions
of the peace for the county of Middlesex for felony he was
removed from hence by habeas corpus on Wednesday last
to take his trial thereon. He was conveyed in the mail-
coach in the custody of a sergeant-at-mace and Mr.
Townsend, one of the Bow Street officers.
John Townsend was of course the celebrated "Bow
Street runner, " of whom many exciting stories are told
in the criminal annals of the country. But the special
charge on which Mr. Townsend's captive was taken to
London seems to have tailed on account of the absence at
the trial of a material witness.
In the Newcastle Chronicle for September 13, 1788, we find
an intimation to the effect that Barrington's trial at the
Old Bailey Sessions would commence on the following
Wednesday, when he would be charged with stealing the
watch of Mr. Le Mesurier. The prisoner secured the
services of an eminent lawyer, who, in the absence of
material evidence, was instrumental in securing his dis-
charge from custody.
Barrington's career as a pickpocket may be said to have
come to an end in September, 1798, when, being found
guilty of again picking pockets, he was sentenced to trans-
portation for seven years. During the voyage in the con-
vict ship to Botany Bay, he assisted in quelling a
mutiny, for which service he was duly rewarded.
The captain of the ship gave so excellent an
account of his conduct to the Governor of Port
Jackson that that official at once appointed him
superintendent of convicts at Paramatta. Subsequently
he was appointed high constable of the same place, in
38
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{Jttin89!8ry
which situation he is said to have won the respect of his
superiors. Barrington died in 1804, it is supposed from
mental imbecility induced by remorse for his wasted life.
(SarlaitU
at
goljti £tokoe.
AW WISH YOR MUTHOR WAD CUM.
J|HE catalogue of Newcastle song-writers, be-
ginning with Henry Robson, and followed
in succession by Thompson, Mitford, Gil-
christ, Robson, Corvan, and Ridley con-
tains the names of no more pathetic and homely lyrist
than that of Joe Wilson. A man of blameless life,
not possessing the robust frame which sometimes lends
itself to stirring and robust song, he passed quietly
and respected through a life of only thirty-four years,
dying in February, 1875, and leaving a vacancy which has
not yet been filled. The song we publish, together with
"The Row Upon the Stairs," "The Gallowgate Lad,"
"Dinnet Clash the Door," besides many other of his
homely domestic ditties, will live and be sung as long as
the Tyne runs to the sea. The tune is a well-known Irish
comic melody, to which is sung " The Whistling Thief."
It should be added that Messrs. Thos. and George Allan,
of Newcastle, have lately published a handsome and
complete edition of Wilson's songs, that the song given
below has been chosen by Mr. Ralph Hedley as the
subject for an oil painting, and that this painting has
been reproduced in colours as a presentation plate for the
Christmas Supplement of the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle,
1890.
sure aw'll not stop lanp; ;
ol • ten deun'd for
fun.
"Cum, Geordy, hand the bairn,
Aw's sure aw'll not stop lang ;
Aw'd tyek the jewel mesel,
But really aw's not strang.
Thors floor and coals te get,
The hoose-turns thor not deun ;
So haud the bairn for fairs,
Ye've often deund for fun ?"
Then Geordy held the bairn,
But sair agyen his will ;
The poor bit thing wes gud,
But Geordy had ne skill :
He haddint its nnitlior's ways,
He sat byeth stiff an' nuin ;
Before five minutes wes past,
He wished its muthor wad cum.
His wife had scarcely gyen
The bairn began to squall,
Wi' hikin't up an' (loon,
He'd let the poor thing fall.
It waddent had its tung,
Tho' sum aud teun he'd hum —
Like " Jack an' Jill went up a hill '' —
Aw wish yor muthor wad cum.
"What weary toil," says he,
" This nursin' bairns mun be ;
A bit ont's well eneuf,
Ay, quite eneuf for me.
Te keep a cryin' bairn
It may be grand te sum ;
A day's wark's not as bad —
Aw wish yor nuuhor wad cum.
"Men seldum giv a thowt
Te what thor wives endure ;
Aw thowt she'd nowt te de
But clean the house, aw's sure;
Or myek me dinner an' tea —
It's'startin' te chow its thum ;
The poor thing wants its tit —
Aw wish yor muthor wad cuir.
What a selfish world this is !
Thor's nowt mair se than man ;
He laffs at wummin's toil,
And winnet nurse his awn —
It's startin' te cry agyen,
Aw see tuts throo its gum :
Maw little bit pet, dinnct fret—
Aw wish yor muthor wad cum.
" But kindness dis a vast,
It's ne use gettin' vext ;
It winnet please the bairn,
Or ease a mind perplext—
At last, it's eyen te sleep,
Me wi|e 'ill not say aw's nuin ;
She'll think aw's a real gud nurse —
Aw wish yor muthor wad cum.
hoose-turns thor not
deun.
January \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
39
iUttn*.
j]R. WELFORD, referring to Sir John Delaval,
Bart., of Sea ton Lodge, quotes from Spear-
man's MSS. that Sir John's daughter, having
been married to John Rogers, of Denton, "died within
the year, as was said, by a posset given by Sir John's
mistress, Mrs. Poole, and Mr. Rogers went distracted.'1
(See Monthly Chronicle, 1890, page 251.) Till some
proof be given, this "fairy tale" should be withdrawn
from local history, for in this, as in other of his state-
ments about the Delavals, Spearman, when compared
with facts, appears to have erred. Mr. Rogers was son
and heir of John Rogers, of Newcastle, by Elizabeth,
the fifth daughter of Benjamin Ellison, merchant-
adventurer, of the same town, and, previous to
his marriage with Sir John's daughter, he and his
•widowed mother joined in conveying on November 5,
1713, certain lands in Rouchester. West Denton,
North Seaton, Scotchwood, Benwell, Jarrow, lands
"called Whitefield, in possession of Robert Awde
{sic) and Richard Batty," lands at Hindley,
in the Bywell parishes, lands at Low Sugley and
Lemmgton Green, in the parish of Newburn, &c.,
to certain trustees — to wit, Grey Neville of Billing-
bare, Bucks, and Edward Delavall of Dissington, North-
umberland. That Mrs. Rogers did not "die within
the year," or even seven years, will be seen from
a paragraph in a letter from James Mewburn to
Admiral George Delaval. Mewburn resided at New-
castle, and was evidently the manager for the estate
of Seaton, which was taken over by Admiral
Delaval from Sir John Delaval, Bart. All the build-
ing accounts of the hall, and the estate rentals,
are in his very fine clerk - like handwriting,
giving the most minute particulars, and balanced to a
farthing. Mr. Etty, mentioned by Mewburn, was prob-
ably an assistant to Sir John Vanburgh, and made occa-
sional visits to the works at Delaval Hall. Mewburu's
letter, being of interest, is given in full :—
Newcastle, 10th December, 1720.
Honoured Sr., — Both Your Hon'rs of the 1st and 6th
Instant, I Reed., and now thinks Sr. John Van Brugh
will Keep his Xtmas at Castle Howard, haveing noe
Letter from him. Mr. Etty will most certainly come to
Seaton along with Sr. John, and though I had rather
take to a small fault at any time then make many words,
yett I Cannot bear, when any wrong is put upon mee, so
if Mr. Etty offer to doe any such things, Your Honr. may
be assured I shall speak my mind freely.
Mr. Etty's Letter which your Honr. is pleased to
Inclose mee, Speaks enough to" the Carrying on the work
to perfection. I shall take care of the Lettr. Sr. John
Delavall and all bis i'amily is altogether at the Lodge,
and Madm. Rogers, Sr. John's Daughter, is bearing them
Company, and Mr. Rogers is often there too, and Madm.
Rogers is to stay till Mrs. Pool's Birthday, as I am told.
Mr. Etty has been in Some of his Ares, when he writ the
Dirfction for your Honr.
The Draines are all Cast and wee have Level! Enough,
and most Covered and Secured, so that noe wett canu
stand any where about the House. Mr. Etty takes the
Ordering and Manageing of the draines to himselfe (as I
perceive by his Letter), but must begs his pardon a Little
in that Matter, for Your Brother Knows and forty
more, that they were well advanced before he came to
Seaton.
Wee have abundance of wett weather, which is bring-
ing downe every day some old walls, which wee are
obliged to Repair Immediately to keep the Houseing from
falling.
The Groyning, which Mr. Etty mentions in his Letter,
I think is a terme of Art, which is Arching of the
Passage, as I apprehend him.
The New Stair Case mentioned in Etty's Letter, is
that draught of the Stare Case which Sir John Van
Brugh sent Your Honr. after Your departure from
Seaton, and Your Honr. sent mee. Mr. Etty see it at
Seaton and propose it for the East Stare Case, that is for
the East Tower. When any thing of Substance goes from
hence for Your Honr. shall send your linnen, and Beanes
too if Your Honr. pleases, and likewise all those things
from Madm. Shaftoe when they come to hand, and Your
Honr's. Pillow too, if Your Honr. pleases, but my wife
knows not what method to use to gett it cleaned.
As for the Sault Your Honr. mentions, it was quite
jrone out of my thoughts, but if any such can be
gott shall speak to Mr. Nicholson and Engage him in
that affair.
This day gone seven nights, I mentioned to Your
Honr. that the Gardeners was Supplying the Dead Trees
in the West Avenue, and at night when I gott hon.e they
told mee there was only three dead trees in all that West
Avenue and Circle, the other which seemed dead at Topp
was Growing severall foot above Ground, and this
weather I hope will doe much good to all the planta-
tions. There is near two hundred Elmes planted this
week, wee are now Obliged to plant the large Elmes in
the Nurserys, all the dead ones being renewed, save only
the Scape hill in the Lumperwill field before the North
door, which wee leave till further orders. There is
about 300 limes to plant and many of them must be
planted in the Nursery too. What the Gardeners say
about pruneing seems very reasonable, and ought to be
observed.
Shall Direct the Young men now with me to Obsene
Your Honour's Directions about pruneing the Young
Elmes in the East Nursery.
Shall wait of Sr. John at the Lodge, and doe Your
Honrs. Commands. Shall Observe to plant the Broad
Leafed Elmes with their Lead ing shouts [shoots] on, and
shall plant the Largest Branches in Cuttings of the
Willows, but pray does Your Honr. please to have the
roots of any of the Willows removed, and planted else-
where ?
I am Glad the Corne is gott into the Priver [stack
yard ?]
I doe not Remembr of any full answer given Your
Honr. Concerning the door between the two Great Base-
ments to the North, and Last Setterday was snort about
it, and since have Examined the plans, and doe find the
stairs being placed there, and the sole of the Door levell
with the flower [floor] within, and halfe pace without,
and a window of Each side, very plaine : so what mistake
is here I Cannot tell but it is Certaine that a door Intined
[intended] in the plan to goe up the Stepps between the
North Basements into the Hall : and as for the door
under (which is already made) that comes into the
Duch, is placed for Conveniency of Receiving Vessells
into the Cellar, and will not be seen when the
stepps are made ; tho steps will rise from the North
only and not up at the tnds too, as they are now
Intended.
I hope your Honr. will be pleased to accept of my
wishing you joy of your new Honr. which 1 hope is Con-
firmed upon Your Honr. by this time, and pray be pleased
to excuse my not doing it "earlyer, for doe begg lieve to
assure your Honr. that none doe wish or desire Your
Honr. 's welfare and happyness more than my self e, and
doe Likewise begg Your Honr. will be pleased to advise
mee how to Direct to Your Honr. in propper Expressions
due to Your Honr. ; for it is ueiiher my duty nor my desire
40
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f January
I 1691.
to be any way short in shewing my due obedience to Your
Honr. and all things else that is becoming or due from
Your Honr. 'a most duty full
and obedient humble servant,
JA. MEWBUBN.
Inclosed a Lettr. of Sr. John Vanbrughs which I found
this week have taken a Copy of it.
If Mr. Rogers "went distracted" within the year, he
got over the supposed calamity, for at the county elec-
tion, in February, 1722, we find him residing at New-
castle, and capable ot recording his vote for his freehold
at East Denton, which vote he gave to Ralph Jennison,
the unsuccessful candidate.
CUTHBEKT HOMK TRASLAW.
William 33*U &tatt
MAN of exalted and varied genius was the
poet-artist who, on November 22, 1890, sank
to his rest at the seat of Miss Boyd, Penkill
Castle, Girvan, a home enriched by noble
frescoes from his hand. William Bell Scott, whoso death
is a loss tq the world of art and letters, found in Miss
Boyd a true and devoted friend, who not only cheered his
declining years, but tended with loving care his aged wife.
Rare memories therefore cling to Penkill Castle, rendered
sweeter from the fact that there also the artist's friend
and kindred spirit, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, wrote some
of his subtlest poems.
Mr. Scott, the son of an Edinburgh engraver, and the
younger brother and biographer of David Scott, F.S.A.,
gave early evidence that he possessed the family talent.
Born in Edinburgh on September 12th, 1811, he was
educated at the High School there. His first instruction
in art was imparted by his father and his brother. On
coming to London in 1831, he studied the antique
zealously at the British Museum. Returning to Edin-
burgh, he put forth his earliest poems in Tail's Magazine,
and in the Edinburgh University Souvenir for 1854.
Finally, he left Edinburgh for London about 1836.
His first contribution to a London Gallery was "The
Jester," which was exhibited at Suffolk Street in 1840 ;
while his first picture in the Academy was sent in 1842,
under the title of " Chaucer, John of Gaunt, and their
Wives." Mr. Scott also sent various works to the British
Institution, beginning with " Bell Ringers and Cavaliers
celebrating the Entrance of Charles II. into London,"
which was shown in 1841. This was followed by " The
Old English Ballad Singer," 1842; "Comfort the
Afflicted," 1845; "The School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,"
1846, and five later productions.
Scott's most ambitious effort was due to that impulse
which, in 1842 and 1843, stirred the artistic world to its
depths, and resulted in the Cartoon Competition in West-
minster Hall. To this he sent a drawing of life-size
figures, measuring 11 ft by 9 ft., and representing, in a
dramatic fashion, " The Northern Britons surprising the
Roman Wall." It obtained no premium, but brought its
young author under the notice of some of the more intelli-
gent and influential leaders of opinion. Scott did not
tempt fortune again at Westminster, but, profiting by the
feeling excited in his favour among artists, accepted the
offer of a considerable appointment in the School of
Design, which was then being developed with Govern-
ment aid. Soon after this (that is, in 1843) we find him in
charge of the most important Government school of art in
the North of England, that of Newcastle-upon-Tyne— a
post which he occupied until about 1858, when changes in
what had become the Art Department caused him to
abandon his appointment and remove to London, without
ceasing to be connected with South Kensington.
In 1846 Mr. Scott published his only long poem, "The
Year of the World, a Philosophical Poem on Redemp-
tion from the Fall." Shortly afterwards appeared his
"Memoir of David Scott," "Antiquarian Gleanings in
WILLIAM BELL SCOTT.
the North of England," and "Ornamental Designs for
Silver and Gold Work," with an essay on ornamental
design. Under the title of " Chorea Sancti Viti, or Steps
in the Life of Prince Legion," he published in 1851 a
series of allegorical etchings ; and in 1854 appeared the
volume best known as " Poems by a Painter."
For five years afterwards Scott was employed in paint-
ing eight large pictures illustrating the principal events of
Northumbrian history, at Wallington Hall, the seat of
Sir Walter Trevelyan, Bart. ; and in 1863-4 the com-
plement of his work was executed in the form of
eighteen oil paintings on canvas for the spandrels of
the arches in the saloon containing the Border subjects.
The interest in this magnificent set of paintings does
not depend upon the workmanship or the subjects
alone. All the objects introduced are relics which still
exist in Northumbrian houses, and many of the figures
were portraits of living Northumbrian characters. The
learned author of the history of the Roman Wall occu-
pies a prominent place among the figures on that ram-
January 1
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
41
part, the late Eev. Cooper Abbes figures as St. Cuth-
bert, and Mr. W. H. Charlton, the late proprietor of
Hesleyside, is exhibited as the astonished recipient of
the Charlton spur. The pictures occur in the following
order :— 1, the building of the Roman Wall ; 2, a scene on
the Farne Islands, King Egfrid and Bishop Trumwine
urging St. Cuthbert to accept the bishopric of Hexham ;
3, the Danes invading Northumberland at Tynemouth ;
4, the death of Bede at Jarrow ; 5, the Border Chieftain
shown the emptiness of the larder by the spur in the dish
which is brought in place of dinner ; 6. Bernard Gilpin
preventing a Border feud; 7, Grace Darling's act of
heroism ; 8, Newcastle in the 19th century. A picture
by Mr. Scott, representing the building of the "New
Castle upon Tyne " adorns the walls of the Literary and
Philosophical Society. In 1868 he also completed a series
of mural paintings illustrating " The King's Quhair " on
the spiral staircase of Penkill Castle,
In 1869 Scott brought out "Albert Diirer, his Life
WILLIAM BELL SCOTT.
and Works," a critical bioeraphy, containing admirable
etchings by the author. Other works from his pen which
may simply be mentioned are "Half-hour Lectures
on the History and Practice of the Fine and
Ornamental Arts," "William Blake, Etchings from his
Work," with descriptive text, and " The Little Masters"
(of Germany), a valuable contribution to English art
literature. In 1882 he added to the rest of his acquire-
ments the title of architect by building a hall at Penkill
Castle, and in the same year he published a fresh volume
of poetry, entitled " The Poet's Harvest Home."
We present two portraits of Mr. Scott — one, taken
from a photograph by Mr. C. K. Reed, showing him aa
he was about the time when he first settled in Newcastle,
and the other not many years before his death.
atttr
ST. CUTHBERT'S BEADS.
G. W. Bulman, M. A., writes as follows on this subject
in the Gentleman's Magazine for November : —
Encrinite stems are among the most common fossils of
the carboniferous limestone. They constitute a large por-
tion of its bulk. Locally they are known as St. Cuth-
bert's beads. On a little rock off Holy Island, on the
Northumbrian coast, says the old legend, the Saint
laboriously forged them on his anvil : —
On a rock, by Lindisfarne,
St. Cuthbert sits and toils to frame
The sea-born beads that bear his name.
Here we are presented with the work of St. Cuth-
bert ; further down the coast, near tho classic town
of Whitby, we encounter the deeds of St. Hilda.
The ammonites occurring in the lias there are the
relics of snakes, of which —
Kach one
Was changed into a coil of stone
When holy Hilda prav'd.
Thus even in the domains of the geologist is found
the work of the weaver of legends.
L., Newcastle.
OLD STREET CRIES.
One of the best cries I remember was that of
" Grozers," and this reminds me of an amusing
anecdote which came under my own notice. A
young girl living in Milburn Place, North Shields,
had been to the New Quay (the market place in
those days), and when going along the Front was
asked by a woman whether there were any goose-
berries in the market. She replied, "No, ma'am;
but thor's plenty o' grozers." To my ears the crying
of "Grozers" was at all times most melodious, and
even at this long distance of time I can picture to
myself the form and appearance of "Mary the
Maid," as, with basket on her head, she perambulated
the streets of "canny aad Shields," crying in
stentorian, but not unmelodiotis, voice : —
Lairge ripe gro - zers, caller gro - zers.
I must take exception, however, to both Mr. Greenwell's
and Mr. Haswell's rendering of boiled crabs. I do not
remember ever hearing it " Fine boiled crabs, " as given
42
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{Jauuar;
1891.
by Mr. Greenwell, nor as "Fine boiled crabs, new boiled
crabs, " aa given by Mr. Haswell (see Monthly Chronicle,
1890, pages 379 and 473). To me it was always—
New boiled orabs, new boiled crabs.
The " Borgondy peors " in my young days was converted
into "Fine mahogeney peors," and cried to the follow-
ing:—
Fine ma - hog - en - ey pe - ors.
Plums also came in for a good melodious cry, which was
as follows : —
Lairjje ripe honey plums, ripe honey plums.
While scallions came in with a shrill —
four bunches a penny.
Heor'syour scallions 1
four bunches a f Penny'
Black puddings were also treated to a good cry, and no
doubt many will remember the clean old woman who sat
at the end of the New Quay, just in front of the Pipe-
maker's Stairs, and cried —
A fine black pudding, ninny, a fatten and a gooden, hiuny.
Mr. Greenwell's " Caller harren " is not familiar to me ;
the Cullercoats women's cry was as follows, and I may
remark that in crying herring they never told the price : —
-¥-
p —
f3 ra —
*}} <s
I_J
: i
— &
— i 1
Caller hern fresh hern caller hern.
The Shields women cried as follows, and who does not
remember "Highland Bet " and her lusty daughters ?—
Caller hern fresh hern caller hern here's yer
noble hern four a penny four a penny heor.
The cry of the coal carter as given by Mr. Haswell is also
unfamiliar to me. It was as follows : —
Coals a pen' - north.
I think Mr. Haswell must be alluding to the unmelodious
voice of poor old Tommy Kell, but then Tommy was like
nobody but himself. There are many more cries familiar
to me, from the
New boiled she
of poor old Marget to the
• 0
rimps.
-- o
Fine broon ware, fine broon ware,
of Mally Kelsey. One singular thing in connection with
these cries is that in Antwerp one hears the women cry-
ing their wares in exactly similar tones.
W. D., Lowestoft.
***
One of the most beautiful of street calls, lingering on
the summer air like a breath from scented orchards, was
that given below —
Ye buy hon-ey plums. Ye buy hon-ey plums.
The market garden as well as the orchard had its
songster. She came jogging along, arms akimbo, a well-
laden basket cleverly balanced on her " weeze," and sing-
ing as she went —
Red • dish and seal - lions two bun - ches
— /-
ches
pen - ny two bun • ches a pen • ny.
The Cullercoats fish-wife with a creel-full of crabs had,
and has still, I believe, a very effective call —
:
New boiled crabs. New boiled crabs.
I can recall only one more of the many cries which once
upon a time re-echoed in Shields streets and lanes — that
with which the " rubbin'-stone " vendor used to warn her
customers. Here it is in all its native simplicity —
rub - bin' stone.
D. C., Edinburgh.
THE POET CLOSE.
Perhaps the following anecdote of the Poet Close may
be of interest to your readers :—
Somti years ago, five gentlemen arrived at Windermere
by a late train and put up at the Royal Hotel. They
had read about the celebrated Lake Poet in 1'unch and
the newspapers ; and, having upon inquiry learned that
the eccentric old gentleman was then at Bowriess, they
purposed to make themselves merry at his expense.
Accordingly, a waiter was sent to the poet's lodgings with
the request that he would return with the messenger to
January X
1S91. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
43
the Royal Hotel, where some gentlemen wished to see
him. The poet was smoking his pipe in front of the fire,
preparatory to retiring for the night, but, having always
an "eye to business," was nothing loth to accompany the
waiter.
" How many gentlemen ?" he asked.
"Five," was the reply. „
"Then " said he, " they will want five sets of my books.
He immediately proceeded to put up five sets of his
books to take with him.
On arrival at the hotel, he was introduced to the gentle-
men, and said he supposed, as they had specially sent for
him, they would want to buy his books, and he had,
therefore", brought each of them a set. The gentlemen
looked at each other somewhat taken aback ; but one of
them, quickly recovering, answered : —
" Quite right, Mr. Close. How much?" f>
The poet replied : "Ten shillings each set, gentlemen.
The books quickly changed hands, the poet smilingly
pocketing the five half sovereigns. He was then invited
to drink with them. The gentlemen now, looking forward
to their coming enjoyment, called the waiter to bring
a bottle of port, and one of sherry. Mr. Close was asked
what he would take.
"Gentlemen," said the poet, as the wine was placed on
the table, "you have surely not ordered those for me at
this time of night V"
"Oh, yes, certainly, we have," was the reply.
The poet, taking up a bottle in each hand, said,
"Well, gentlemen, it is very kind of you," and he put
the bottles into his coat pockets. "My wife," said he,
"is partial to sherry, and / like port. So I thank you
very kindly, gentlemen. Good evening."
Before another word could be said, the poet had gone,
leaving the would-be jokers looking at each other in blank
amazement.
" Done, by Jove !" was the general exclamation.
F. N. R., Barrow-m-Furnesa.
THE GREENWELLS OF BROOMSHIELDS.
Broomshields Hall, the seat of the Greenwell family, is
a neat modern mansion a little to the south-west of the
village of Satley, four miles from Lanchester, in the
County of Durham. It occupies a pleasant position, over-
looking a well wooded gill or dene, through which flows
the Pan Burn, a truly sylvan streamlet, one of the
tributaries of the Browney, the Wear's greatest affluent.
The Greenwell family, of Norman origin, is second to
none in the county of Durham in antiquity, and is one of
the few now remaining in England who retain in their
male line the estates which gave them a name. The
earliest mention of the branch of the family (for it had
numbers of scions scattered over West Durham) at this
estate is in the reign of Henry VIII. (1488), when Peter
Greenwell resided at Bromesheles ; and from that date,
now more than four centuries ago, the family have held
the patrimony.
Thomas Greenwell, born 1736, died 1817, married in
1774 Eleanor, daughter and heiress of John Maddison,
Esq., of Hole House, near Alansford, county of Durham,
whose ancestors had held that estate from 1595. Besides
an only son, he left three daughters— Eleanor, Mary, and
Elizabeth— who never married, but resided at Broom-
shields Cottage, near the hall, and died in extreme old
age— at the ages of 96, 86, and 89 years respectively.
John Greenwell, son and heir, born 1785, was for more
than fifty years an active magistrate for the county. He
married Elizabeth Greenwell of the Ford, near Lan-
chester, the daughter of a remote kinsman, and aunt of
Dora Greenwell, the Durham poetess. He died in 1869,
and was buried at Lanchester. A beautiful stained
window erected to his memory is in the south wall of
Satley Church. Thomas Greenwell, the only surviving
son and heir, born 1821, graduated M.A. at St. John's
College, Oxford, was in his year sixth wrangler, and was
called to the bar in 1847. He married Georgina, daughter
of Mr. Bridges, London, by whom he had a numerous
issue. He died 1874, and was buried at Satley.
The estate is now the patrimony of his eldest son, Mr.
F. W. Greenwell, formerly editor of a popular periodical,
author of "Dissertations on the Apocalypse," &c., and
now residing in Florida, U.S.
Broomshields, in the time of Bishop Hatfield's Survey,
1377-1380, was a township by itself, and was divided into
several parcels. These portions have since become amal-
gamated with the adjoining townships. The arms of the
Greenwell family is one of the grandest in the North of
England — Or, two bars azure between three ducal crowns
gules. J. W. FAWCETT.
A CAKKFUL LAD.
A lad from the neighbourhood of Choppington came to
Newcastle, and bought a topcoat. Getting intoxicated,
he pawned the coat the same day. The next morning,
when his mother asked him where the ticket was, he
said :— "Wey, thoo sees, aa we* feered aa wad loss't, se
aa eav't tiv a publican for a glass o' yell !"
WHERE THE QUEEN LIVES.
An old woman who resides at Byker was asked where
her daughter Mary was living. "Oh," was the leply,
"at Windsor Crescent." "Wey," was the observation,
"aa thowt she'd got a plyece as norsemaid in Victoria
Square!" "Yor reet, and aa's wrang," said the old
lady ; " aa knaa'd it wes yen o' them streets whor the
Queen lives 1"
LONG STOCKINGS.
A miner entered a drapery establishment at Seaham
Harbour one day. He was accosted by the master of the
establishment as to what he could serve him with, when
the customer asked to see some "lang stockin's." After
having had about a dozen pairs to inspect, he said that
" nyen o' them wad de for him." " Well, how's that my
good man ? These are long enough." " That's aall reet,
mistor, but aa want a pair o' bow-legged yens !"
PAKADISE.
According to a famous old story, one Patrick Long had
occasion to remove from Blaydon to Paradise. On the
day of his removal the river was much swollen from recent
rains ; the haughs, in fact, about the different parts of the
44
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{January
1—
1891.
river being completely covered with water. A few
months after this Patrick found himself in the Assize
Court, and in the course of his examination was asked his
name. "Patrick Long," was the reply. "Where do you
live?" "Paradise." "Where?" said the Judge, half
inclined to be severe. "Paradise, sor." "Aye, and how
long have you lived there ?" " Ivvor since the flood," was
the reply. Here the judge was about to administer a
rebuke, when a local solicitor, interposing, explained the
circumstance.
PIT LADS AT SEa.
A couple of pit lads were on board ship during a storm.
Snugly seated in the cabin, one of them asked the other
who had just been on deck— "What kind o' weather
is't?" "Eh! man," was the reply, "it's a sair neet at
bank ! "
THE BEVOLUTION OF THE EAETH.
In a public-house in the neighbourhood of Blaydon, the
conversation turned upon the earth revolving, when an
old man said, "Aa'll nivvor believe the warld gnns
round. Aa've hard it mony a time, but nebody '11 ivvor
persuade me that." One of the company drew au
imitation of the globe, and proceeded to explain, when
the old gentleman stopped him. "It's ne use," said he,
" it's ne use thoo trying ta shove that down ma throat.
Aa've had far aader yens than thoo at ma, and it's aa'll
been neuse." "Well, but," replied the other, "listen."
"Na, na," continued our old friend, "aa can prove that
aa's reet. Aa've wrowt in the pits sin aa was nine year
aad ; aa've gin in both forst and back shift ; and aa've
gan into the hoose all hoors of the neet ; and the Black-
hill cinder yovens wis aalways opposite wor back door !"
On the 12th of November, 1890, Mr. Alderman Thomas
Hedley, J.P., died suddenly at his residence in Fenham
Terrace, Newcastle.
Born at Harnham, in
Northumberland, on the
22nd of April, 1809, the
deceased gentleman was
in the 82nd year of his
age. Mr. Hedley was the
founder of the firm uf
Thomas Hedley and
ALDERMAN THOMAS HEDLEY.
,
facturers, New Road.
He entered the Town
Council as one of the
representatives of East
All Saints' Ward on
the 1st of November,
1853, and he had held
the position of alder-
man since the 13th Of
November, 1866. In 1860-61, he served as Sheriff, and
in 1863-64-, he filled the office of Mayor. Mr. Hedley
was also prominently associated with several local com-
mercial undertakings. The chief of these was the New-
castle and Gateshead Gas Company, of which for nearly
twenty years he had been chairman.
The same day, the remains of Mr. Featherstone
Martindale, a Weardale poet, who had died on the 8th,
were interred at Westgate.
Mr. George Greenwell, a leading tradesman and magis-
trate of Durham, died in that city on the Kth of Novem-
ber, in the seventieth year of his age.
On the 15th of November, Mr. Ambrose Walker, J.P.,
died at Stafford House, South Stockton. The deceased,
who was proprietor of the pottery at South Stockton
before its transfer to a limited liability company, was
about 60 years of age.
On the same day, died Mr. Thomas Charles Johnson
Sowerby, late ef Snow Hall, Gainsfurd, aged 53. He was
a magistrate for North Yorkshire, and was a well-known
athlete and gentleman jockey.
The death was announced on the 17th of November, oi
the Very Rev. George Curry, of Dodding Green, near
Kendal, for some time connected with the Roman
Catholic Missions at Bishop Auckland and Button
Henry, in the county of Durham. He was in his 74-th
year.
On the 17th of November, Jesmond Cemetery received
the remains of Mr. Michael Ewbank, who sixty years ago
was a well-known figure on the Quayside of Newcastle,
where he carried on the busingss of a shipbroker. He
was brother of Mr. John Wilson Ewbank, the painter,
and was a native of Gateshead. It is nearly a generation
since the deceased retired from business and settled at
Murpeth, where in his ninetieth year he died.
Mr. George Angus, founder of the firm of George
Angus and Co., leather merchants, sometime ago con-
verted into a limited liability undertaking, with branches
in Newcastle, Liverpool, London, and Cardiff, died on the
18th of November, at his residence, Low Gosforth Hall,
near Newcastle. Mr. Angus, who was 69 years of age,
was a prominent member of the local Baptist body, and
had for a short time a seat in the Newcastle Town Coun-
cil. The deceased gentleman left bequests to a number
of local charitable ins titutions, to the amount of upwards
of £2,000.
The Rev. Canon Kearney, a well known Roman
Catholic clergyman, also died on the 18th of November,
at Darlington, aged 70. He commenced his clerical life
in Newcastle in 1847, but in 1349 was transferred to The
Brooms, Leadgate, with which he retained his connection
to the last.
Mr. William Waggott, who in his youth was an
active Chartist, died at Sunderland, his age being 76
years.
On the 20th of November, Mr. William Laine, of
Carlton Villa, Benton, died at the advanced age of 86
years.
Mr. Henry Greenwell, J.P., formerly Registrar of
the Durham County Court, died on the 23rd of
November.
On the 23rd of November, the remains of Mr. Thomas
Taylor, tyler to the Fawcett Lodge of Freemasons, and
formerly a shipmaster, were interred in the cemetery at
January!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
45
Seaham Harbour. The deceased had been a resident in
that town for nearly sixty years.
Mr. Robert Vint, long connected, as part proprietor,
with the Sunderland Herald, and one of the founders of
the Sunderland Water Company, died at the Cedars,
Sunderland, on the 23rd of November. The deceased,
who was a native of Blyth, and was at one time a chemistt
was in the 83rd year of his age.
Dr. Edwin Douglas, a medical gentleman in practice at
Jlorpeth, died suddenly in that town on the 25th of
November.
Mr. George Edward Watson, coroner for North North-
umberland, and the holder of a number of other public
offices, died at Alnwick on the 28th of November, at the
age ot 54 years.
On the same day, at the advanced age of 95, Mr. John
Nesbitt, farmer, one of the oldest teetotallers in the
country, died at Paxton South Mains, near Berwick-on-
Tweed.
Mr. Joshua Coke Monkhouse, late estate agent at
Egglestone, in Teesdale, and father of Mr. Monkhouse,
of the firm of Monkhouse and Goddard, accountants, died
at Barnard Castle, on the 30th of November, at the age
of 76 years.
On the 2nd of December, news was received of the
death of Hardcastle Bey (brother of Dr. Hardcastle,
surgeon to the Newcastle Gaol), at his residence in
Alexandria, Egypt. The deceased was a son of the late
Dr. Hardcastle, of Newcastle, who was married to a sister
of the late Mr. R. P. Philipson. Mr. Hardcastle was one
of the railway engineering pupils sent out by Robert
Stephenson, the great engineer, to superintend the laying
down of the first railway in Egypt, and was afterwards
appointed chief engineer. His services under the
Egyptian Government lasted forty years. Latterly, Mr.
Hardcastle took up another sphere of work, transferring
his abilities from the railway to the department of ports
and lighthouses, filling the position of Deputy Controller
General. He witnessed the bombardment of Alexandria
by the fleet under Admiral Seymour (now Lord Alcester);
and for services rendered during that period, as well as
for former good work, he received the rank of Bey, the
highest under the Turkish empire. Hardcastle Bey was
over 60 years of age.
. Mr. Thomas Hallam, Borough Accountant, Middles-
brough, died after an exceedingly short illness on the 4th
of December, at the age of 57.
On the same day, Mr. Charles Marvin, journalist,
author, and lecturer, died at his residence in London, ac
the age of 36. The deceased, among other literary work,
had, as the result of a special mission to Russia, contri-
buted a series of able articles to the Newcastle Daily
Chronicle on the Central Asian question. They were
afterwards published in book form under the title of
"The Russian Advance Towards India."
On the 8th of December, the death was announced, at
the age of 103 years, of Patrick Quin, at Cowpen Quay,
Blyth. The deceased, who was a native of Ireland, had
been thrice married, and at the time of his death had 30
children, and between 80 and 90 grandchildren.
The same evening, the Countess of Ravensworth died
somewhat suddenly at Ravensworth Castle. The deceased
lady was a daughter of the late Captain Orlando
Gunning Sutton, R.N., and was married to the Earl of
Ravensworth in 1852.
At the age of 77, Mr. George Hutchinson, one of the
earliest managers at the Elswick works of Sir W. G.
Armstrong and Co., Newcastle, died on the 9th of
December.
On the 9th of December, the remains of Sergeant
David Jackson, late of the 3rd Battalion Northumber-
land Fusiliers, who had been engaged in active service in
the Crimean and other campaigns, were interred in
Alnwick Cemetery.
^lort|)=CIountr3i ©entrances.
NOVEMBER, 1890.
10. — A swallow was seen at Blaydon Burn.
11.— Mr. John Bryson, of Blyth, was presented with a
solid gold albert and medal for his heroic service at
Warkworth, in saving some of the excursionists from a
watery grave.
12. — A monument to perpetuate the memory of Dr.
Carlo Pallotti, late Italian Vice-Consul in Newcastle, was
unveiled in Jesmond Cemetery.
— Foundation stones were laid for a new Congregational
Church in Sorley Street, Sunderland.
— Mr. Hunter resigned his position as superintendent
registrar of births, deaths, and marriages in Newcastle,
and Mr. Morison Johnston was afterwards appointed by
the Newcastle Guardians to the vacant office.
15. — An alarming explosion occurred at the Middles-
brough Corporation Gasworks. A considerable portion of
the works was blown to atoms, and the engineman,
named William Ogden, was killed and buried in the
debris. The town was in a state of darkness for two
nights owing to the accident.
16.— According to annual custom, the new Mayor (Mr.
J. Baxter Ellis) of Newcastle, attended by the members
and officials of the Corporation, attended service at St.
Nicholas' Cathedral. The sermon in St. Nicholas was
preached by the Bishop of Newcastle; and the collections,
on behalf of the medical charities, amounted to £144 3s.
4d. The day was similarly observed in other Northern
boroughs.
—Mr. Henry Arthur Jones, dramatic author, lectured
in the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, under the auspices of
the Tyneside Sunday Lectfire Society, his subject being,
"On Being Rightly Amused at the Theatre."
17. — A boiler explosion occurred at Palmer's shipyard,
Jarrow, whereby George Scanlon was killed, and George
Porthouse and Robert Johnson were severely scalded.
— The Bishop of Durham presided at the annual meet-
ing of the Newcastle and Gateshead Branch of the Peace
Society, in the Town Hall, Gateshead.
. — By a majority of 31 to 18, the Newcastle City Council
resolved to purchase Byker Bridge for the sum of
£107,500.
18.— The mutilated dead body of a German workman.
46
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
(January
1=91.
named Philip Kirschtnann, 37 years of ago, was found in A
pond at South Bank, near Middlesbrough ; and on the
following day a coroner's jury returned a verdict of wilful
murder against some person or persons unknown.
— As the result of a poll it was found that, in response
to the offer by Mr. T. Wrightson, J.P., to erect a handsome
building for Free Library purposes, the owners and rate-
payerscf South Stockton had resolved, bya large majority,
to adopt the Public Libraries Act.
19.— The Durham colliery owners resolved to advance
the wages of their workmen by 5 per cent, from the 29th
of December, 1890, and the 5th of January, 1891. The
men accepted this arrangement.
— Mr. W. B. Wilkinson, J.P., was elected chairman,
and Mr. Edward Leadbittor deputy-chairman, of the
Newcastle and Gateshead Gas Company.
— A little boy, between three and four years of age, son
of George Ougbton, miner, was accidentally drowned in
the river Wear, at Bishop Auckland, near the spot where,
only a year previously, a brother of the deceased had met
with the same fate.
— Dr. Lunn, a leading member of the Wesleyan body,
preached in the Wesley Hall, Beaumont Street, New-
castle.
— The bronze medal of the Royal Humane Society was
awarded to Joseph Craig, son of the Ouseburn hero, for a
gallant feat of life saving, performed in the river Tyne at
Newcastle on the 23rd of September. The medal was
formally presented by Mr. Alderman W. D. Stephens in
the Central Hall, Newcastle, on the 6th of December.
20. — George Sterling, formerly assistant-overseer of
Elswick township, Newcastle, was brought from London,
where he had been arrested ; and on the following morning
he was remanded by the Newcastle magistrates on a charge
of having made certain false entries in a banker's pass-
book belonging to the overseers.
21. — Senor Sarasate, the celebrated Spanish violinist,
gave a performance in Newcastle.
22. — A concert in aid of the proposed memorial to
William Shield was held at Swalwell, of which village the
celebrated musician and composer was a native.
— Mr. R. B. Cunninghame Graham, M.P., addressed
meetings at Backworth, and on the following evening he
presided at a meeting held under the auspices of the
Socialist Sunday Lecture Society.
— A woman named Jane Gibson, 63 years of age, was
accidentally killed at the Teams, on the North Eastern
railway, her head being literally severed from her body.
— Arrangements were concluded whereby Washington
Hall, in the county of Durham, the property and once
the residence of Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, was placed by
that gentleman at the disposal of the committee of the
Gosforth Home for Waifs and Strays.
23.— At the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, under the
auspices of the Tyneaide Sunday Lecture Socictv, a
lecture was delivered by Mr. Oakey Hall, late Mayor of
New York, under the title of "American Views in an
English Mirror."
— The Rev. C. P. Sherman preached a farewell sermon
as curate of St. Paul's Church, Newcastle, previous to his
removal to St. John Lee, near Hexham. He was inducted
into his new charge on the following day.
— Mrs. Walker, wife of a farm labourer near Consett,
gave birth to three children, all boys.
2+.— Mr. Thomas Burgess Winter, optician, was elected
an alderman of Newcastle.
— It was announced that Mr. Stephen Scott, of HLXITO-
gate, formerly of Newcastle, had given the sum of £1,000
to the Newcastle College of Medicine for the purpose of
founding a scholarship to promote the study of hernia
and allied complaints.
— During a gale, Thomas Stephenson and David
Young, two pilots, were drowned by the upsetting of
their boat off the mouth of the Tyne.
25. — The Rev. Father Wood, who for seven years had
been pastor of St. Andrew's Roman Catholic Church
Newcastle, was presented with an address and a purse of
gold, on the occasion of his departure for Tow Law.
— Mr. J. B. Radcliffe, a member of the staff of the New-
castle Daily Journal, was presented with an address and
a cheque for £315, with a diamond bracelet worth £105
for Mrs. Radcliffe.
—A verdict of wilful murder against some person or
persons unknown was re-
turned by the coroner's
jury in the case of
Richard William For-
syth, the young man
who had met with his
death so mysteriously
in Gateshead. (See
Monthly Chronicle, 1890,
page 575.)
26. — Acomplimentary
dinner was given in the
CouncilChamber, Gates-
head, to Mr. Alderman
John Lucas by his col-
leagues and friends, in
recognition of his ser-
vices as Mayor of tins
borough during the two
municipal years 1888-89
and 1889-90.
27.— Mr. Ii.icb.ard Welford, author of "Men of Mark
Twixt Tyne and Tweed,'1 was elected a director of the
Tyne Steam Shipping Company.
— A man named Edward Walls gave himself up to the
police authorities at Sunderland, stating that he had
stabbed a man called Dennis O'Neill in Low Friar Street,
Newcastle. The police officials in that city, on being
apprised of the circumstance, proceeded to a marine store
shop in the thoroughfare in question, and found the body
lying beneath two bales of paper. The coroner's jury
returned a verdict of wilful murder against Wallu ; and
he was afterwards committed for trial by the magistrates
on the same charge.
28.— Mr. Arthur Grant, M.A., in connection with the
Cambridge and Durham Universities Extension move-
ment, delivered in the Nelson Street Lecture Hall,
Newcastle, the first of a series of popular free lectures oil
the French Revolution.
—Three persons were injured by the bursting of a hot
water pipe used for heating in the fuse department of the
ordnance works at Elswick ; and one of the number,
James Tulip, 16 years of age, died on the following day.
— The Lord Bishop of Newcastle appointed the Rev.
James Henderson, Clerk in Holy Orders, M.A., Rector
of Wallsend, and the Rev. Henry Frederick Long, Clerk
in Holy Orders, M.A., Vicar of Bamburgh, to be
Honorary Canons of the Cathedral Church of St. Nicholas.
B. W. FORSYTH.
January \
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
30. — Mr. Wedmore, art critic of the Standard, was the
Sunday evening lecturer at the Tync Theatre, Newcastle,
his subject being "The Life and Work of Turner."
DECEMBER.
1.— A new Constitutional Club, built at a cost of
£6,500, was opened at Sunderland.
— The Empire Variety Theatre, a new place of enter-
tainment in connection with the Royal Scotch Arms,
Newgate Street, Newcastle, was opened to the public for
the first time.
— The Rev. E. B. Hicks, B.A., was presented with a
purse of gold on the occasion of his leaving Newcastle for
Killingworth.
— A fine specimen of the white-tailed eagle was shot at
Eshott, Northumberland. It measured 7 feet 6 inches
from tip to tip, 39 inches in length, and weighed 10 pounds
6 ounces.
—At Durham Assizes, the bill against George Spencely
for the manslaughter of Joseph Cooper, at Coundon, was
thrown out by the Grand Jury ; and William Stavely,
who was convicted on the 4th, was sentenced to two
months' hard labour. (See page 573).
2.— Mr. T. Burt, M.P., was entertained to dinner by
the members of the Eighty Club in London.
3.— Mr. T. Eustace Hill, M.B., Health Department,
Birmingham, was appointed Medical Officer of Health
for South Shields.
—Mr. Albert Grey despatched from Longhoughton
Station, to Palatswie, in South Africa, on behalf of the
South African Company, three bulls as a present to the
principal chief of that part of the interior of the African
Continent.
—Miss L. E. Pease, daughter of Sir J. W. Pease, M.P.,
of Hutton Hall, was married to Mr. Gerald Buxton.
eldest son of Mr. Edward North Buxton, late chairman
of the London School Board.
4. — It was announced, sad to say, that beautiful speci.
mens of the red-throated diver and young skua had been
shot on the Northumberland coast.
— A local committee was appointed at a meeting in the
Newcastle Council Chamber to aid the National Associa.
tion for the discovery of the best and most economical
means of preventing black smoke from factories.
— At a meeting of the committee of the Newcastle
Royal Infirmary, a special vote of thanks was accorded to
Dr. John Rutherford for his very valuable gift of lymph
which he had received from Dr. Koch, of Berlin, for the
treatment of consumption. On the 9th, four patients
were inoculated with the liquid at the Infirmary, in the
presence of a large number of local medical gentlemen
and students. There were three cases of tuberculosis and
oue of lupus.
— At Durham Assizes, a man named John Forster
pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Elizabeth Forster,
at Gateshead, on September 2nd, and was sentenced tu
nine months' hard labour.
5. — A new Salvation Army Temple in Westgate Road,
Newcastle, capable of accommodating 2,800 persons, was
opened by " General " Booth, who in the evening
addressed a large assemblage in the same place on his
social amelioration scheme, entitled "Darkest England,
and the Way Out." The chair was occupied by Mr.
Aid. W. D. Stephens, and subscriptions to a considerable
amount were announced.
6. — A branch of the National Home Reading Union
was formed for Newcastle and Gateshead.
— Miss Alice Simpkin, a young violinist, played with
much success at the People's Concerts, Newcastle. The
accomplished little lady began her musical career on
Tyneside, but is now a pupil of Herr Hollander at the
Guildhall School of Music in London. Miss Simpkin
is an early member of Uncle Toby's Dicky Bird Society.
Moreover, she composed the music for a Dickv Bird song
that appeared in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle on
October 25th.
7.— The weekly lecture in the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle,
under the auspices of the Tyneside Sunday Lecture
Society, was delivered by Dr. Andrew Wilson, editor of
Health, his subject being, "Is Evolution a Fact?"
8. — The Natural History Museum, Barras Bridge,
Newcastle, after having been fitted in every part with the
electric light, was opened to visitors, for the first time,
between the hours of seven and nine in the evening.
— Mr. and Mrs. William Ritson, of Woodley Field,
Hexham, celebrated their golden wedding.
—The Carl Rosa Opera Company commenced a series
of twelve nights and two morning performances at the
Tyne Theatre, Newcastle.
9.— At the York Assizes, Robert Kitching, aged 34,
market gardener, was found guilty of the murder of
Police-Sergeant Weedy, at Leeming, near Bedale, on ths
19th of September. The jury recommended him to
mercy. Sentence of death was passed in the usual form.
—A portrait of Thomas Haswell, for nearly fifty years
the head-master of the Royal Jubilee Schools, North
Shields, was unveiled in the Public Library of that town,
and a medal in honour of Mr. Haswell was presented
to the dux of the schools.
10. — Operations were commenced at six of the salt pans
recently laid down near the North Ormesby toll bar,
Middlesbrough.
— A fire, causing a considerable amount of damage.
48
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{ *89J
1891.
broke out in the drying shed of Messrs. Gray's extensive
shipyard, East Hartlepool Docks.
(general Occurrences.
NOVEMBER.
11. — The British cruiser Serpent was wrecked off Cape
Buck, on the north-west coast of Spain. Of the crew of
176 only three were saved.
— A collision occurred on the Great Western Railway
near Taunton. Ten people were killed and many others
injured. Among the killed were two North-Countrymen
— Joseph Reed and John Edward Morris— who were re-
turning from South Africa.
14. — An extraordinary edition was published of the
German Medical Weekly, which contained an article by
Dr. Koch on his discovery of a cure for tuberculosis.
— John Reginald Birchall was hanged at Woodstock,
Canada, for the murder of Mr. Ben well.
15.— The body of a school teacher. Elizabeth Holt,
which was discovered near Bolton, bore unmistakable
evidence that the girl had been brutally murdered. A
man named Macdonald confessed that he had done the
deed.
— The election for Lord Rector of Glasgow resulted as
follows :— Mr. Arthur J. Balfour, 948 ; Lord Aberdeen,
717.
— Mr. Goschen, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was
elected Lord Rector of Edinburgh, with 1,378 votes ; Sir
Charles Russell, the other candidate, obtained 805 votes.
— An action was brought by Captain O'Shea for
divorce against his wife, Mrs. O'Shea, on the grounds of
her adultery with Mr. Charles Stewart Parnell, the leader
of the Irish Parliamentary party, a decree nisi being
granted by Mr. Justice Butt. No defence was made by
Mr. Parnell ; but Mrs. O'Shea made counter allegations
against her husband of connivance and adultery with her
sister, Mrs. Steele, which were proved to have no founda-
tion whatever.
16.— Death of Mr. Shirley Hibberd, a well-known
horticulturist.
— General Seliverskoff, of the Russian army, was found
shot at the Hotel de Bade, Paris. The murder was
supposed to have been perpetrated by a Pole, named
Padlewski.
19.— Lady Rosebery died at Dalmeny Park. She was
the daughter and heiress of the late Baron Meyer de
Rothschild.
— The trial of Irish members of Parliament and others
for conspiracy, which was begun at Tipperary on Septem-
ber 25th, was brought to a conclusion. Messrs. John
Dillon, William O'Brien, Patrick O'Brien, and John
Gullinane were each sentenced to six months' imprison-
ment, while others were sentenced to four months'
imprisonment.
21. —A fierce south-easterly gale prevailed off the coast
of Norway, an entire fishing fleet was destroyed, and
hundreds of lives were lost.
23.— The King of the Netherlands, William III., died
at the Castle of Loo. His Majesty was born on February
19th, 1817, and succeeded to the throne on March 17tb,
1849.
—Mr. W. Beckett, member for the Bassetlaw Division
of Nottinghamshire, was killed on the railway at Wira-
borne.
25.— Parliament reassembled after the autumn vaca-
tion. A meeting of the Irish party was held in
one of the committee rooms of the House of Com-
mons, when Mr. Parnell was received with enthusiasm,
and was unanimously re-elected chairman of the party.
The same afternoon Mr. John Morley communicated to
Mr. Parnell the contents of a letter he had received from
Mr. Gladstone, to the effect that, if Mr. Parnell did not
retire from the leadership of the Irish party, he (Mr.
Gladstone) would renounce public life. The following day
another meeting of the Irish party was held, when Mr.
Parnell declined to retire, though a majority of his sup-
porters were against him. Three days later Mr. Parnell
issued a manifesto to the Irish people, in which he made
some remarkable disclosures, the principal of which was
an account of a private interview which he had with Mr.
Gladstone at Hawarden. The accuracy of this version of
the interview was afterwards denied by Mr. Gladstone.
Mr. Parnell subsequently offered to retire if Mr. Glad-
stone would give a guarantee that any Home Rule Bill
passed by the Liberals would yield to the Irish Parliament
the control over the police, the land, and the judiciary.
But Mr. Gladstone declined to say or do anything in the
matter while Mr. Parnell remained leader of the Irish
party On the 6th December, about fifty of the Irish
members who were opposed to Mr. Parnell severed them-
selves from the remaining section, and formed an indepen-
dent party with Mr. Justin McCarthy as chairman. Mr.
Parnell proceeded to Dublin on the 9th, and was there
received with extraordinary enthusiasm. Among the
exciting scenes which followed were the seizure of the
office of United Ireland by the Parnellites, the recapture
of the premises by the anti-Parnellites, and the final
ejection of the old staff of the paper.
DECEMBER.
3. — The body of Lord Cantelupe, who was drowned in
Belfast Lough on November 7th, was found near the
scene of the disaster.
— Death of Lord Cottesloe, who was Chief'Secretary
for Ireland during the last years of Sir Robert Peel's
Administration, and Secretary tor War in 1844-5. He
was chairman of the Board of Customs until 1873, and
was raised to the peerage in 1874. His lordship, who
was 92 years of age, claimed to have been present at the
reading of the Budget for fifty years in succession.
— Mary Eleanor Wheeler, charged with the murder of
Mrs. Hogg and her child at Hampstead, was sentenced to
death.
4. — Death of Mr. Charles Marvin, author, lecturer, and
journalist, aged 36. (See Monthly Chronicle, 1889, page
573.)
5. — Death of Baron Huddleston, one of the last of the
Barons of the old Exchequer Court abolished by the
Judicature Act.
9. — Six children were drowned at Tipton, South Staf-
fordshire, through the breaking of the ice on a colliery
pool.
Printed by WALTEB SCOTT, Felling-on-Tyne.
'Cbe
Cbronicle
OF
NORTH-COUNTRY*LORE»AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 48.
FEBRUARY, 1891.
PRICK 60.
JTtucr jlfftiiblr JKBCearlfal*
HT a distance of rather over a mile south-
west of Walsingham, in the pleasant Wear
Valley, in the county of Durham, there
nestles on the immediate southern bank of
the river Wear, Holbeck House, the ancient home of the
Craggs family. This secluded building is situated on the
margin of the tiny stream of Hole Beck, whose crystal
water renders the spot more picturesque as it ripples
through a ferny glen with wooded banks.
The old house, with the surrounding lands, is now the
property of Colonel H. J. Wilkinson. Here, in Holbeck
House, were deposited in 1875 by the owner of the
estate, Colonel Wilkinson, some interesting memorials of
its ancient owners. These memorials are three engravings
which at one time belonged to the Craggs family, and
the following note is attached to the pictures: — "I
desire these engravings may be left where I have placed
them at Holbeck House, the birth-place of James
Craggs, Sen., and the ancient home of the Craggs family.
They were presented by some of the family to Mr.
Chapman of Wolsingham, on whose death they were
sold by auction, and purchased by Mr. Josh. Nicholson,
parish clerk, from whom I bought them in 18,74. They
are now in their original frames and glasses, and I wish
them to remain so.— H. J. WILKINSON, late Major 9th
Regiment, Curragb, 1875," One is the portrait of the
Right Hon, James Craggs, Secretary of State, &c. The
engraving is dated 1720, and is by Virtue from the
original portrait painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller. The
second portrait is that of the Secretary's father, James
Craggs, Sen., Postmaster-General of Great Britain, and
appears to have been engraved by Virtue in 1728 from
a painting by Kneller in 1709. The third picture
represents Edward Eliot, of Port Eliot, Cornwall, his
wife Elizabeth, second daughter and co-heiress of James
Craggs, Sen., and their two children, James and Eliza-
beth.
When Anthony Craegs, the grandfather of the Secre-
tary of State, lived at Holbeck, the rector of the adjoin-
ing parish of Stanhope was the Rev. Ferdinando
Moorcroft, one time master of Greatham Hospital, who
was collated to Stanhope in 1608. He was rector of
Heighington from 1625 to 1639, but appears in the mean-
time to have retained the rectory of Stanhope up to the
time of his death in 1641. In the Stanhope register we
50
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{February
1891.
find— "Ann Moorecroft, daughter to Mr. Ffardenando
Moorecroft of Stanhop, person, was bap. 28th Oct. 1628.
Her godfather was Mr. Anthony Maxton [rector of
Wolsingham] ; her godmothers, Mrs. Ann Maddison and
Mrs. Mary Phillopson." This Ann was grandmother to
Secretary Craprgs, having married, June 22, 1654, at
Heighington, Anthony Craggs of Wolsingham, a repre-
sentative of an old family.
Anthony and Ann Craggs had issue, James, who
b«came Postmaster-General; Ann, born in 1661, who
married Mr. George Robinson, London, died in 1726,
and was buried at Charlton, Kent; and ' Ferdinando who
died unmarried at the old home at Holbeck in the year
1749, at the age of 78 years.
James Craggs, son of Anthony, was born at Holbeck,
and was baptised at Wolsingham Church, June 10, 1657.
He married Elizabeth, sister of Brigadier Michael
Richards, Surveyor-General of the Ordnance to George I.
A manuscript accompanying the engravings above men-
tioned gives the following particulars of Anthony's son
and grandson : — "Mr. Craggs was member of Parliament
for Grampound from 1702 to 1713. He held several im-
portant and lucrative positions under Government in the
reigns of Queen Anne and her successor, George I.
He died of a broken heart, March 16, 1721, one month
after his son, to whom he was deeply attached, and on
whom he built his hopes for the ennoblement of his
family. The aspersion cast upon them both by the
sufferers in the South Sea Bubble tended no doubt in a
great measure to his sad end."
The elder Craggs was buried at Charlton in the county
of Kent, where there is a tablet erected by his daughters
to his memory bearing the following inscription : —
"Here lies the body of James Craggs, late of Lon-
don, Esq., one of His Majesty's Postmasters-General.
He was the son of Mr. Anthony Craggs of Holbeck, in
the parish of Wolsingham, in the County Palatine of
Durham, and died the 16th of March, 1720-21. He had
issue one son and three daughters, viz., the Right Hon.
James Craggs, Esq., one of the Principal Secretaries of
State to his present Majesty, who died one month before
his said father, and three daughters who survived him ;
Ann, who married John Newsham of Chadshunt, in the
county of Warwick, Esq. ; Elizabeth, who married
Edward Eliot, of Port Eliot, in the county of Cornwall ;
and Margaret, who married Samuel Trefusis, Esq., of
Trefusis, in the county of Cornwall; which three
daughters, in duty, erected this monument to the pious
memory of the best of fathers. "
Ann was thrice married, her last husband being Robert
Nugent, Esq., created Earl Nugent; Elizabeth's hus-
band, Edward Eliot, Esq., was grandson of Nicholas
Eliot, fifth son of Sir John Eliot, the patriot; and
Margaret married lastly Sir John Hinde Cotton, Bart.,
and died without issue.
"Burke's Peerage," after stating that Elizabeth
married as above, mentions that Elizabeth's husband,
Edward Eliot, died in 1722, and was succeeded by his
only son, James Eliot, who died unmarried in 1742, when
the property reverted to his uncle, Richard Eliot, M.P.,
Keceiver-General to the Prince of Wales. Richard Eliot
married, according to the same authority, in 1726,
Harriot, daughter of the Right Hon. James Craggs,
Secretary of State, by whom he had issue, amongst others,
Edward, his son and heir, who was afterwards M.P. for
Cornwall. He assumed by sign-manual the additional
surname of Craggs, and in 1784 was elevated to the peer-
age by the title of Baron Eliot, of St. Germans, county
Cornwall. His lordship was succeeded by his third son,
John, who was created Earl of St. Germans in 1815,
with remainder, in default of male issue, to his
brother William who succeeded him. William married
Lady Georgiana Augusta Leveson-Gower, the fourth
daughter of Granville, first Marquis of Stafford, and
was succeeded by his eldest son, the distinguished Earl
of St. Germans, who was Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland
in 1852.
John Hamilton, second son of James, seventh Earl' of
Abercorn, married, according to Burke, Harriot, daughter
of Secretary Craggs and widow of Richard Eliot, M.P.
Their son John James, ninth Earl of Abercorn, was
created in 1790 Marquis of Abercorn, and his grandson
was created Puke of Abercorn.
James Craggs, the younger, was engaged in various
foreign courts, was in 1717 made Secretary of War,
and in the following year one of the Secretaries of State
to his Majesty George I. In 1720 his friend Pope thus
wrote of him : —
A soul as full of worth as void of pride,
Which nothing seeks to show, or needs to hide,
Which nor to guilt nor fear its caution owes.
And boasts a warmth that from no passion flows.
A face untaught to feign ; a judging eye,
That darts severe upon a rising lie,
And strikes a blush through frontless flattery.
All this thou wert ; and being this before.
Know, kings and fortunes cannot make thee more.
Then scorn to gain a friend by servile ways,
Nor wish to lose a foe these virtues raise ;
But, candid, free, sincere, as you began,
Proceed — a Minister, but still a man.
Be not (exalted to whate'er degree)
Ashamed of any friend, not ev'n of me :
The patriot's plain, but untrod, path pursue ;
If not, 'tis I must be ashamed of you.
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu said of him : "He had great
vivacity, a happy memory, and flowing elocution ; he was
brave and generous, and had an appearance of open-
heartedness in his manners that gained him a universal
goodwill, if not a universal esteem." Craggs was the
patron of the poet Pope, who wrote some of his Homer's
" Iliad " and " Odyssey " on the backs of letters received
from the Secretary of State, who was styled by Gay as
" bold, generous Craggs, whose heart was ne'er disguised."
Addison, just before his death, bequeathed to him his
works, which, however, Craggs did not live to receive.
February \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
51
Tickell, in the dedication of his edition of Addison's
works, which appeared in 1721, writes as follows :—
These works divine which on his death-bed laid,
To thee, O Craggs, the expiring sage conveyed ;
Great but ill-omened monument of fame,
Nor he survived to give nor thpu to claim.
Swift after him thy social spirit flies,
And close to his how soon they coffin lies.
Blest pair ! whose union future bards shall tell
On future tongues, each other boast farewell,
Farewell whom joined in fame, in friendship tried,
No chance could sever, nor the grave divide.
James Craggs died Feb. 16, 1720, aged 35 years, and was
buried in Westminster, where his epitaph exists ; the con-
cluding lines in Pope's epistle to Addison in 1715 were
added to the inscription.
JACOBUS CRAGGS,
KEGI MAGNiE BRITANNIA A SECRETIS
ET CONSILIIS 8ANCTIORIBCS,
PKINOIPIS PARITER AC POPULI AMOR ET DILICLfi ',
VlX.lt TITULIS ET INVIDIA MAJOR
ANNOS, HKU PAUCOS. XXXV.
Ob. FEB. XVI. MDCCXX.
Statesman, yet friend to Truth ! of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honour clear !
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gain'd no title, and who lost no friend ;
Ennobled by himself, by all approved,
Praised, wept and honour'd by the muse he loved.
The portrait which appears on page 49 is that of the
elder Craggs — the Postmaster-General. It is copied from
an engraving of a picture by Zincka in the Marquis of
Buckingham's collection at Stowe, which engraving was
published in 1807. WILLIAM MORLEY EGGLESTONE.
***
James Craggs, the elder, joined with his father in
•cutting off the entail and selling the whole of the small
iamily property. He afterwards made his way to
London, finding employment in various capacities.
Some assort he began life as a country barber. This, if
not strictly true, is quite possible, for his earlier occupa-
tions were not of the very highest character, and this
part of his career is surrounded with considerable ob-
scurity.
The Duke of Norfolk promoted him to the post of
steward in 1684. He next formed one of the Duke of
Marlborough's household, in which, by assiduity and
shrewd administrative ability, he contrived to attract the
attention of her Grace "The Viceroy, " who soon in-
stalled him as the manager of her business affairs. On
the 4th of March, 1695, Craggs, who was at this time
engaged in business as an army clothier, refused to sub-
mit his books to the inspection of the commissioners ap-
pointed to examine the public accounts of the kingdom.
Three days afterwards he was compelled to appear
before the Commons. He was then sent to the Tower as
an obstructive to the official inquiry into the regulations
of the public income (vide " Parl. Hist, vol. v., cola.
892-5). In 1702, Craggs— through Queen Sarah's influence
— was elected as one of the members for the borough
of Grampound, of which he remained representative
until Anne's fourth Parliament was dissolved in August,
1713. It was in 1715 that he was appointed joint Post-
master-General with Charles, fourth Lord Cornwallis.
Craggs was deeply involved in the transactions of the
South Sea Company, though not an actual director at the
time the crash came. At the beginning of 1721, the
House of Commons appointed a secret committee of
inquiry, before which Oaggs was examined. From their
third report, which did not reach the consideration of the
House until after Craggs's death, it was found that no
less than £40,000 of South Sea Stock had been paid for
out of the cash of the company for his use and
benefit, £30,000 of which sum had actually been
transferred to him. Shortly after this discovery, the
Commons passed an Act by which all the property
acquired by Craggs since 1st Dec., 1719, was confiscated
for the relief of those who had suffered by the collapse of
the famous (or infamous) bubble. One of the recitals of
the Act (7 Geo. I., c. 28) sets out that "James Craggs the
elder, esquire, was a notorious accomplice and con-
federate with the. said Robert Knight, and some of the
late directors of the South Sea Company, in carrying
out their corrupt and scandalous practices ; and did by
his wicked influence and for his own exorbitant gain
promote and encourage the pernicious execution of the
late South Sea scheme."
To a character of great energy and eminent financial
ability, Craggs added the remarkable "talent of reading
men, and by a peculiar way of gaining on the minds of
those he dealt with." Few scruples troubled his mind.
Lord Sunderland, while in attendance on the king at
Hanover, had entrusted his interests to the care of
Craggs. Walpole and his party got possession of a
scandal very much against Lord Sunderland ; in fact,
a tale difficult to counteract by common means. Old
Craggs, therefore, at once sent to Sir Robert Walpole
requesting to see him, acknowledged the truth of the
story, but informed him that any attempt to make the
least use of it would send him (Craggs) on the instant
to the Lord Mayor, before whom he would make oath
that he (Walpole) had held a long conversation with the
Pretender. Walpole, enraged, declared it was a gross
falsehood. Craggs replied that possibly it might be, but
ha would swear to it and accompany it with such cir-
cumstances as would make it be believed beyond dis-
proof, and added that Walpole knew he was able and
capable of it. ("Life of William, Earl of Sbelburne,"
1875, 1, 40-1.)
James Craggs, the younger, was born April 9th,
1686, in the city of Westminster. Before completing
his education at a school in Chelsea, he was sent
to travel on the Continent, where, after spending
some time at the Hanoverian Court, he gained the
favour of the Elector through the influence of the Coun-
tess of Platen. He next visited the Court of Turin, and
was afterwards appointed resident to the King of
Spain at Barcelona. At the commencment of the cam-
52
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/February
\ 1891.
paign of 1709 he was in Flanders. In September he
was returned to the House of Commons for the borough
of Tregony, and on the day before the Queen's death he
was despatched by the Council to Herrenhausen to inform
the future king of the measures which had been taken
to secure his succession to the throne. Some months after
this journey, be was rewarded with the post of cofferer to
the Prince of Wales. At the general election in January,
1715, Craggs was again returned for Tregony, and on
April 13, 1717, he was appointed Secretary of War in the
place of William Pulteney, afterwards Earl of Bath.
Upon Addison's retirement, Craggs succeeded him as one
of the principal Secretaries of State, with the charge of
the Southern Department.
Cragg's political career was wonderfully rapid. His
remarkable mastery of detail and readiness in debate
enabled him quite to hold his own against Walpole and
others in the House of Commons. According to Old-
mixon, Addison " was pleased to say of his successor that
he was as fit a man for the part as any in the kingdom ;
and that he never knew any man who had a greater
genius for business, whether in Parliament or out of Par-
liament, than young Mr. Craggs, as," continued he, "will
appear by his conduct."
Unluckily this high commendation was doomed to be
belied, owing to Cragg's implication in the affairs of the
Pouth Sea Company. There was, however, but scant
evidence against him in the seven reports of the secret
committee, and the most that can be laid to this charge
is that, at his suggestion, the Duchess of Kendal and
other ladies were bribed with presents of stock in order
to facilitate the passing of the company's bill through
Parliament. C. H. STEPHENSON.
***
" James Craggs," says Macaulay's History of England,
" had begun life as a barber. He had then been a
footman. His abilities, eminently vigorous, though not
improved by education, had raised him in the world, and
he was now entering upon a career which was destined
to end, after many years of prosperity, in unutterable
misery and despair. He had become an army clothier.
He was examined as to his dealings with colonels of
regiments, and, as he obstinately refused to produce
his books, he was sent to the Tower."
The reference the historian thus makes to the elder
Craggs appears in that part of Macaulay's History which
deals with the events of 1695. Twenty-seven years later,
when that marvellous instance of infatuation, the South
Sea Bubble, came to the surface, James Craggs found
himself again in trouble. He was accused of receiving
shares in the company to the amount ot £659,000. " On
the very day," says Cassell's "History of England,"
"that one of the reports respecting the South Sea Bubble
was being read in the House of Commons, James Craggs,
Secretary of State, died. His complaint was small-pox,
but the state of mind caused by this exposure is supposed
to have rendered the malady fatal. His father, who
was Postmaster-General, was so shamefully involved in
the same dishonest proceedings that he took poison."
A story is told of William Whiston, the translator of
" Josephus," to this effect :— A party, in which Addison,
Pope, Walpole, and Craggs were included, was debating
whether a Secretary of State could be an honest man, and
Whiston was asked for his opinion. Craggs said " it
might do for a fortnight, but not longer" ; when, with
much simplicity, Whiston inquired, "Mr. Secretary, did
you ever try it for a fortnight ?" HERODOTUS.
J»>ati0r6'
mr tfte STgtrc.
[UNNING back through the files of the New-
castle Chronicle for a century, we come upon
numerous examples of the conflicts between
labour and capital engaged in maritime
affairs. These, in the old days, were called "sticks,"
but latterly have passed under the more general name
of "strikes."
1775.
A temporary combination of the seventy coalowners
who then practically monopolised the mining trade of
the district resulted in raising the price of coal delivered
on board in the river a shilling a chaldron. This does
not appear a very serious matter ; but in order to under-
stand its bearings, it is only necessary to state that four
or five years previously an export duty had been placed
upon coal, and this had brought up the price to such a
point that both Germany and Scotland could almost
compete with England in the markets of Holland and
Scandinavia. So unprofitable had the carrying of coal
become that in Sunderland, which had formerly boasted
of turning out twenty ships a year, there had been only
one new ship launched in 1774-. At this juncture the
shilling rise was announced, and at once the shipowners
of the two ports resolved, first, that they would load no
coal at the advanced rates, and, next, that they would
maintain their seamen in the meanwhile on condition
that they would not abandon their ships. The Bailors
were quite willing to stand by their employers; but, as
they were to get only their rations, they naturally desired
to terminate the strike as soon as possible. A few ship-
owners stood aloof from the combination, and the sailors
adopted rather strong measures to prevent them from
getting their ships to sea. Something of this kind had
evidently been counted on by the coalowners, for almost
immediately after they had determined to demand the
extra shilling they applied for the reinforcement of the
military in Newcastle. Three companies of the 31st
Regiment were accordingly withdrawn from Tynemouth
Castle, and billetted upon publicans in Newcastle. After
a fortnight of occasional disturbance, two or three troops
February!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
53
of the North British Dragoons were drafted off from
Durham ; and such was the excitement that when the
dragoons arrived on Gateshead Fell they loaded their
muskets, fully expecting to see Newcastle in flames. The
sailors, under the inspirine orders or sanction of their
employers, struck the topmasts and unrigged several of
what may be called the non-union ships in the London
trade. One shipowner applied to the magistrates of
Newcastle for assistance to get his ship out to sea ; and
Mr. Alderman Blackett went down the river, took with
him the water bailiff and several constables, and, having
gone on board, got the ship safely over the bar, although
the banks were crowded with excited sailors. This bold
feat appears to have broken the back of the strike. At
all events, the number of those who deserted the cause
rapidly increased, and by about the end of the month
of March all was once more quiet.
1777.
In the early part of this year there was great commotion
among the Tyne seamen in consequence of the activity
of the press-gang. Two serious occurrences served to show
the hatred with which Tyne sailors regarded the iniqui-
tous press system. The tales are somewhat variously told,
but substantially they are as follows :— On the 12th
Feburary, in the evening, the impressed men on board
the tender Speedwell or the Union rose on the crew, and
took possession of the ship. The other tenders in the
harbour opened fire on the sloop, as also did the guns in
Clifford's Fort, but in spite of all she got safely to sea.
On arriving at Scarborough seventeen of the pressed men
went ashore and escaped. A fortnight later a more
formidable demonstration was organised. The collier
sailors combined to prevent the other tenders from sailing.
Lieutenant Okes, of the special service, having got wind
of the plot, manned his cutter and one or two other
boat?, and then proceeded in search of the offenders.
Coming up with one ship's boat, containing 20 men, he
forthwith impressed them for his Majesty's service ; but,
in the meantime, great numbers of sailors had to go on
board the marked ships, and from the forecastle they
pelted the obnoxious officer with billets of wood and cob-
coal. The lieutenant aimed at them with his blunderbuss,
but without effect. Then, according to the evidence he
gave subsequently, his weapon went off by accident,
wounding one man fatally. But the whole story of the
press-gang will have to be told later.
1792.
Writing to Lord (then Captain) Nelson, from Morpeth,
in the year 1792, under date 14th November, Lord
Collingwood alludes to the insurrectionary spirit of the
Tyne seamen as follows : — "There are great commotions
in our neighbourhood at present. The seamen at Shields
have embarked themselves, to the number of 1,200 or
1,400, with a view to compel the owners of the coal ships
to advance their wages ; and, as is generally the case
when they consider themselves the strongest party, their
demand has been exorbitant. Application has been made
to Government for such assistance as the remedy of this
evil might require. They have sent the Drake and
Martin sloops to join the Racehorse, which was here
before, and some troops of dragoons, whose presence, I
hope, will dispose the Johnnies to peace, without their
having occasion to act. But the times are turbulent, and
the enthusiasm for liberty is raging even to madness."
1796.
Throughout the greater part of this year there were
disturbances on the Tyne. Severe measures were taken
on both sides. In many cases the sailors took the
command out ot the hands of the masters. At length,
when about fourscore of the ringleaders had been pressed,
the excitement subsided.
1819.
The next great disturbance on the river was chiefly
confined to the keelmen, but both on the Tyne and the
Wear the seamen were agitating for an advance of wages
from £2 10s. to £3 — a circumstance which tended to
aggravate the public excitement in connection with the
demands of the keelmen. On October 14, the disturb-
ances culminated in a serious riot. The Mayor of New-
castle (Mr. Archibald Reed) had proceeded down the
river with the civil power, aided by the boats of his
Majesty's ships, with a view of opening the navigation of
the river (which had been interrupted for some time by
the proceedings of the keelmen), and had gone on shore
at North Shields. After the Mayor and the other
gentlemen who accompanied him had retired to the
Northumberland Arms Inn, the mob made an attack,
with paving-stones and other missiles, upon the Speedwell
steam packet ; several of the peace officers and the cox-
swain of the packet were severely hurt ; the marines
then fired in protection of themselves and those in the
steamboat, when unfortunately one man, named Joseph
Cleckson, was shot upon the New Quay. This so
exasperated the mob that they turned their fury upon
the inn, with threats of vengeance against the Mayor,
and exclaiming that they wculd have blood for blood.
By the application of some iron pipes, they soon de-
molished the doors and windows of the inn, and liberated
a man who had been taken into custody when in the
act of throwing stones. By the spirited exertions of Mr.
Donkin, the high constable of the district, they were held
some time in check, and opportunity was thus afforded the
Mayor and other gentlemen to escape by the back part of
the inn. From the fury with which they were actuated,
there was too much reason to fear that they would have
carried their threats into execution; and so eager were
they to attain their object, that they searched almost
every part of the house. They also sought to wreak their
vengeance on the officers in the steamboat, but these had
fortunately escaped in boats over to the south side of the
river. The mob continued in the streets in the most
tumultuous state till a late hour; but the arrival of a
54
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f February
I 1891.
party of the 6th Dragoon Guards from the barracks at
Newcastle somewhat quieted the fears of the inhabitants.
The town continued agitated for several days.. The in-
quest on Joseph Cleckson lasted five days, and resulted
in a verdict of "Justifiable homicide." On the verdict
becoming known the keelmen were again terribly excited.
Mr. Coppin, one of the jury, was shot at in his own
house the same evening, but the thickness of the shutters
saved him. Mr. Fenwick also was attacked in a similar
manner under a mistake, as it was his brother who acted
as foreman to the jury on the inquest. Mr. Hall,
another of the jury, was also molested. The inhabitants
were in the greatest alarm. They entered into a sub-
scription and offered a reward of 300 guineas for the con-
viction of the perpetrators of these outrages. The streets
were for several successive nights patrolled by cavalry,
constables, and infantry. Government sent a ship of
war. The keelmen, however, having gained a part of
their objects, returned to work on Friday, the 22nd
October.
1831.
The high wages for the London voyage during the early
part of this year were the result of long- continued
pressure on the part of the seamen of the port ; but no
sooner did it become known in London, Hull, and other
ports than large numbers of men came down to the Tyne
in search of employment. The labour market was soon
over supplied, and those who had come thus far north in
the hope of getting £4 a voyage were induced to
offer their services under the current rates. This led to a
serious breach of the peace on the 22nd of July in South
Shields Market Place. On tbe 26th the ship Atlas
was boarded, and a demand made for her articles in
order to show whether the men on board had accepted the
lower wages. This was peremptorily refused. The
boarders then took measures to stop the vessel from going
to sea. Assistance having been obtained from H.M.S.
Orestes, fourteen of the disaffected were arrested.
Having been examined before the magistrates at New-
castle, they were liberated on bail to come up at the next
Sessions to answer a charge of riot. But so far as the
newspaper report of the following October Session goes,
there is reason to conclude that they wers never called
upon to appear.
1851.
This year opened amidst almost unprecedented agita-
tion among seamen, partly in consequence of several
highly obnoxious clauses in the Mercantile Shipping Act.
The actual strike, however, proceeded upon a demand for
a rise of wages from £4 to £4 10s. per London voyage,
and £3 per month foreign. Sunderland and the two
Shields towns acted together in the business with great
fidelity. Hartlepool also threw in its lo: with the discon-
tented. Many meetings were held, both at Shields and
Sunderland, the seamen from one port marching in pro-
cession with banners and music to meet and confer with
their brethren in another port. On Saturday, the 24th
January, there could not be fewer than 17,000 in proces-
sion to or from Sunderland Moor. The employers soon
pave way ; but they could not induce the sailors to sign
articles at tbe new shipping offices. A petition, signed
by a thousand sailors, was forwarded to the Board of
Trade requesting the abolition of seamen's register
tickets, an abrogation of the orders respecting shipping
offices and the government of crews on ship-board ; also
notably praying for the establishment of nautical schools
in every principal port. The more obnoxious features of
the new arrangements under the Shipping Act having
been either cancelled or satisfactorily explained, the men
went aboard the ships, and since that day there have been
no strikes of any serious importance among the Tyne
sailors.
af tfte
THE YETHOLM TINKLERS.
jjETHOLM, in Roxburghshire, lies on the
Beaumont, a tributary of the Till, about
four miles from the English Border. It con-
sists of two hamlets, named Town Yetholm
and Kirk Yetholm respectively.* A row of houses in the
latter, which lies on the south side of the water, and
about a quarter of a mile from Town Yetholm, which is
on the north side of the stream, is entirely occupied by
gipsies. They belong to several distinct families, the
chief names being Faa, Young, Douglas, and Blythe.
The latter do not seem to be of the same race as the three
former. The Douglases, Youngs, and Faas are generally
dark-complexioned, with black hair, while the Blythes
are mostly light-haired and of fair complexion. Tradi-
tion has it that the settlement of the gipsies at Yetholm
came about in consequence of one of the tribe having
saved the life of Captain Bennett, proprietor of the
barony, at the siege of Namur.
MODIFICATION OF THKIR HABITS.
The habits, manners, and customs of the Yetholm
gipsies have been greatly modified of late years. Our
account of their affairs, therefore, rather is what they
were than what they are. Fifty years ago they mostly
remained at home in winter, or only made short excur-
sions to the neighbouring villages; but in summer they
shut up their houses, and travelled about in different
directions in Northumberland, North Durham, and the
Border Counties of Scotland.
MELLERSTAIN ENTRIES.
Mellerstain Entries, in the parish of Earlstoun, in Ber-
wickshire, extending for three-quarters of a mile between
•The engraving of Kirk Yetholm, on priffe 55, is copied from
sketches by Jlr. J. Gillies Brown.
February!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
55
Mellerstain Home Farm and the farm of Rachelfield, and
close to the limits of the county, had been from time
immemorial, down to the late Earl of Haddington's time,
a constant place of summer resort for the gipsies. From
about Whitsuntide till after Michaelmas every year it
was seldom that there were not several gipsy camps esta-
blished in "the Entries." We have seen as many as
sixty carts "lowsed"at one time by the roadside close
to Rachelfield, near an old ruin called "the Boggle's
House," properly Whitside House, said to have been
used as an hospital for the neighbourhood during the
virulence of the Plague, long, long ago. Twenty carts
were a usual sight, and two, three, four, or five, common
all the summer. The motley assemblage of wild-looking
men and perhaps still wilder-looking women, ragged little
urchins — ferocious bull-dogs, skye terriers, dandle din-
monts, lurchers, and greyhounds — a score or two of
horses and donkeys, old and young, the horses hoppled,
the asses free, but sometimes with the panniers on, with a
child in one and a counterweight in the other, ready for
starting— formed a picture too strangely vivid to be ever
forgotten.
OCCUPATIONS OP THE MEN.
The men during the day were either absolutely idle
lying smoking or asleep in front of their tents, or engaged
in besom making, pitcher making, fishine-tackle making,
or some other light and easy industry. The manufacture
of horn spoons, which was the ostensible employment of
some of them half a century since, is now, we believe,
unknown. Night, which Montgomery calls "the time
for rest," is the real working day of the normal male
gipsy, unsophisticated and unconverted. It is chiefly
devoted to poaching and kindred avocations, for which
reason the country people used to call the men " night
hawks.'
THEIR PREDATORY HABITS.
One often hears of the predatory habits of the gipsies ;
but it would be very unfair to stigmatise them as indis-
criminate thieves and robbers. Indeed, they made it a
principle not to steal from those farmers on or near
whose grounds they encamped. A tenant of Rachelfield,
during his twenty-one years' lease, had never once occa-
sion to complain of them. It is even said that the gipsies
were in many respects farmers' friends. For one thing,
they kept down the game. But for them the rabbits
would have totally consumed the crops on some fields in
dry seasons. And even the potatoes and turnips, so great
a temptation to rural trespassers, were generally safe
from their ravages. If they stole any at all, they did it
with rare discretion, so that what they took was never
missed.
THEIE VINDICTIVE DISPOSITION.
The gipsies were held to be of a particularly vindictive
disposition towards those whom they imagined to have
injured them. This trait of character is common, how-
ever, to all isolated tribes of men. In the South of Scot-
land, the "tinklers," as the farmers called them, were a
formidable set, down till a comparatively recent date.
*£%£ ^^
"
56
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/February
1 189] .
Many a husbandman would.wink at their petty depreda-
tions and trespasses, for fear that, if he set the parish
constable after them, they might burn down his onstead.
MAHT YOEKSTON.
Here is the picture of a gipsy queen, Mary Yorkston,
taken by Mr. Linton from the mouth of an aged and very
respectable gentleman, the late Mr. David Stoddart, at
Bankhead, near Queensferry, who had often seen her
in his youth : —
She was fully six feet in stature, stout made in her
person, with very strongly-marked and harsh features,
and had, altogether, a very imposing aspect and manner.
She wore a large black beaver hat, tied down over her
ears with a handkerchief, knotted below her chin, in the
gipsy fashion. Her upper garment was a dark blue short
cloak, somewhat after the Spanish fashion, made of
substantial woollen cloth, approaching to superfine in
quality. The greater part of her other apparel was made
of dark blue camlet cloth, with petticoats so short that
they scarcely reached to the calves of her well-set legs.
Her stockings were of dark blue worsted, flowered and
ornamented at the ankles with scarlet thread, and in her
shoes she displayed large, massive silver buckles. The
whole of her habiliments were very substantial, with not
a rag or rent to be seen about her person. Her outer
petticoats were folded up round her haunches, for a lap,
with a large pocket dangling at each side ; and below her
cloak she carried, between her shoulders, a email flat
pack, or pad, which contained her most valuable articles.
About her person she generally kept a large clasp-knife,
with a long, broad blade, resembling a dagger or carving-
knife, and carried in her hand a long pole or pike-staff,
that reached about a foot above her head.
Many stories are told of this woman, who went under the
appellations of "my lady "and "the duchess," and who
presided, like a sibyl, at the celebration of marriages and
divorces, and was, in fact, the Deborah of her tribe. She
had very little of the milk of human kindness about her,
as the following incident will show :— Chancing, on one
occasion, to meet a shepherd's wife among the wild hills
in the parish of Stobo, in Peebleshire, she stripped her of
the whole of her clothes. The shepherd was horrified at
beholding his better half, an hour afterwards, approach-
ing their secluded domicile in the simple costume of
Mother Eve before the fall. There would have been no
use in pursuing the thief, however, and the couple were
fain to put up quietly with their loss. Another time, at
a market in the south of Scotland, where Mary Yorkston
was present with her gang, a farmer lost hia purse
containing a considerable sum of money. He immediately
went to " the duchess," soliciting her influence to recover
his property. As he had of ten* given her quarters, she,
without the least hesitation, took him along with her
to the place in the fair where her husband kept his
temporary depot, or rather office, to receive the findings
of his satellites. Matthew Baillie, for that was the man's
name, had assurance that all was right when he saw his
spouse in the farmer's company ; and, upon the matter
being explained, he instantly produced, and spread out
before the applicant, from twenty to thirty purses,
desiring him to pick out his own from amongst them.
The countryman soon recognised his own, and grasped at
it without ceremony. "Hold on," said Baillie, "let us
count its contents first." The gipsy chief then, with the
greatest coolness, as if he had been an honest banker or
money-changer, counted over the money in the purse,
when not a farthing was wanting. "There is your purse,
sir," continued he; "you see what it is when honest
folks meet!"
GlEED-NKCKIT WILL.
The Scottish gipsies were extremely civil and obliging to
their neighbours. This trait is well illustrated in the
following anecdote, which appeared in an early number of
Blackwood's Magazine :—
The late Mr. Leek, minister of Yetholm, happened to be
riding home one evening from a visit in Northumberland,
when, finding himself likely to be benighted, for the sake
of a near cut he struck into a wild, solitary track, or
drove-road, across the fields by a place called the Staw.
In one of the derne places through which this path led
him, there stood an old deserted shepherd's house,
which of course was reputed to be haunted. The minister,
though little apt to be alarmed by such reports, was, how-
ever, somewhat startled on observing, as he approached
February 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
57
closer to the cottage, a "grim visage" staring out past a
window claith, or sort of curtain, which had been fastened
up to supply the place of a door, and also several
"dusky figures" skulking among the bourtree-bushes
that had once sheltered the shepherd's garden. Without
leaving him any time for speculation, however, the knight
of the curtain bolted forth upon him. and, seizing his
horse by the bridle, demanded his money. Mr. Leek,
though it was now dark, at once recognised the gruff voice
and the great black burly head of his next-door neigh-
bourgh, Gleed-Neckit Will, the gipsy chief. " Dear me,
William," said the minister, in his usual quiet manner,
" can this be you ? Ye're surely no serious wi' me? Ye
wadna sae far wrang your character for a good neighbour
for the bit trifle I ha'e to gi'e, William ? " " Lord saif us,
Mr. Leek !" said Will, quitting the reins and lifting his
hat with great respect, " whae wad hae thought o' meeting
you out our here-away ? Ye needna gripe for ony siller to
me — I wadna touch a plack o' your gear, nor a hair o' your
head, for a' the gowd o' Tividale. I ken ye'll no do ua
an ill turn for this mistak — and I'll e'en see ye safe
through the eirie Staw — it's no reckoned a very canny bit,
mair ways nor ane ; but 111 wat yell no be feared for
the dead, and I'll tak care o' the living." Will ac-
cordingly gave his reverend friend a safe convoy through
the haunted pass, and, notwithstanding his ugly mistake,
continued ever after an inoffensive and obliging neighbour
to the minister, who, on his part, observed a prudent and
inviolable secrecy on the subject of this rencounter during
the lifetime of Gleed-Neckit Will. W. B.
atttr
j|OTHERSTONE is a quaint little place, and
pretty. There is a pleasant sort of air about
it that it is impossible to describe ; you must
be there to experience it for yourself. It is
said to be St. Cuthbert's town ; that is the derivation of
the word — due to the fact that legend makes it one of the
places where the restless body of the saint halted for a time
from its wanderings. But most people have forgotten that.
Now, the little town is celebrated chiefly for two things —
its cheeses and its Quakers. Formerly it used to be in-
habited almost entirely by members of the Society of
Friends, and even now a goodly number of the Cother-
stonites are adherents of that sect. And the Cotherstone
cheese, some of it is hardly inferior to Stilton. It is made
by all the housewives at the surrounding farm-houses, and
then it goes forth to the world to make the name of
Cotherstone famous. For there is not much else to rest
the fame of Cotherstone on. Stay ! There is the scenery of
the district, but that needs no praise from me. Who has
not heard of Balderdale, which is entered just to the south
58
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
{February
p=
1891.
of Cotherstone, where the Balder joins the Tees? On a
mound above the junction of these two rivers is all
that remains of Cotherstone Castle. This was a keep-
tower of the Fitz-Hughs, and is believed to be "Pen-
dragon's lonely mound " in " Rokeby." " We rode next,
if you remember, to Cotherstone, an ancient village of the
Fitz-Hughs on the Tees, whence I showed you a rock
rising over the crown of the wood, still called Pendragon
Castle." So wrote Morritt to Scott. Balderdale some-
what resembles Deepdale, though it is perhaps scarcely
so picturesque. Balder Grange stands on the right
bank of the stream, and a little nearer the Tees is
Woden Croft. This is now a farm-house, but it was
long a school of some reputation. Here Richard Cobden
received some part of his education. Nearly opposite
Woden's Croft is the base of the Plague Cross, at
which, during the infection, a market was held for
Barnard Castle.
But now let us leave the Cotherstone country, and soar
through the air, not so disastrously, it is to be hoped, as
Icarus, to another cheese town, which will occur to every
one's mind on the mention of Cotherstone — Stilton.
Somehow Cotherstone always reminds one of Stilton, not
that the places are similar in any way, but it may be
because the two cheeses are not unlike.
Stilton cheese ! I remember a friend of mine who once
journeyed all the way down to Huntingdonshire to see
the Stilton cheese made at Stilton. When he got there
he was grievously disappointed, for he found that the
cheese is not made there, 'but far away in Lsicestershire ;
at any rate, Leicestershire is where it is made chiefly,
though I believe a very small quantity is still made at
Stilton itself, more for the sake of form than anything
else. The quaint little Huntingdon village on the
high north road, however, is none the less interesting,
though our cherished illusion concerning its cheeses
may be shattered. Stilton is supposed to be a place
of considerable antiquity ; indeed, it is not quite cer-
tain that it may not go so far back in point of pedigree
as the Ermine Street, the Roman road on which it stands.
For there are Roman remains still extant near the place,
so that it is possible the Romans may have had a habita-
tion there. The pretty square-towered church is a feature,
too, of Stilton which carries us far back into the past, to
the days when mediaeval Stilton flourished, and when
perhaps the most interesting building in the village. The
Bell, an hostelry that has been famous for long genera-
tions, was in its youth. At The Bell, Cowper Thornhill
first sold the Stilton cheese that was brought from
Leicester, where the original article was made by Mrs.
Paulet, of Wymondham, near Melton Mowbray.
But Stilton cheese soon gained universal fame, and has
not unfrequently been called the English Parmesan.
Cowper or Cooper Thornhill, the landlord of The Bell,
was consigned to immortality in a poem called "The
Stilton Hero," and was famed as a rider, it being
recorded of him that "he rode three times to London in
eleven hours," and that he won the cup at Kiuibolton
with a mare which he accidentally took on to the course
after a journey of twelve miles.
I cannot conclude without giving the following refer-
ence to Stilton translated from the pages of Drunken
Barnaby : —
Thence to Stilton slowly paced,
With no bloom nor blossom graced ;
With no plums nor apples stored,
But bald, like an old man's forehead ;
Yet, with inns so well provided,
Guests are pleased when they have tried it.
V.
at
HTtoi>*t ftgne
JUch.itr.u- eSEHfori).
THE KEBEL GENERAL.
j|HE Forsters of Northumberland were at one
time as numerous as the Fenwicks, the
Carrs, or the Greys. Settled at an early
period of English history in the manor of
Adderstone, or Etherstone, near Belford, they proved to
be a most prolific race. One member of the family left
twenty-two sons behind him, and it is not at all difficult
to believe that, in a few generations, they overran the
eastern seaboard of the county. Public interest in the
family begins with Sir Thomas Forster, Knight, who in
the reign of Henry VIII. was Marshal of Berwick, made
his will (still preserved at Durham) in 1526, and died
soon after. By his marriage with a daughter of Robert,
Lord Ogle, he had amongst other children Thomas
Forster, of Adderstone, Sheriff of Northumberland in
1564 and 1572, and Sir John Forster, Knight, Warden
of the Marches for seven-and-thirty years, Governor of
Berwick, grantee from the Crown of Bamborough Castle,
and the owner of the abbey lands of Blanchland, From
these two brothers the Forsters of Adderstone and the
Forsters of Bamborough and Blanchland descended, and
from their respective families came, for the most part,
the Forsters whe figure conspicuously in local history.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century these two
main lines of the opulent family of Forster were amalga-
mated by marriage. Thomas Forster, of Adderstone, the
representative of the older .branch, chose for his wife
Frances, eldest daughter of Sir William Forster of Baiu-
borough and Blanchland (an honorary freeman of New-
castle), representative of the younger branch of the
family. Sir William, like some of his ancestors, was
blessed with numerous offspring, whose good fortune it
was to make the name of Forster known beyond the
February 1
1S91. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
59
limits of their native county. Dorothy, one of his
daughters, married Bishop Crewe. William, his eldest
son, entered upon a long parliamentary career. Chosen
by the electors of Northumberland to represent them
in the Convention Parliament, which placed the Prince
of Orange on the English throne, he was returned to
each successive Parliament that met between that date
and his death in 1700. His successor was his brother,
Fertiinando, murdered in Newcastle under well-known
Ytionias ForsTer.
circumstances, shortly after election, by John Fenwick,
of Rock. With the death of Ferdinando, the male heirs
of the Forsters of Bamborough ceased. Thomas Forster,
of Adderstone, the brother-in-law, took their place in
Parliament, while his son Thomas became co-heir with
Lady Crewe of the family wealth.
Baptised at Bamborough on the 29th March, 1683,
Thomas Forster, jun., was trained with a view to par-
liamentary honours. When he was twenty-five years old,
his father retired from the representation of the county
in his favour. He was returned to the third Parliament
of Queen Anne, on the 27th May, 1708, and seeking re-
election in the two following Parliaments of that Queen,
and in the first summoned by George I., he was success-
ful in retaining his seat. His parliamentary record
during that time is, unfortunately, a blank. It is not
known whether he took the oath of allegiance to the
Hanoverian dynasty. His name is not in Cosin's list of
those who refused. But if he did take the oath, he was
not long faithful to it. Parliament met on the 17th
March, 1715, and on the 21st September the king sent a
message to the Commons declaring that he had just cause
to suspect "Mr. Thomas Forster, junior," and five other
members, of a design to support an intended invasion of
the kingdom in the interest of the Pretender, and desiring
the approval of the House to an order which he had
given for apprehending them as conspirators against his
person and Government. A rebellion had broken out
amone; the adherents of the Stuarts in Scotland, under
the Earl of Mar, and Thomas Forster was believed, and
truly believed, to be in active sympathy with them.
Full details of the progress of the rebellion, and of the
part which Mr. Forster took in it, have already appeared
in these columns. (See Monthly Chronicle, 1890, pp, 1
and 49.) Forster was "General" of the expedition, and
being hopelessly beaten at Preston, in November, was
taken prisoner, conveyed to London, and committed to
Newgate. Expelled from his seat in Parliament by
resolution of the House, ho lay in prison awaiting his
trial till April, 1716, when his sister Dorothy (Walter
Besant's Dorothy Forster) is said to have effected his
liberation. Riding to London disguised as a servant,
behind an Adderstone blacksmith named Purdy (so runs
the legend), this brave young lady procured, upon a
piece of clay, an impression of the key of the strong
room in which her brother was confined. A false key
was easily smuggled into the prisoner's hands, and near
midnight on the 10th April he achieved his freedom.
The escape was so well concerted that, as soon as he was
out of the prison, horses were in readiness to take him to
a vessel lying off the Essex coast, in which, within
twenty-four hours after leaving Newgate, he safely
arrived in Calais. The Government offered a reward of a
thousand pounds for his capture, describing him as "of
Middle Stature, inclining to be Fat ; well shaped, except
that he stoops in the shoulders ; fair complexion'd, his
Mouth wide, his Nose pretty large, his eyes gray, and
speaks the Northern Dialect." This proving ineffectual,
the House of Commons, on the 24th of May, ordered a
bill to be prepared attainting him of high treason, and a
month later, having passed through all its stages, the bill
received the sanction of the House of Lords.
Under ordinary circumstances, the Crown would have
reaped a rich harvest by the attainder of Forster, as it
did by the attainder of the Earl of Derwentwater. But
Forster had nothing left to forfeit. Historians, one after
the other, tell us that his estates were confiscated, and
that Lord Crewe, his brother-in-law, purchased them ol
the Crown Commissioners and devoted them to charitable
uses. This is an error which the late William Dickson,
of Alnwick, Clerk of the Peace for Northumberland, cor-
rected long ago. In the "Proceedings of the Berwick-
shire Naturalists' Club," vol. vi. (1872), is a paper written
by him which shows upon undoubted evidence that
Thomas Forster surrendered to Bishop Crewe, long before
the rebellion broke out, all his interest in the estates of
his family. Thus : —
Sir William Forster and his sons, William and Ferdi-
nando, had run through all these fine estates by reckless
60
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/February
\ 1891.
extravagance, and that in a very short space of time.
Law proceedings began about 1701, and all the estates
were sold before 1709 was out ; thus proving conclusively
that the estates were never forfeited by the rebellion, but
sold in due course of law to pay debts by order of the
Court of Chancery ; and that when the rebel general
committed the act of treason by joining m the rebellion,
all his lands had been sold six years before to pay his
debts, and he had not an acre left to bless himself with at
the time he joined the Pretender in 1715.
To deceive the Government, aud avoid the risk of
capture, it was reported soon after his escape that Forster
had died abroad, and to complete the deception a mock
funeral was prepared, and a coffin full of sawdust was
placed in the family vault at Bamborough with due
solemnity. When he died in reality (at Boulogne,
September, 1738, having survived his escape for two-and-
twenty years), his body was secretly brought to Bam-
borough and privately deposited beside the dummy.
Scorge, /randjs, anb |o$eph, .fowler,
MAYORS OF NEWCASTLE.
Among the numerous persons bearing the name of
Forster who have occupied clerical or municipal office in
Newcastle, three rose to the high position of chief magis-
trate. Francis Forster was Mayor in 1769-1770 and
1779-80 ; Joseph Forster, his son, occupied the post in
1801-2, 1808-9, and 1818-19 ; George Forster filled the
same office in 1811-12, 1820-21, and 1825-26. Now, a man
who has been Mayor of Newcastle twice is presumably a
"man of mark" in the town; but he who is appointed
to that dignity thrice is undoubtedly so. The three
Forsters, therefore, with eight mayoralties among them,
clearly belong to our series.
GEOKGE FOBSTER.
About George Forster little is known. His connection
with the historical family of that name is not traceable ;
probably it did not exist. He was a respectable linen
draper (a partner in the firm of Gibson and Forster, linen
drapers and mercers in the Wool Market, Newcastle),
who, in March, 1802, upon the death of William Rais-
beck, was elected one of the Common Council, and in
July, 1810, upon the resignation of William Cramlington
and the refusal of Isaac Cookson, senior, to accept the
office, was appointed an alderman. Having laid aside
the yard wand to don the alderman's gown, he was raised
the following year to the chief magistracy. During his
second mayoralty, in 1820, the coronation of George IV.
was celebrated in Newcastle, when oxen were roasted in
the streets, and the public pants ran wine and beer, and
the townspeople indulged in orgies which reflected little
credit upon them, and less upon the authorities who
encouraged them. Upon this occasion the Mayor was
invested for the first time with the gold chain and medal-
lion which still adorn the breast of our chief magistrate.
His third mayoralty was uneventful, though the great
election in Northumberland made it a stirring time for
the district. Alderman Forster died at his house in the
Forth on the 16th May, 1836, aged 71.
KBAKCIS FORSTER.
Francis Forster, it is supposed, was a descendant of the
Adderstone Forsters, through a branch of the family
which settled at Buston, near Warkworth, with collaterals
at Newton-by-the-Sea, near Embleton. His upbringing
is not recorded, but we know that he carried on business
as a merchant in Newcastle, and acquired property at
Seaton Burn, where he resided. In 1761, he joined
Thomas Doubleday, merchant; Lancelot Stout, hatter;
Jonathan Ormston, gen tinman ; George Westgarth, dyer;
and Peregrine Tyzack, gentleman, all of Newcastle, in
the purchase of premises and a wharf situate in Hillgate,
Gateshead, which a dozen years before had been con-
verted into a sugar house by James Orton, of Newcastle,
sugar baker. He was the head of the firm of Forster,
Bankin, and Atkinson, who owned the sugar house in the
Close, a partner in the Commercial Bank, a merchant of
great enterprise, and, before he died, a man of consider-
able wealth. Identifying himself with the interests of
the town to which he owed his success in life, he entered
the Common Council, and in 1763, when the Blacketts,
the Ridleys, and the Claytons governed Newcastle, he
was appointed Sheriff. Six years later, at Michaelmas,
1769, the electors made him chief magistrate.
Mr. Forster entered upon the mayoralty at a time of
great political agitation. In the early part of the year,
John Wilkes, expelled from the House of Commons, had
been three times re-elected, and three times declared
incompetent to sit. Newcastle followed the example of
other towns in demanding that the decision of Wilkes's
constituents should be respected, and great was the
outcry and the clamour. A petition to the throne was
prepared, and, on the Friday before Michaelmas Monday,
a deputation from seventeen of the Incorporated Com-
panies of the town waited upon Mr. Forster, as Mayor-
elect, with a requisition, asking that the burgesses might
be specially summoned by the Town Clerk to attend the
Guild meeting for the purpose of signing it. Mr. Forster
expostulated with the excited deputation, and recom-
mended them to postpone the petition till after the
meeting of Parliament, but he was told that the burgesses
were determined ; and that they had a petition drawn up,
which would be laid before their worships on Monday for
their approbation and subscription. On the Monday the
Guildhall was crowded. The two members for the
borough— Sir Walter Blackett and Matthew Ridley-
were there ; most of the aldermen were there ; but not
one of them would sign the document. Sir Walter,
indeed, although he had voted tor Wilkes in the House,
struck an attitude strongly antagonistic. "Standing up,
and laying his left hand upon his breast, stretching out
his right as a mark of eloquence," he uttered these
" weighty and emphatical " words : — " I will sooner have
that right hand cut off than sign such a petition."
February
\
r
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
61
Deserted by their representatives, and discouraged by
the Mayor, the promoters determined to have a meeting
of their own. "Mounted on a galloway called Liberty,"
they despatched a messenger to Sir Francis Blake
Delaval, at Seaton Delaval, and that " gay Lothario "
consented to become their chairman. On the 16th Nov-
ember, 1769. the great meeting was held (in the Long
Room of Forth House), the petition adopted, an offer of
Mr. Ridley to present it to the king without signing it
refused, and the chairman requested to undertake that
duty. In May following, a similar meeting took place,
with Thomas Delaval in the chair, and this time it was
a "remonstrance " as well as a petition which Sir Francis
was desired to lay at the foot of the throne.
By their refusal to assist in the Wilkes agitation, the
M.P.'sand the Mayor lost favour. At the next Parlia-
mentary election an attempt, though a very unsuccessful
one, was made to defeat both Sir Walter and Mr. Ridley.
As for Mr. Forster, ten years was allowed to pass before
he was again invited to assume the dignity of chief magis-
trate. In the meantime asperities had softened down,
and his second mayoralty was popular.
Mr. Forster died at Seaton Burn House on the 4th
October, 1784, leaving amongst other issue a son and a
daughter. The daughter, Eleanor Forster, married the
Rev. James Manisty, B.D., vicar of Edlingbam, and
became, in 1808, the mother of Henry afterwards Sir
Henry Manisty, one of her Majesty's judges. The son,
Joseph Forster, succeeded his father in the sugar house
and the bank, and in the public work of the muni-
cipality.
JOSEPH FOBSTEK.
Joseph Forster was born in the same year as George
IV. — 1762 — brought up at Seaton Burn and in Newcastle,
and soon after his father's death, at Michaelmas, 1787,
was chosen to be one of the Electors of the Corporation,
and at the same time appointed Sheriff. Seven years
later, on the 8th of July, 1794, he was united to Mary, only
daughter of Henry Scott, and the favourite niece of Sir
John Scott, Attorney-General, afterwards Lord Eldon.
By this marriage young Mr. Forster was brought into
intimate social relationship with the local families of
Surtees, Burdon, Atkinson, Cramlington, Crichloe-
Turner, and other people of position, which helped
him to local honours if not to fortune. "Remember me
affectionately to Mr. and Mrs. Forster," was the message
which Lord Eldon sent to his niece and her husband when
announcing to his brother Henry his elevation to the
peerage in the month of July, 1799. The people of New-
castle were proud of their illustrious fellow-townsman, the
coalfitter's son who had been made a peer, and to some
extent his lordship's kinsfolk shared the public favour.
At Michaelmas, 1801, shortly after his lordship was
raised to the Woolsack, the Corporation elevated Mr.
Forster, who had already been made an alderman, to the
Mayoralty.
Through the Eldnn influence, Mr. Forster received the
appointment of joint receiver of the Derwentwater estates
for the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital. In 1808
he was elected Mayor for the second time, and ten years
later for the third time. Just before his third election
some facetious burgess issued a handbill announcing the
intended publication of a letter addressed to him " on the
subject of paving the streets with Cobble Stones, Brick-
bats, and all the Rubbish from the Town Walls." But
this was only a harmless squib calling attention to a local
grievance which Mr. Forster's influence might remedy.
A glance at the newspapers of the period shows that he
was invariably a leader in seeking to remedy grievances,
and especially those which affected the commercial
prosperity of Newcastle. In one day during his Mayor-
alty (March 8, 1819) he presided over two meetings of the
townspeople convened with that intent. At one of them
it was determined to petition Parliament against a pro-
posed measure for taxing coals at the pit's mouth. At
the other meeting a protest was made against a renewal
of the "Insolvent Debtors' Act, "and it was resolved to
tell the House of Commons that " consequences most
disastrous to the commerce of this country, and most
destructive to public morals," had followed the enactment
of that measure, while "the confidence and good faith
which mark the transactions of the British trader, and
which form the basis of commercial prosperity," had been
shaken, " profligacy and extravagance " had been encour-
aged, and "frauds and perjuries multiplied to an awful
extent." The burgesses of Newcastle were accustomed to
express themselves in somewhat vigorous language, and
upon this occasion the Mayor seems to have approved
of it.
Mr. Forster's last appearance in a public capacity
occurred at the Parliamentary election of 1820. Some of
the electors, desirous of breaking down the influence of
the members for the borough (Sir M. W. Ridley and
Cuthbert Ellison) brought forward young Mr. Scott, son
of Sir William Scott, the future Lord Stowell. Alder-
man Forster supported the nomination, and, in the
absence of the candidate, entered upon a hopeless contest.
At the close of the first day's polling he saw his mistake,
and withdrew his relative from the struggle. But. like
most men who have been accustomed to lead and to rule,
he did not take kindly to defeat. Twelve months after
the election, on the 7th April, 1821, he died at his town
house in Westgate Street, aged 59, and a few days later
was buried in St. Nicholas'.
Mrs. Forster survived her husband for many years. To
her we owe the majority of the personal reminiscences
of Lord Eldon which besprinkle the pages of Twiss's
voluminous " Life " cf that great lawyer. While his lord-
ship lived, Mrs. Forster spent much of her time with him,
carefully collecting all the family traditions relating to
his early life, and noting down his own genial gossip
respecting his exceptionally fortunate career. After the
€2
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{February
1891.
death of Lord Eldon in 1838, she lived in comparative
retirement, and, dying on the 17th April, 1846, aged 71,
was buried in St. Nicholas' beside her husband.
3onatl)<m Jangstaffi Jfowter,
A LEARNED ATTORNEY.
Learning maketh young men temperate, is the comfort
of old age, standing for wealth with poverty, and serving
as an ornament to riches. — Cicero,
One of the numerous branches of the Northumbrian
Forsters established themselves in the township of
Horsley, in the parish of Ovingham, where, at the time
of the Civil War, the family had a freehold estate.
Towards the close of last centnry, the representative of
this Horsley branch was one Matthew Forster, a sub-
stantial farmer at High Barnes, in that township. He
had listened to the preaching of John Wesley, and
became the friend and entertainer of that eminent man
whenever he visited the society in Horsley district. His
eldest son, also named Matthew, born in 1775, came to
Newcastle to learn the profession of the law. He was
articled to Mr. John Kirsop, attorney and notary public
in Westgate Street, and having served his time, obtained
his qualification, and spent a year or two in London to
gain experience, commenced to practise on his own
account. The compiler of Mitchell's Newcastle Directory
for 1801 enters him as "Foster, Matt., attorney-at-law,
High Bridge."
Shortly after his return to the North, Matthew Forster
married Sarah, daughter of Joseph and Catherine Lang-
staff, members of an old Romaldkirk family, and,
removing to Clavering Place, gradually built up a
respectable and profitable business. He filled for some
years the office of joint secretary of the Newcastle
Auxiliary to the British and Foreign Anti - Slavery
Society, and his name occasionally occurs during the
early part of the present century attached to benevolent
enterprises of an unsectarian character. He died at his
residence in St. James's Street, Newcastle, in 1860, at the
venerable age of 85, leaving behind him two sons,
Jonathan Langstaff Forster, attorney, and James
Forster, merchant and shipbroker.
Jonathan Langstaff Forster was born in Newcastle, on
the 8th of January, 1804. His primary education was
conducted by Mr. John Bruce, at Percy Street Academy,
his finishing course was entrusted to the famous school-
master at Witton-le-Wear, the Rev. George Newby.
Articled, at the proper age, to his father's friend, Mr.
William Kirkley, attorney, in Newgate Street, he distin-
guished himself by assiduous attention to the theory and
practice of the law, devotion to classical literature, and
the cultivation of the poetic muse. At the expiration of
his articles, he entered the office of Messrs. Fisher and
Sudlow, in London, and, gaining there an insight into the
working details of a leading practice, returned to New-
castle, fully equipped for the responsible duties of his
profession. Joining his father, he was in due time
admitted to a partnership, the firm becoming that of
"Matthew and Jonathan Langstaff Forster," with an
office in Library Place, Westgate Street, and an excellent
business in the intricate but peaceful department of
conveyancing.
The active pursuit of his calling made no change in
Mr. Forster's literary habits. Attaching himself to the
local Literary and Philosophical Society, then in the
height of its usefulness, he read hard and worked hard ;
his favourite studies being philosophy and languages.
It may be doubted whether any other man in Newcastle
knew so many languages, or could use those which he
knew with greater facility. So absorbed was he in his
studies that until he was nearly forty years of age he
did not find time to marry. The lady of his choice
was Jane Rachael Wood (daughter of Major Wood, of
Berwick, a retired officer of the Royal Artillery), to
whom he was united at St. Andrew's, Newcastle, on the
26th April, 1342. Her decease, after only five and a half
years of married life, was a great affliction to him, and ha
honoured her memory by devoting the rest of his days to
the education and upbringing of the three sons whom she
had left to his care.
From an early age Mr. Forster identified himself with
philanthropic and benevolent enterpriser in Newcastle.
For a number of years he taught in the Sunday schools
attached to St. John's and St. Andrew's, and throughout
his life he sacrificed no small portion of his leisure hours
to helpful but unobtrusive ministrations among the
suffering poor. He assisted his father as the first honor-
ary secretary of the Newcastle Indigent and Sick Society,
and shortly afterwards he undertook the secretarial duties
himself, discharging them with vigour and success for
seven and thirty years. He was also for some years co-
secretary with his father of the Newcastle Auxiliary to
the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. The
North-Eastern Reformatory School and the Newcastle
Town Mission had no warmer supporter; he was one
of the early promoters of both institutions, and for a long
time held an active membership of their respective com-
mittees.
Like his father, Mr. Forster belonged to that branch
of the Church of England which claims to be the true
exponent of the principles of the Reformation. The
Rev, Richard Clayton, head of the evangelical clergy
in Newcastle, was his spiritual leader. When that ex-
cellent man died, and it was proposed to preserve his
memory by the erection in Jesraond of a memorial
church, Mr. Forster was one of the five or six ardent
workers who carried the movement to a successful issue.
In him and four others the trusteeship and patronage
of the church were vested, and he was rarely absent from
its services.
Upon his return from London in 1827, Mr. Forster
joined the newly-formed Newcastle and Gateshead Law
February!
1S91. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND,
63
Society, and in 1835 moved the resolution by which an
affiliated association, the Newcastle and Gateshead Law
Institute, was created. This organization was established
to promote the study of the law by the formation of a
library, the reading of papers on law and jurisprudence,
and the delivery of lectures. Mr. Forster was appointed
co-secretary of the movement, with Mr. Joseph Watson
as his colleague. His services in the promotion of these
institutions were recognised in 1859, when the Incorpor-
ated Law Society appointed him a commissioner to super-
intend the preliminary examination of law students.
After his death, which occurred on the 17th December,
1870, his youngest son, Mr. Henry Langstaff Forster, pub-
lished in two volumes some of the literary effusions with
which he had occupied hia leisure hours. The first, issued
by Messrs. Hamilton Adams and Co. in 1872, is entitled
"Episodes of Life, in Poetry and Prose." The second, a
work of great erudition, published by Messrs. Longmans
Green and Co. the following year, bears the title of
"Biblical Psychology." Both of them pourtray a richly
stored mind, influenced by strong domestic affections, and
guided by deep religious feeling. In the " Episodes " are
many quaint conceits and happy turns of thought, such as
this, referring to the loss of his wife : —
In vain I oft with heart resigned
Her profile, like her shadow, view ;
So life may leave its print behind
That marks its absence too.
His translations from ancient authors, in which he
delighted most, are eraceful and pleasing. Among them
is one from Horace, "To Aristius Fuscus," which,
although for the most part easy, and often attempted by
beginners, ends with a couple of lines that have puzzled
every translator who has attempted to turn them into
English verse.
Pone sub curru nimium propinqui
Solis, in terra domibus negata ;
Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo,
Dulce loquentem.
The late Lord Ravensworth, in his "Odes of Horace
translated into English Lyric Verse," expresses doubt
whether anyone has succeeded in conveying the full
sweetness of the last lines, adding, " I confess my own
failure, which is the more humiliating, after having tried
every conceivable variety of form for twenty years." His
lordship's version reads —
Place me beneath the tropic sun,
Where houseless men in deserts run.
The softly speaking Lalage,
The softly smiling still for me.
Mr. Forster's translation is as follows : —
Consign me where the sun above
Bakes th' uninhabitable ground ;
Sweet smiling Lalage I'll love.
Her prattling sweet shall sound.
— and classical readers must judge between them.
j|T is in the town of Haddington, the capital
of East Lothian, that the antiquary may
revel in all the peculiarities of an old
Scottish town untouched save by the hand
of Time. The Tyne (the Scottish river of that name),
which flows from the Lammermoors, here divides the
present from the past ; for the spirit of progress, it would
seem, has never crossed the fine old bridge connecting
Haddington with its forerunner, now the crumbling
suburb of Nungate.
Neat streets and pleasant villas form the picture on the
one hand : houses huddled together, grey and ruinous
with age, but still giving signs of life, are seen on the
other. Nungate is as it was, so far as mere architecture
goes ; but its glory has departed, and the houses of pre-
tension in the olden time are now the abodes of a class of
labourers, chiefly Irish, who rather assist than retard the
process of decay. Nungate, in short, is to Haddington
what the Cowgate is to Edinburgh, with this difference,
that the bit of "Auld Scotland" in East Lothian is
completely isolated. Till a few years ago, indeed, Nun-
gate was not legally a part of Haddington. It was a
"baillierie " or separate territory, and when it did at last
come under the sway of Haddington it had the honour of
getting a special functionary known as " Baron Baillie of
the Nungate." The "Baron," however, like everybody
else of his day, lets the " bailliene " alone, and it "gangs
its ain gait " accordingly.
But the old place has a history that is not without in
terest. It is useless to speculate as to the age of the
beautiful bridge of red stone which spans the Tyne with-
out flaw in its four graceful arches. Like all work of the
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{February
189L
period of its erection, it was meant to stand, and the
roaring floods from the Lammermoors have failed to move
"Nungate Brig." Not so with Nungate itself; for
terrible inundations are recorded as having taken place
about once a century, houses being swept away and their
occupants drowned. In 1358, however, one John Burley
escaped the general fate by clambering on to his roof and
guiding his strange bark by means of a long pole. On
rushed the flood, and John's craft was finally dashed
against the brig. Fixing his pole into the structure, he
held on, and the impromptu couplet-
Row we merely (merrily),
Quo John Burley —
illustrates the coolness ascribed to him by tradition. At
any rate John, with his cock, his cat, and his dog, the
only surviving members of his household, landed, like
another Noah, when the waters subsided. And if he had
lived until he heard Drummond of Hawthornden's de-
scription of the scene of this marvellous, voyage— "Tyne
tortoise-like that flows"— no doubt he would have in-
sisted upon a more correct comparison.
It goes without saying that Nungate, along with
Haddington, being in the linn of march far invading
hosts, had its share of trouble by fire and sword.
Four times did the English make a bonfire of
the place, and in the year 1548, when the French
and Scots sought to turn out the English forces,
the ravages of pestilence were so great that the dead
were left unburied, while, on the evacuation of the town
by the English in the following year, only "a mean
number of the ancient inhabitants " were left " to rebuild
and venture as best they could." George Wishart had
prophesied this dire visitation "for their contempt of
God's messenger," complaining that while a "vain clerk
BOTHWELL CASTLE, HADDINGTON.
February 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
play " would have drawn an audience of two or three
thousand, he himself could not get a hundred hearers. It
was in this very Nungate that the great Reformer, John
Knox, had his birth, a tree still marking the site of the
house.
There is one other memory that clings to this quaint
scene. Close by a ford over the Tyne is what appears to
be a collection of old houses having some pretension in
their architecture. This is known as Bothwell Castle,
being the town-house of Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, and
the abode of Francis, Earl of Bothwell and Duke of
Orbury. Here stayed Queen Mary from time to time,
and tradition says that the Castle was her residence for
a while between the murder of Darnley and her imprison-
n-.ent at Loch Leven. A melancholy interest, therefore,
is awakened by the rambling building— now the home of
poor families — as we think of the hapless woman whose
chief fault, as a Scottish preacher once said, was that she
was "bonnie."
EattU at tyamiltsan »ill.
jjHE battle of Hombyll-dnwn, Homildon, or
Humbledon, near Wooler, was fought on
Holy Rood Day, the 14th September, 1402,
in the third year of the reign of that brave
but unhappy monarch, Henry the Fourth.
There had been a short truce between the two king-
doms of England and Scotland ; but, as usual, little
respect was paid to it by the turbulent Borderers on
either side. George, Earl of March, who had fled from
Scotland, and taken refuge with the Earl of Northumber-
land, ravaged the lands of his enemies, the Douglases, in
company with the Percies, while the latter, and their
dependents and allies, revenged themselves by repeated
inroads on the English side of the Border. In one of
these Douglas (Archibald, the fourth earl) is said to have
burned Bamborough Castle, but this is doubtful. At any
rate, the Scottish chief was far less successful than others
of his name had been. Indeed, he sustained so many
losses that he gained the popular title of Tyne-man, or
Lose-man, on account of the number of men who were
slain under his banner. People accordingly began to say
that ill-luck attended upon all his undertakings, and only
those who were as reckless as himself cared to follow him
across the Tweed. Douglas, however, after gaining a
victory over Hotspur and the Earl of March at Liutuii or
Prestonkirk, a village on the Scottish river Tyne, in East
Lothian, made a successful raid into England and carried
away a deal of spoil.
The Scots were not so fortunate in a second raid.
Having penetrated too far, they were intercepted by
Percy and March at Nesbit Moor, in the Merse, a short
way from Dunse. Here, after a desperate conflict, the
leader of the Scots, Sir Patrick Hepburn of Hailes, was
slain, with many of his bravest companions, and most of
the rest, including some distinguished knights of Lothian,
were taken prisoners.
Although this was but an inconsiderable battle, it pro-
duced important results. While King Henry thanked
the Earl of Northumberland and his son, the gallant
NUNGATE BRIDGE, HADDINGTON.
5
66
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{February
1891.
Hotspur, for their activity, and ordered them to collect
the force of the Border Counties to resist more effectually
the incursions of the Scots, the Earl of Douglas, enraged
at the defeat at Nesbit Moor, and believing that the
English king was fully occupied with the invasion of the
Welsh, who, under Owen Glendower, were ravaging the
western marches with fire and sword, determined to
collect all his available strength and take ample ven-
geance for the loss of Hepburn and his companions-in-
arms.
There assembled under his banner, unlucky though it
was, the greater part of the chivalry of Scotland, includ-
ing the Earls of Moray, Angus, and Orkney, with the an-
cient British chief. Fergus Macdouall, at the head of the
men of Galloway, and the heads of the houses of Erskine,
Grahame, Montgomery, Seton, Sinclair, Lesley, the
Stuarts of Angus, Durisdeer, and Lome, and many other
knights of distinction. They were joined by Murdoch,
Earl of Fife, the eldest son of the Duke of Albany,
brother of King Robert the Third, in command of a
strong body of archers and spearmen. The whole force
which crossed the Border amounted to not less than ten
thousand men — the "pick and wale" of Scotland's
warriors.
The Earl of Northumberland and his son were pre-
pared, however, for this formidable invasion, which took
place about the middle of August ; and, assisted by the
Earl of March and his son Gawin of Dunbar, they assem-
bled their forces to meet it. But they prudently per-
mitted the invaders to advance for a while without oppo-
sition ; and so the Scots marched through the heart of
Northumberland, up to the gates of Newcastle, undis-
turbed. Their leaders, imagining that King Henry had
all his forces with him in Wales, and that the Borderers
were panic-stricken, were now confident in the strength
of their army. They, therefore, gave way to a fatal
security. Having collected their rich but cumbersome
spoils, they began a slow retreat ; and they had encamped
carelessly in the neighbourhood of Wooler when intelli-
gence was suddenly brought to Douglas that the pass in
front was occupied by an English army, under the re-
doubtable Hotspur, who was marching to attack him.
Douglas lost no time in preparing for the fight. But
he committed a fatal error in the choice of his position.
He placed his men in a solid square on a high eminence a
little to the west of Wooler, called in the old Cymric
tongue, once vernacular in the North, "the bold bare
hill " (Hu-moeltwn), as though he had only to resist an
attack of the English men-at-arms, whereas the greater
part of Hotspur's army consisted of archers, whose skill
in the use of the bow had proved in so many cases
disastrous to Scotland, • and the hill on which his army
was massed was surrounded by other eminences within
bowshot, which commanded it.
When the English came in sight of the Scottish posi-
ion, Hotspur, with characteristic impetuosity, would at
once have rushed on to the attack with his men-at-arms,
but he was restrained by the Earl of March, whose old
and experienced eye saw at a glance the error which had
been committed by the Scottish general. Holding
Percy's horse by the reins, March urged that the men-at-
arms should be kept in reserve, and that the archers
should be allowed to begin the battle. Fortunately for
the English, his advice was followed. The archers
marched slowly down the hill where the rest of the army
halted, pouring forth as they went volleys of arrows,
which fell with fearful execution on the close ranks of
their enemies. The Scots were much more ex posed than
they otherwise would have been, owing to their being
marshalled on a number of terraces cut in the side of the
hill, — it is supposed in the old British, Saxon, and
Danish wars,— a position which would have enabled them
to make a powerful defence had the English been forced
to come to close quarters with them, but which rendered
them practically defenceless when their assailants were
armed with those famous long and cross-bows which they
knew so well how to handle. Many of the Scottish
barons and gentlemen were slain in this unequal fight, for
even their tempered steel armour was not proof against
the English arrows, and the chroniclers tell us that the
unprotected bodies of the wild Galwegians, who fought in
the kilt and trews, presented the appearance of hedgehogs
on the field after the battle was over. The Scots for a
while seemed paralysed by the destruction which thus fell
upon them, and which became greater as the English
archers drew nearer. At length one of the bravest of the
Northern barons, Sir John Swinton —
A doughty knight
As ever Scotland bred —
exclaimed that they should rush down the hill upon their
enemies, and not stand still to be slain like deer. Calling
on his fellow-warriors to follow, he couched his lance, and
was giving the rein to bis horse, when another Berwick-
shire baron— Adam of Gordon— with whom he had long
been at deadly feud, dismounted and stopped him. "Let
us be reconciled on this spot," he said, "that I may
receive knighthood at thy hand, for I can never receive
the honour from any more noble and brave." Swinton
got off his horse, embraced his old foe, and gave him the
accolade ; and then both mounted their steeds again and
charged down the hill, with their immediate followers,
amounting to about a hundred horsemen.
Like two huge rocks on Braemar's brow,
When loosen'd from their bed,
That thunder down and overthrow
The pines that crown the glade.
Thus they, through ranks, the Earl of March,
And the bold Percies sought,
And blood and carnage mark'd their path,
Where'er they stept and fought.
At length they're wi' their gallant train,
By numbers compass'd round,
And fighting fall on heaps of slain,
And stain with gore the ground.
February 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
67
So did these valiant chieftains fall,
Who lived in mortal strife ;
But lock'd in one another's arms.
Dear friendship closed their life.
It was a desperate charge, fatal to all who took part in
it. Every man of them was slain or dismounted before
he reached the enemy's ranks, and Sir John Swinton and
Sir Adam of Gordon fell, as the ballad-writer states in
the lines just quoted, fighting side hy side, on foot, with
bootless bravery. Several times did they rally flying
parties, and rush forward to renew the battle ; but they
were both struck down, and trampled under foot.
Douglas had now given the word of command to
advance, and the whole Scottish army followed the
example of these devoted cavaliers. As the Scots
descended the hill towards the plain on the north-west,
the English archers fell back slowly on their own men-
at-arms, according to the most approved tactics then in
vogue. They retired in well-compacted bodies, a little
apart, to admit the other troops into the line ; and at
each retrograde step they discharged a new volley, with
such deadly aim that the Scots fell thick on every side.
The numerous bodies of the slain and the furious kicking
and prancing of the wounded horses impeded the progress
of Douglas's men greatly. Confusion and terror soon per-
vaded their ranks, if ranks they could now be called, and
they began ta disperse and fly in all directions ; upon
which the English archers laid aside their bows, and,
rushing in with their short swords and Sheffield knives,
completed the discomfiture of their foes.
We are assured by contemporary writers that the
English men-at-arms never needed to strike a blow, but
that the battle was gained solely by the archers. No
person of note was slain on the English side. But the
slaughter of the Scots was dreadful, and almost every per-
son of rank and station who survived was made a prisoner.
The Earl of Douglas, in spite of the extraordinary
temper of his armour, received five wounds, and likewise
lost an eye. With him were captured the Earls of Fife.
Moray, Angus, and Orkney, as well as Fergus Macdouall,
lord of Galloway. Eighty knights of the first Scottish
families were also taken, including Sir Robert Erskine of
Alva, Sir William Abernithy of Saltoun, Sir John Stuart
of Lome. Sir George Leslie of Rothes, Sir Adam Forester
of Corstophine, Sir William Sinclair of Hermandston, Sir
Robert Logan of Restalrig. the Lord Montgomery, Sir
James Douglas, master of Dalkeith, together with three
French knights, the Sieurs Piers de Essars, Jacques de
Nelsey, and Jean d'Arnay. Among the slain were,
besides the two knights already named, Sir John Leving-
stun of Callendar, Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie,
Sir Roger Gordon, Sir Walter Scott, and Sir Walter
Sinclair. It was computed that at least four hundred
fugitives were drowned in trying to cross the Tweed. Of
the rest of the Scottish host, comparatively few found
their wav b >me.
Seldom had a battle, in a war undertaken for such un-
worthy objects, brought such mourning upon Scotland.
Frae Forth to Tweed, a swankie blade
Was then a sight to see ;
The cou'ter, left in half plough'd rigg,
Lay rusting on the lee.
The plain on which the battle was fought got the name
of Redriggs, from the slaughter with which it was stained.
A whinstone pillar, which was set up to commemorate the
victory, is still known as the Battle Stone. • It stands
about half a mile south from Akeld farm, half-way be-
tween Wooler and Kirk Newton, on the road to Kelso.
When King Henry received intelligence of what had
taken place, he sent the Duke of Northumberland orders
not to ransom his prisoners, as he 'intended to detain
them, in order to increase his demands in making peace
with Scotland. This message was highly resented by the
earl, who, by the laws of war which prevailed in that age,
had a right to the ransom of all such as he had taken in
battle. The command was still more irksome since he
considered the king his debtor, both for his security and
his crown, for it was the Percies who had been mainly
instrumental in the deposition of his unhappy predecessor,
Richard the Second. Accordingly, stung by this sup-
posed injury, the earl resolved to overturn a throne which
he had had the chief hand in establishing.
So a secret scheme was laid for uniting the Scots and
Welsh to assist Northumberland in deposing Henry and
elevating Mortimer to the throne. Meanwhile, the
Percies held their prisoners at their own disposal, though
they professed to be ready to obey the king's commands.
Except in restricting the disposal of the Homildon
prisoners. King Henry treated the Percies with the most
distinguished favour. He conferred on them, by a
stretch of authority truly imperial, the whole Earldom
of Douglas, with all the territories appeitaining to it,
though they lay wholly within the confines of an inde-
pendent kingdom. The Earl of Northumberland and
his sons therefore girded themselves to carry on the war
against the Scots, which served as a convenient cover for
their treasonable designs. The conquest of the Earldom
of Douglas afforded the Percies an excuse for raising a
numerous army of devoted adherents.
With this force, in the beginning of the summer
of 1403, they marched into Scotland, in company with the
Earl of March ; but, instead of undertaking any consider-
able exploit, the whole army sat down before a miserable
little fortress, called Cocklaws, or Ormiston, just over the
Border, at the head of Beaumont Water, on the old hill
road from Rothbury and Alwinton to Yetholm. This
sorry Border peel, the possession of which was not worth
a groat, they made a show of battering down with
warlike engines. The commander of the place, a simple
squire named John (ireenlaw, assumed the air of a power-
ful chieftain, and entered into a formal agreement to sur-
render his solitary Cheviot tower at the end of six weeks
if he were not in that time relieved by the King of Soot-
68
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{February
1891.
laud, or by his brother the Duke of Albany. In the mean-
time, the army of the I'ercies was to remain inactive ; and
a messenger was sent to Albany to inform him of the
urgency of the case. The herald, it is said, carried back
to the Percies the secret assurance that Albany was ready
to give all the help he could to the intended insurrection
in England. But it was necessary to keep up appear-
ances, and so Albany assembled the Privy Council,
gravely laid before their lordships the message of Green-
law, and asked their opinion whether he should go to
raise the siege or not The privy councillors, believing
that they were acting according to Albany's real withes
when they advised peace, recommended that the Border
reive should be left to his fate rather than risk a battle
with the victorious English, at a moment when the flower
of the Scottish chivalry were captives in Northumber-
land. But, greatly to the astonishment of the council,
Albany, who knew better than the members did how
things stood, gave vent to a sudden burst of patriotic
spirit " By Heavens and St. Fillan !" he exclaimed, "I
will keep the day of appointment with Cocklaws, were
there none to follow me thither but Peter of Kinbuck,
who holds my horse yonder !" The Council, hearing tbis,
immediately agreed to the propriety of relieving John
Greenlaw. So a formidable aimy was raised, and
marched under Albany's command to the Border.
The conspiracy was now ready for explosion. The Earl
of Douglas, with the greater part of the barons and
knights taken at Homildon Hill, being set at liberty,
aised their forces to march under the banner ot Percy,
who, suddenly breaking off the Scottish expedition,
hurried away to unite his forces with those of Glendower
on the borders of Wales. The Earl ol Northumberland,
however, being seized with a sudden illness, stayed
behind at Berwick.
The fact that Douglas had joined in alliance with Percy
was enough to drive away the Earl of March, who
refused to assist in the conspiracy, and rode off to give
information to King Henry, and urge him to take active
measures against the insurgents. By a rapid march the
king intercepted them at Shrewsbury, and a terrible
conflict established Henry definitely on the throne.
The Douglas and the Hotspur, both together,
Were confident against the world in arms.
But the Fates were now against them. The Earl of
Douglas, severely wounded, became again a captive. He
had performed, during the day, deeds of valour which are
almost incredible, and which nearly decided the battle in
Percy's favour. Seeming determined that the King of
England should fall by his arm, he sought him all over
the field, and as Henry, either to elude the attacks of the
enemy upon his royal person, or to encourage his own
men by the belief of his presence everywhere, had
accoutred several captains in his kingly garb, the sword of
Douglas rendered this honour fatal to many. Shakspeare
makes Hotspur say, after the doughty earl had slain two
of these counterfeit kings : —
0 Douglas, hadst thou fought at Homildon thus.
1 never had triumphed upon a Scot
The descendant of the hero of Otterburn swore he was
determined
To render all his wardrobe, piece by piece,
Until he met the king.
At length
The noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw
The fortune of the day quite turn'd from him,
The noble Percy slain, and all his men
Upon the foot of fear, fed with the rest ;
And, falling from a hill, he was so bruised
That the pursuers took him.
Before the event of the battle of Shrewsbury was
known in the North, the Duke of Albany arrived at
Cocklaws, with an army of no less than fifty thousand
men, announcing publicly his intention of giving battle to
the Percies, though there can be no doubt that his real
intention was to join them in making war upon King
Henry. It was not till he reached Cocklaws that he
knew the rebellion had broken out, and the first news of
it was the announcement of the desperate fight on the
Welsh border, the death of Hotspur, the capture of
Douglas, the total dispersion of the rebels, and the
submission of the Earl of Northumberland. Having
caused the news to be proclaimed through his army by a
herald, Albany matched back into Scotland.
So ended the transactions which immediately followed
the battle of Homildon Hill.
itt tfte
jlMIDST the excitement and confusion of the
J"\GB Sfreat Puritan Revolution, there were many
singular developments of religious enthusi-
asm, some of which passed into wild fanati-
cism ; but, although in numerous cases the preposterous
pretensions of crazy prophets attracted some attention
and a few followers, each mania seemed to die away after
a short spell of raving without leaving a trace beyond
a vague memory that such things had been. Conspicuous
among the characters of that zealous age was George
Fox ; but, whatever of extravagance or phantasy his co-
temporaries imputed to him, time has proved that he was
a man ef deep insight into the needs and errors of the
human heart, that he was a veritable king among enthusi-
asts, that he was a true apostle of the faith professed by
all Christendom, and that the work he did was of a
permanent and extensively useful character.
George Fox was a man of lowly origin, imperfect
education, insignificant social standing, and somewhat
uncouth manners. Yet he became a power in the land.
His followers were opprobriously nicknamed Quakers by
Justice Bennet, of Derby, in 1650, because George Fox
February!
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
69
admonished him and those present "to quake at the
word of the Lord." But fearless George gloried in the
epithet. In 1655 he was moved to indite a lengthy and
vigorous epistle to "all you that scorn trembling and
quaking ; who scoff at, scorn, stone, and belch forth oaths
against those who are trembling and quaking, threatening
them and beating them." And he cited from Scripture
Moses trembling and quaking, Jeremiah's bones quaking
and his denunciation of those who did not " tremble at
tlie Word of the Lord," Isaiah's words of comfort to
those who "tremble at my Word," and Habakkuk's
prophecy that "all the people shall tremble and all faces
gather blackness," summing up as follows :—" There
ye may see ye are contrary to God, contrary to the
prophets, and are such as hate what the Lord regards,
which we, whom the world scorns and calls Quakers,
own. We exalt and honour the power that makes the
devils tremble, shakes the earth and throws down the
loftiness and haughtiness of men, which makes the beasts
of the field to tremble and the earth to reel to and fro,
which cleaves the earth asunder and overturneth the
world."
Fox was born in the year 1621, at the village of
Drayton-in-the-Clay, Leicestershire. His father, Christo-
pher Fox, was called "Righteous Christer," a very
honourable nickname. His mother, Mary Lago, was, he
says, of the seed of the martyrs. From earliest childhood
he was of a grave and staid demeanour and speech beyond
his years. Before he was 20 years of age he entered upon
the great mission to which he devoted the remaining forty
years of his life. In the earlier portion of this period, and,
indeed, often in the course of his strange and wandering
life, he was subject to deep depression of mind and fear-
ful conflicts of soul. Out of all, however, he emerged
into the clear shining of the sun, and enjoyed serenest
peace in the thickest of outward troubles.
We cannot even sketch his writings or his teachings,
but must content ourselves with tracing his missionary
career, so far as it connects him with the Northern
Counties. For traces of this kind we must look chiefly
to his own admirable and most interesting Journal, but
also to other vehicles of tradition and history. It was
not until 1653 that he made his way into Northumber-
land. Let us see what his Journal says as to his first
visit :—
In Northumberland many came to dispute, of whom
some pleaded against perfection ; unto whom I declared,
"that Adam and Eve were perfect before they fell ; and
all that God made was perfect ; and that the imperfection
came by the Devil, and the fall ; but Christ, that came to
destroy the Devil, said, 'Be ye perfect.'" One of the
professors alleged that Job said, " Shall mortal man be
more pure than his Maker? The heavens are not clear
in his sight. God charged his angels with folly." But I
showed him his mistake, and let him see, " that it was
not Job that said so, but one of those that contended
against Job; for Job stood for perfection, and held his
integrity ; and they were called miserable comforters."
Then these professors said, the outward body was the
body of death and sin. I showed them their mistake in
that also ; for " Adam and Eve had each of them an
outward body, before the body of death and sin got into
them ; and that man and woman will have bodies,
when the body of sin and death is put off
again ; when they are renewed up into the image
of God again by Christ Jesus, which they were
in before they fell." So they ceased at that time
from opposing further ; and glorious meetings we had in
the Lord's power. Then passed we on to Hexbam, where
we had a great meeting at the top of a hill (the Seal).
The priest threatened that he would come and oppose us,
but he came not; so that all was quiet; and the everlasting
day and renowned truth of the everliving God was
sounded over those dark countries, and His Son exalted
over all. It was proclaimed among the people that the
day was now come, wherein all that made a profession of
the Son of God, might receive him ; and that to as many
as would receive Him, he would give power to
become the sons of God, as He had done to
me. And it was further declared, that "he that
had the Son of God had life eternal ; but
that he that had not the Son of God (though he
professed all the Scriptures, from the first of Genesis to
the last of the Revelation) had not life." So after that
all were directed to the light of Christ, by which they
might see Him and receive Him, and know where their
true teacher was ; and the everlasting truth had been
largely declared amongst them, we passed away through
Hexham peaceably, and came into Gilsland, a country
noted for thieving. Here a Friend, spying the priest,
went to speak to him ; whereupon the priest came down
to our inn, and the town's people gathered about us.
The priest said he would prove us deceivers out of the
Bible, but could find no Scripture for his purpose. Then
he went into the inn : and after a while came out again,
and brought some broken sentences of Scripture, that
mention " the doctrines and commandments of men, &c.,
and, touch not, taste not, &c., for they perish with the
using." All which, poor man! was his own condition;
whereas we were persecuted, because we would not taste,
nor touch, nor handle their doctrines and traditions,
which we knew perished with the using. I asked him
what he called the steeple-house. "Oh," said he, "the
dreadful house of God, the temple of God." Then I
showed him, and the poor dark people, that their bodies
should be the temples of God ; and that Christ never
commanded these temples, but ended that temple at
Jerusalem, which God had commanded. While I was
speaking the priest got away ; and afterwards the people
made as if they feared we would take their pur.ses or
steal their horses ; judging us like themselves, who are
naturally given to thieving.
The disciples of Fox appear, however, not to have
gained a permanent footing in the town, or even in the
shire, of Hexham. There used to be one solitary Quaker
bonnet in the tewn, and that belonged to Betty Bowman,
the bread baker and milk seller ; and so well known was
she, that whenever the young Hexhamites chanced to see
a person in Quaker garb, they instantly went up and
asked, "Do you want Betty Bowman?" There is a
tradition, doubtless, in the very name Quaker's Garth,
given to a field at the foot of Battle Hill ; but what is the
origin of the name we cannot discover. Probably it was
once the property of a man who turned Quaker, and
subsequently disappeared without leaving any traces
behind him. Thirty years after George Fox had stirred
up the priest at Hexham. some of his zealous followers
did the same at Chapel Hill, with the effect of provoking
the neighbouring priest of Slaley to the "good works " of
instituting regular service, though not, it is said, to any
great love of the people who had thus provoked him.
Three years later, George Fox repeated his visit to the
70
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f February
{ im.
Northumberland Friends, and this is his account of the
mission : —
Leavine Berwick, we came to Mprpeth, and so through
the country, visiting Friends, to Newcastle, where I had
been once before. The Newcastle priests had written
many books against us ; and one Ledger, an alderman of
the town, was very envious against truth and iriends.
He and the priests had said, " the Quakers would not
come into any great towns, but lived in the lells, like
butterflies." So I took Anthony Pearson with me, and
went to this Ledger, and several others of the aldermen,
" desiring to have a meeting amongst them, seeing they
had written so many books against u». for we were now
come, I told them, into their great town. But they
would not yield we should have a meeting, neither would
they be spoken withal, save only this Ledger and one
other. I queried, had they not called Friends butterflies,
and said we would not come into any great towns .' and
now we were come into their town, they would not come
at us, though they had printed books against us. Who
are the butterflies now '!" said I. Then Ledger began to
plead for the Sabbath day ; but I told him they kept
markets and fairs on that which was the Sabbath day, tor
that was the seventh day of the week ; whereas that day,
which the professed Christians now met on, and call their
Sabbath, is the first day of the week. As we couid not
have a public meeting among them, we got a little
meeting among Friends and friendly people at the Gate-
Bide ; where a meeting is continued to this day, in the
name of Jesus. As I was passing by the market-place.
the power of the Lord rose in me, " to warn them of the
day of the Lord, that was coming upon them." And not
long after, all those priests of Newcastle and their profes-
sion were turned out, when the king came in. From
Newcastle we travelled through the countries^ having
meetings and visiting Friends as we went, in Northum-
berland and Bishopric. A very good meeting we had at
Lieutenant Dove's, where many were turned to the Lord
and his teaching. After the meeting, I went to visit a
justice of the peace, a very sober, loving man, who con-
fessed to the truth.
In 1653, Fox paid a lengthened visit to the city and
county of Durham. Benfieldside was the locality of
almost the first Friends' Meeting House erected in
England. The original house is not standing, but its
successor is, and is preserved for the sake of its adjoining
burying-ground, while another meeting place is now used.
Shotley Spa, and several other parts of Derwent Valley,
early became peaceful refuges for the buffeted and per-
secuted followers of George Fox.
One of the most interesting portions of Fox's diary, so
far as Durham is concerned, relates to Oliver Cromwell's
project for establishing a university. So early as 1650, the
Lord Protector had drawn attention to his project in a
letter which gives a melancholy account of educational
matters in these "poore, rude, and ignorant parts." The
matter slept till 1651-2, when the grand jury of the county
petitioned Parliament, aiid a committee of the House
reported that the "houses of the Dean and Chapter were
fit places to erect a college or school for all the science
and literature." In 1656 Cromwell issued an ordinance
founding the college, and in 1657 (May 15) he issued
letters patent by which the University was created.
Ample provision was made for its maintenance out of the
sequestrated funds of the Dean and Chapter. At the
Restoration the new college shared the fate of the
Government by which it had been set up. That the
scheme did not wholly commend itself to George Fox is
evident from what follows: —
From Lieut. Dove's we came to Durham, where was a
man come from London, to set up a college there, to
make ministers of Christ, as they said. I went, with some
others to reason with the man, and to let him see,
that to teach men Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and the
seven arts, which were all but the teachings of the
natural man, was not the way to make them ministers of
Christ. For the languages began at Babel ; and to the
Greeks, that spoke Greek as their mother-tongue, the
preaching of the cross of Christ was foolishness ; and to
the Jews, that spoke Hebrew as their mother-tongue,
Christ was a stumbling block. The Romans, who had
the Latin, persecuted the Christians; and Pilate, one
of the Roman governors, set Hebrew, Greek, and Latin
a-top of Christ, when he crucified him. So he might
see the many languages began at Babel, and they
set them a-top of Christ, the Word, when they crucified
Him. John the Divine, who preached the Word, that
was in the beginning, said, "that the beast and the
whore have power over tongues and languages, and they
are as waters." Thus 1 told him, he might see, the
whore and beast have power over the tongues and the
many languages which are in mystery Babylon : for they
began at Babel ; and the persecutors of Christ Jesus set
them over Him, when he was crucified by them ; but He
is risen over them all, who was before them all. Now,
said I, to this man, "dost thou think to make ministers
of Christ by these natural, confused languages, which
sprung from Babel, are admired in Babylon, and set a-top
of Christ, the Life, by a persecutor ?" Oh no ! The man
confessed to many of these things. Then we showed him
further, " that Christ made His ministers Himself, gave
gifts unto them, and bid them ' pray to the Lord of the
harvest, to send forth labourers. ' And Peter and John,
though unlearned and ignorant (as to school learning)
preached Christ Jesus, the Word, which was in the
beginning, before Babel was. Paul also was made an
apostle, not of man, nor by man, neither received he the
gospel from man, but from Jesus Christ, who is the same
now, and so is His gospel, as it was at that day." When
we had thus discoursed with the man, he became very
loving and tender ; and, after he had considered further
of it, declined to set up his college.
In 1663 this zealous missionary once more visited Dur-
ham, preaching at the house of one Richmond, and
staying overnight at the house of Henry Draper. Next
morning he received friendly warning, as he puts it, that
"if the priests and justices (for many priests were made
justices in that country at that time) could light on me
they would destroy me." After this year he came no
more into Northumberland and Durham, unless for very
brief visits, during the one or two years he spent in a
sort of recruiting seclusion at his beloved Swarthmore.
jBtoartl)moor
Lancashire is famous for its many picturesque old
halls ; but Swarthmoor, near Ulverston, can hardly be
said to be worthy of being classed with such remarkable
erections as Tufton, Speke, or Moreton. Indeed, beyond
a certain quaintness, Swarthmoor Hall is not of much
moment, so far as its external appearance is concerned.
It is an irregular, Elizabethan dwelling-house of the
better class, without any distinguishing features, excepting
the projecting gable. But the old hall has an interest
to students of history, for here dwelt for a time the
founder of the Society of Friends. And here, it is
alleged, were held the first regular meetings of that sect.
February X
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
71
George Fox's 6rst visit to Swarthmonr Hall occurred in
1652, during the temporary absence of the owner, Thomas
Fell, who, being one of the judges of assize, had gone on
the Welsh circuit. The hospitality of the hall was open
to ministers of religion, and Fox stayed there all night.
The next day, being Sunday, he repaired to Ulverston
Church, where he was allowed to preach, his words
creating a deep impression in the mind of the judge's
wife. The same night he preached in Swarthmoor Hall
to the family and servants, and from that time Mrs. Fell
became one of his staunchest adherents. The friends of
the judge went to meet him as he was returning home
from circuit, and informed him that "a great disaster
was befallen amongst his family, and that they were
witches, and that they had taken us out of our religion,
and that he must set them away, or all the country would
be undone." This information naturally perturbed the
spirit of the judge, who, on arriving at Swarthmoor,
expressed his displeasure. But the same night George
family, he does not appear to have claimed any undue
advantage. At any rate, it is stated that he and his
stepchildren lived on most amicable terms. But most of
the later years of his life were spent in the London
district, where he died on the 13th of November, 1690, in
the 67th year of his age.
Our drawing of Swarthraoor Hall shows it as it appears
at the present time. The house was for a long period in
a state of dilapidation. It is, however, now occupied by
a farmer. In the projecting portion there are three
windows. The room indicated by the highest of the
three was Fox's study, and he occasionally preached from
the window of it. Within the building are some old
carved oak mantelpieces. It was in a quaint, flagged
apartment on the ground floor that the first meetings of
the Friends were held. There are many relics still to be
seen in the place; but Mr. Edwin Waugh, in his
"Rambles in the Lake Country," published in 1882,
states that Fox's Bible was then in the possession of a
lady belonging to the Society of Friends in Ulverston.
Some quarter of a mile or so to the west ot Swarthmoor
Hall is the first chapel of the disciples of George Fox. It
was built at his own cost in 1688. Above the entrance is
the inscription:— "Ex dono, G. F., 1688.'' Near to the
western end of the chapel is a croft which was presented
with the chapel for the accommodation of worshippers
who came from a distance.
About a couple of miles from Swarthmoor Hall is
Swart or Swarth Moor, where, in 1487, the army of the
impostor Lambert Simnel encamped. In 1643 there was
an engagement at the same spot between 1,500 men of the
King's forces and about the same number of the Parlia-
mentary party. The affair resulted in the defeat of the
Royalists, with a loss of 300 prisoners, including Colonel
Huddlestone.
Fox expounded his views at the hall, and favourably
impressed the judge himself with his fervour and
sincerity. "This was on the sixth day of the week,
about the fifth month, 1652," wrote the lady in the book
which she afterwards issued giving "a brief account of
Fox's travels, sufferings, and hardships, endured for
truth's sake." As there was no place in the neighbour-
hood where the Friends could hold a meeting, the judge
suggested that they might assemble at Swarthmoor Hall.
This offer was gladly accepted, and, quoting from the
same source, we find that " notice was given that day and
the next to Friends, and there was a good large meeting
the first day, which was the first meeting which was at
Swarthmore, and so continued tlieie a meeting from 1652
to 1690."
Judge Fell died in 1658. Eleven years afterwards
George Fox married the widow. Both before and subse-
quent to marriage the couple suffered imprisonment for
conscience' sake. Although Fox considerably bettered
his worldly prospects by the connection with a good
| HE Monthly Chronicle for November, 1887,
p. 401, contained an account of the bridge
over the Wear at Sunderland which was con-
structed and erected by Rowland Burdon in the year
1796. The total cost of the structure was £40,000.
Of this sum £30,000 was advanced by Mr. Burdon,
at 5 per cent, interest, on security of tolls, while
the remaining fourth was raised by subscription on
loan. Owing to adverse pecuniary circumstances, the
shares held by Mr. Burdon were afterwards offered
for sale. As there was no prospect of realising
by this means, it was determined to sell Mr.
Burdon's interest in the bridge by means of a lottery.
All the circumstances in connexion therewith are fully
detailed in the Monthly Chronicle for June, 1889, p. 254.
The foundation stone of Sunderland Bridge was
February t
1891. I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
73
.=33
./ 'Ji*?
•-•':'&•
.^-#. •
74
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/February
\ 1891.
laid on September 18, 1795, the bridge being opened
to the public on August 8, 1796. An Act of Parliament
was obtained in 1857 for the renovation of the bridge,
which was carried out under the superintendence of
Robert Stepbenson. An additional interest is attached
to the drawing which we now present to our readers
(page 72) from the fact that it includes a view of the rail-
way bridge which also spans the Wear.
at Uttfttrtoittan.
J1ROM the Simonside Hills to the Wansbeck
runs the bright little river the Font,
through a valley of sylvan beauty, shut
in and protected by pastoral ridges, which,
to the north, roll away into moor and common.
Midway up this valley, surrounded by woods and
waters, is the picturesque village of Netherwitton. To
our Anglian forefathers it was the "white" or fair
"town, "and hence it received from them the descriptive
and lovely name of Witton-by-the- Waters.
It is five miles from any railway station, and out of the
track of the ordinary tourist who may follow perhaps the
high-road to Alnwick and Rothbury, never dreaming
that so pretty a bit of Northumberland is within a very
short distance of him.
Netherwitton impresses us most when approached from
the south by a road called the Trench, which descends the
hillside through the Old Park Wood, being bordered by
several fine beeches a little way out of the village.
Through the foliage .we may catch, now and then, a brief
glimpse of an old thatched roof or a picturesque gable.
The greater part of the village is seated, as we see, on a
gentle incline in a bend of the Font, which is joined at
this point from the west by the Ewesley Burn. A num-
ber of fine tall elms interspersed with sycamores, beeches,
and limes — the abode of a colony of rooks, who have many
a good-natured wrangle in the branches — form an appro-
priate background of dark-green foliage.
The " harvest of a quiet eye" is a rich one in Nether-
witton. We gaze with calm pleasure on the rustic scene,
singling out all the picturesque details thereof — the pan-
tiled smithy with some rusty, worn horse-shoes nailed
to its door ; the modest little temperance hotel,
which is also the post-office, of two storeys,
built of a warm-tinted sandstone and roofed with thin
slabs of the same material ; the half-dozen steps near its
door, which have probably served in the past as a " horse-
block," or "louping-on-styen," as it is locally called ; the
grey-walled, thatched, low cottages, which have asters,
nasturtiums, calceolarias, and stocks round
their doorways ; the newly-built cottages in
the centre of the village with high-pointed
gables and diamond-panedwindows, one of
them decked very prettily with clematis
and honeysuckle ; the village well under
a small roundarch, four steps leading down
to it ; and the neat little gardens with
hedges or palings around them, a few
having beehives of modern construction
What was once the village green is now
occupied by several of these gardens, and
we cannot fail to notice, in one of them,
between two leafy limes, the village cross
(restored in 1825) with the date 1698 carved
upon it. Here might have been formerly
fi witnessed those simple rural sports and
pastimes so inimitably described by Gold-
smith in the opening lines of the "De-
serted Village." The villagers, we are
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
75
told, were accustomed to assemble of an evening on the
green, and to dance around the cross to the sound of the
Northumbrian bag-pipes. On festival days they decked
it with flowers, ribbons, and showy finery.
A path by the end of the principal house in the vil-
lage—the residence of Mr. Raleigh Trevelyan— leads
along the park wall to a small wooden bridge across
the Font. Then, from this point, a walk between ivy-
grown walls curves round past the vicarage to the church
of St. Giles — a plain little edifice consisting of nave and
chancel, with a bell-turret rising from its western gable.
A chapel waa founded here in tDe 12th or 13th century,
but not a vestige remains of it in the present building,
which was erected above 120 years ago, though restored in
1881 and 1886. While excavations were being made for
the north wall of the nave the stone effigy of a female in a
loose flowing mantle was found. It now occupies a posi-
tion near the pulpit. Netherwitton is ecclesiastically
dependent on Hartburn.
A curious side-light is thrown by the acts of the High
Commission Court at Durham on the relations that
existed in 1633 between the curate of Netherwitton and
some members of his flock. On the 8th of March of that
year, Mungo Barnes, of Netherwitton, was brought in by
attachment upon the information of Andrew Hall, clerk,
curate of Netherwitton, " that he called Hall ' base lousie
rogue ' and did pull him by the throat and strick him on
the breast." This offence he had to acknowledge publicly
on Sunday, the 14th of April. For laying violent hands
upon Hall he was denounced excommunicate in the chapel
of Netherwitton. It would seem from another entry that
he was assisted by one Giles Todd. This person confessed
"that he did call Mr. Hall base fellow, and did assist
Mungo Barnes, who attempted to have beaten him, though
he himself did not meddle with him. " He also had to
make public confession. About the same time, another
person in the parish of Netherwitton, one Thomas Swan,
came to grief in the High Commission Court for " beating
a minister" — probably Mr. Hall. What the reverend
gentleman had done to provoke this violence we are
unable to say. The incidents show how accustomed the
people of those days were to take the law into their own
hands.
A former curate of Netherwitton— the Rev. J. Thomson
— published, in 1806, two volumes of poems, moral,
descriptive, and elegiac, one of which is entitled ''On
Seeing Mr. Cunningham's Monument in St. John's
Churchyard, Newcastle-upon-Ty ne. " Had the reverend
gentleman possessed, even in a small degree, poor
Cunningham's descriptive powers, the attractions of
Netherwitton might have been sung in some lovely
stanzas that the world would have cherished ; but,
unfortunately, he was but a mere rhetorician, and his
volumes contain little of value or interest, unless we
76
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{February
1891.
except "The Country Wedding " for its description of old
marriage customs.
By the side of the river, which is fringed with small
elders and thorn bushes, past some shrubberies and
gardens, there is a road from the church to the woollen
mill. It was about here that the old market town oj
Netherwitton stood ; for, says Hodgson, " Very old
people remember when its site was ploughed and cleared
of the old groundworks, weeds, and rubbish." The
market was granted by Edward I. to Sir Roger de
Somerville in 1290. The woollen mill stands on the north
side of the Morpeth road near the bridge, and is a large
stone building with a fine, many-windowed fagade, the
central portion, projecting slightly, being crowned with a
pediment ot simple character. It was erected in 179^ by
Mr. Walter Trevelyan as a cotton mill, but was not
worked long, the speculation having proved unsuccessful.
After being closed many years, it was taken, in 1823, by
Messrs. Dixon, Walker, and Co., of Morpeth, and re-
opened as a manufactory of flannel, blankets, and yarn.
As such, it is still being carried on by Mr. Joseph
Law ton.
The mill forms the subject of some verses in a volume
of poems, published in 1831, by John Farrer, who first
drew breath, as he states with some pride, by the side of
the Font. For thirty years, he laments, the well-known
bell which had tolled the hour six times a day to all the
country round from the turret of the mill, has never been
rung, the engines are destroyed, the machinery is rusted,
the lofty roof admits the rain, the walls are becoming
ruinous, the shattered sashes rattle in the wind, and the
windows are stuffed with straw. He wishes success to
"the enterprising few whose resolutions all these works
renew," and he looks forward to the time when Xether-
witton, by virtue of its manufactures, will rival Leeds and
Huddersfield.
Adjoining the building, on the east side, is the old
manor corn-mill, now in ruins. On the great overshot
wheel the water drips and splashes, creating a humid
atmosphere, which favours the growth of mosses, liver-
worts, and ferns in the dim enclosure. The wheel of the
woollen mill is also laid idle.
The fine stone bridge over the Font, consisting of two
segmental arches, 23 feet in span, was erected by sub
scription, the foundation-stone being laid on September
13th, 1837, by Mr. K. Trevelyan. Its battlements were
carried away by the great flood of Sunday, the 15th
September, 1839, which also partly destroyed the dam-
head higher up the river. Many of the inhabitants can
remember how the waters of the Font came rushing
through the village, flooding the lower storeys of several
of the houses. Here, on this graceful parapet, just above
where the Font and the Ewealey Burn meet and mingle
in the shade of three spreading willows, it is pleasant to
linger and watch the brisk waters as they shimmer among
the smooth mossed stones, whereon we may chance to see
resting the shy water-ouzel, and gaze at the peaceful
village, where everyone moves about in a quiet and
leisurely way, as though Time were not fast on the wing.
So tranquil is the scene that it induces a dreamy,
clairvoyant mood in which our thoughts, almost uncon-
sciously, slip back into the past, and we find ourselves
trying to realise the changes which the scene has wit-
nessed. We can see in imagination the skin-clad chief-
tains, who tenanted the rudely-formed camp nearGallow-
shaw, and the smaller one on the outskirts of Dixon's
February 1
1S91. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
77
Wood — brave warriors who, perhaps, were interred with
mysterious rites, beneath the Five- Ashes and Callagers
tumuli, and the other three barrows in the neighbour-
hood of the xillage; we behold once again the stern
legionaries of Rome as they passed up the Devil's Cause-
way, within half a mile of the place where we sit ; and we
picture to ourselves the village as it was in the by-gone
centuries— in 1405, when Roger Thornton, the munificent
merchant prince of Newcastle, who is stated by Leland
to have been born here, became the lord of the manor ;
in 1505, when, beneath a September sky, the unfortunate
John Crawfurth lay, with a mortal wound in his breast
from the weapon of Cuthbert Law, who had fled to the
sanctuary of Durham ; and, in the summer of 1651, when
it was visited by the great Cromwell, his army, consist-
ing of nine regiments of foot, and two regiments of
dragoons with his horse guard, being quartered for one
night on the grounds of the Lady Thornton, and there
doing much damage to the grass and corn, &c., for
which, however, compensation to the amount of
£96 5s. 6d. was paid.
But the times are changed, and the character of the
people too, and the secret of the change is to be found in
the little school-room by the wayside just above us.
A little way along the Morpeth road, past the woollen
mill, there is a fine view of the front of Netherwitton
Hall— the seat of Mr. Thornton Roger Trevelyan. It is
a stately pile, with open battlements, built by Robert
Trollop, the architect of Capheaton Hall and the Guild-
hall of Newcastle. A tower, which probably stood to the
south of the present gardens, was built here by Roger de
Thornton, not long after 1411, when he completed the
purchase of the estate. It is mentioned in the list of
cascles and fortalices compiled in 1415. A tablet in the
north wall of the house, bearing the arms of Thornton,
and the inscription, "Anno Regis Ed wardi Quinti "-
in the year of King Edward V. — probably belonged to this
earlier building, and refers to some repairs or additions
which were made to it in 1483. In the upper part of the
house is one of those secret closets or hiding-places found
iu nearly all the old Catholic mansions, and known as
"Priests' Holes."
Near the hall, on the opposite side of the road, there
are two small lakes connected by a pathway which leads
through the wood, past an enclosed chalybeate spring.
Beautifully situated is the upper lakelet, in the midst
of trees of many varieties — larches, firs, pinasters,
beeches, elms, sycamores, birches, and horse-chestnuts.
Bulrushes, among which the water-fowl splash and nutter,
stand thickly along one side of it, and water-lillies spread
their broad leaves upon its surface, while at one end
there is quite a rich glow of colour from the pretty pink
spikes of the amphibious persicaria. Not many yards
from the north side is an islet of diminutive size, whereon
a few firs have secured a foothold. On the bank near it
is a row of large beeches, having their lower branches
trained in one direction, towards the lake, thus making a
shady walk more conducive to meditation than a monastic
arcade. The lake in its perfect seclusion, surrounded by
woods, where, within reasonable limits, nature has
pretty much her own way, would be, to a Thoreau, a
not unfair substitute for the famous Walden Pond.
The woods of Witton-by-the-Waters are of ancient
celebrity. Ranulph de Merlay, when he founded the
Abbey of Newminster in 1139, gave to the monks " a
part of the wood of Witton." Roger de Merlay, the
second, obtained from King John, in 1214, a license to
make a park of his woods at Witton, and bis son granted
to John de Plessy liberty to cut timber in them. To
thesn woods may have belonged the two venerable
oaks — the King and Queen of Netherwitton — which
stand above the Font a short distance from the weir.
There is a tradition in the village, which may be
founded on a memory of the above-named grant to the
Abbey of Newminster, that the three plane-trees, growing
close together by the side of the road to Morpeth, half a
mile from the bridge, were planted by the monks, and re-
present the three persons of the Trinity.
Hitherto the smoky banners of trade have not waved in
this charming valley. May it long retain its idyllic agri-
cultural character must be the devout wish of all who love
nature and simple modes of life.
WM. W. TOMLINSON.
tre' fJumn-als,
||HE moors of Upper Weardale and Teesdale are
vast grazing fields — vast solitudes too. We
are transported thither. No sign of aught save
sheep and moorlands. At last a human being ! A man !
Listen, he is apparently talking to his sheep. Ah ! I
have it. But I will wager a small amount you cannot tell
me the meaning of what he is saying. Talking Dutch !
No. He is counting his sheep — one , two, three, four,
and so on. Listen again. Now you hear — "Yan, tean,
tether, mether, pip, sezar, azar, catrah, horna, dik,"&c.
There is an interesting thing for you. You have been
extremely lucky to hear that, for there are extremely
few people in this part of the world who use that
language in counting their sheep. Civilization is in-
vading all the out-of-the-way corners of the earth.
and all dialects and local distinctions are dying out.
People in Teesdale, getting more cultivated as years aa-
vance, are abandoning the fashions and habits of their fore-
fathers ; but in some of the more retired mountain vales
of Westmoreland and North Yorkshire, as also in Wales,
the numerals used by these shepherds are so similar to
each other, and so different from those English words now
in general use, that they point to a common Celtic
origin, and that, in turn, can be shown to be akin
to the rest of the Aryan tongues. For instance, your
78
MONTHL Y CHRONICLE.
/February
\ 1891.
ancient Swaledalesman will say, " Yahn, tay'nn,
tether, mether, mimph, hithher, lithher. anver, dan-
ver, die." The Nidderdale rnan says, " Yain, tain,
eddero, peddero, pitta, tayter, later, overro, cover-
ro, dix." Compare with this the Welsh, "Tin,
dau, tri. pedwar, pump, cwec. saith, wyth, naw. deg."
Few words excepted, these shepherds' numerals
are the sole relics of the old Cymric dialect of
the Pennine Chain, Wales, and Cumberland and West-
moreland, as spoken by those ancient Britons who
were driven by fierce invaders into mountain retreats,
whither no one cared to follow them. You get the same
numerals in Brittany, where also there is a fast expiring
Celtic population, "Unan, daou, tri, peder, pemp,
chouech, seiz, eiz, nao, dek." Then look at the gipsy,
"Yek, dui, drin, stor, pange, tscho, efta, octo, enia,
desh." Hindustani is similar. "Ek, du, trin, char, panj,
tscho, s»t, aute, noh, des." So, of course, is Sanskrit,
" Eka, dui, tri, c'atur, pancan, s'as, saptan, astan, nuvan,
dasan.1' And, go over the Atlantic, you will find it trans-
lated there. Here is what was written from the dictation
of an old gentleman of Hartford, Connecticut ; he had
been taught the scoring when a child by an old Indian
woman, who used to come to his father's house in Connec-
ticut:— ''Een, teen, tudhur. fedhur, pip, sat, latta, poal,
defri, dik/' C.
at
jjETWEEN the millstone grit ridfie running
northward from Rothbury and the porphyry
hills of the Cheviot range is a broad,
fertile valley, where all the elements of
a picturesque landscape — limpid streamlets, green
meadows and pastures ; fields of wheat, barley, and oats ;
trees massed into woods and plantations, or deploying, as
it were, into lines by the roadsides — are gathered
together.
The principal village in this lovely valley is Whitting-
ham, which occupies a low, sheltered situation on the
banks of the little river, the Aln. The view on all sides
is bounded by hills— Northfieldhead Hill, Ewe Hill, Ryle
Hill, Chubden, Old Fawdon Hill, Gibb's Hill, Glanton
Pike, Titlington Mount, Lantern Hill, Brizlee Hill,
Thrunton, Callaly Crags, and others.
Whittingham, as we gather from the derivation of its
name, was originally the home of the Anglian family of
White or Hewit, and from its position in a rich agricul-
tural district, has been, through the centuries, a place of
no little importance. Until the railway was opened out
between Alnwick and Cornhill, it was little known to the
outside world, and, indeed, was not easily accessible.
The village is pretty without being prim, for it has not
grown up as an adjunct to some stately and venerable
hall which would perhaps have interfered with its natural
development along other than conventional lines.
Very cheerful and quiet does it look as we approach it
from the south-east. Right before us is the Castle Inn —
a well-known posting-house in the early years of the
century, having still such a quaint, old-fashioned air
about it that we might almost expect to Bee, on the open
space in front of it, the Wellington coach from Newcastle
or Edinburgh drawn up, while the horses were being
changed and the passengers entertained with such cheer
as the house could provide for them.
From the garden hedge behind the inn rises a very fine
ash, 85 feet in height. Near to it a road leading to
Callaly turns off to the left, passing through the southern
part of the village, which is seated on a gentle slope,
the various buildings being arranged around three
sides of a rough square. These consist of several
cosy-looking cottages with honeysuckle and bindweed
round the windows and small garden plots m front ; a few
shops which it would not be easy to classify under the
respective trades on account of the miscellaneous charac-
ter of the articles sold in them; the Court-House where
the Petty Sessions are held on the second Monday of each
month — a stone building with many gables and mullioned
windows erected in 1859 ; the Post-office, the smithy,
with the coulter of a plough and a few rusty wheel-tyres
near it ; and the massive old pele-tower overlooking the
river, &c.
Some portions of the space enclosed have been planted
with shrubs and young trees, chiefly sycamores, limes,
laburnums, lilacs, and privets, which add a leafy charm
to the scene.
Half hidden by some of these trees is the village pant
erected in 1865 by the Right Hon. Henry Thomas Baron
Ravensworth. It bears the following inscription : —
May this pure Fount perpetual streams supply
To every thirsty soul that passeth by !
And may these crystal waters ever run
Unchanged by Winter's frost or Summer's sun !
R.
This portion of the village is connected with the Church
Town— as it was formerly called— by a stone bridge of
four arches built early in the century, and restored in
1887, and by a wooden foot-bridge.
We obtain from the parapet of the bridge our best view
of the village, which is that represented in our sketch.
To the east we see the Aln making its way through a
swampy bit of ground, where, among rank butter-burs,
grow a few young firs, birches, and poplars. In a pasture
called Pyle's Field, below the inn garden, we can trace,
by a depression in the surface, the course of the road
which led down to the ancient ford. To the north, by the
side of the Glanton road, stands an old house, which once
bore the sign of the Hole-in-the-Wall : a garden, girdled
with a green hedge, sweeps down from it to the river.
Looking to the west, we observe on our right, alittle grove
February 1
1891. I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
79
of trees, principally beeche?. which extend their branches
over the stream. Behind the grove runs the Eslington
road, forming a kind of terrace above the river. By the
side of it, approached through gardens, are some taste-
fully built cottages with dormer windows, and the school-
house, erected in 1850, standing amid flowers.
To our left we notice the Court House and the great Pele
Tower converted in 1845 into an alms-house, its battle-
ments corbelled out from the walls, and its flagstaff turret
standing out boldly against the sky.
Looking right up the stream, which is bordered with
sallows and sedges, past the wooden foot-bridge, we see
the gable end of a cottage having a pear tree trained up
it, and, beyond, the square tower of the church, with the
vicarage trees as a background.
On the wsst side of the village the Aln is crossed by
another bridge, and this again is a good standpoint for
obtaining a view of the place. We behold the Aln winding
along from the Eslington woods through the level haughs,
and the Callaly burn wending from another direction to
join it. Looking eastward, we see the vicarage seated on
a slight mound nearly surrounded by trees, then a portion
of the church and churchyard, the fountain erected in
1874 by the villagers ; a cluster of farm-buildings and
cottages, with a number of conical-headed stacks adjoining
them.
The tower of the church, which is prominent in every
view, is a constant witness to the antiquity of the place, for,
in its lower stage, is the long-and -short work of pre-Con-
quest architecture. With such a past we naturally
expect to h'nd some interesting historical associations in
connexion with Whittingham, and we shall not be dis-
appointed.
Whittingham was one of the five places conferred by
Ceolwulph on the monastery of Lindisfarne, when he, in
737—
For cowl and beads laid down
The Saxon battle-axe and crown.
It would probably not be long after the monks of the
Holy Isle acquired this possession that they erected a
church here.
About 882 there was livingat Whittingham, in bondage
to a widow, a Dane— Guthred the son of Hardacnut,
probably of that Haurda-Knute who appears in the lists
of the Danish kings as the second in succession to Regner
Lodbrog. From this position of servitude he was
redeemed and made king of the southarn portion of
Northumbria on the death of Halfdene in the 13th year of
King Alfred. The story, as told by Roger de Hoveden,
is, that this was done in accordance with the instructions
of St. Cuthbert communicated to Eadred, Abbot of Car-
lisle, in a vision. The appointment of a king whc was
a Dane, but also a convert to Christianity, was probably
a compromise between the Christian Angles and the
Pagan invaders. The arrangement was sanctioned, if not
suggested, by Alfred, who found in the new king a loyal
vassal and a faithful servant of the Church. Guthred
died on the 21st of August, 896, and his remains were
interred in the Cathedral at York.
During medieval times when the Borders were so
disturbed by feud and foray, we hear but little of
Whittingham. At the close ot Gilbert de Middleton's
rebellion in 1317, Whittingham Pele was reduced by the
garrison of Warkworth Castle.
From this time we leap over three hundred years to the
Civil Wars of the seventeenth century. On August 25th,
1640, about 400 horse of the Parliament ordered breakfast
at Whittingham. They came from the Brandon Hills,
singing psalms all the way. They behaved civilly, we
are told, and paid for everything. Again, in the summer
of 1648, Whittingham was visited by the Roundheads,
who captured here Lieut. -Colonel Millet with 200 horse.
" Wee advanced on towards Bran ton," says Major Saun-
derson in his report to headquarters ; " but, finding that
wee were cloyed with prisoners and horse and booty, wee
retyred towards Whittingham, where Colonel Lilburne
was labouring to rally into a firme body, for there
appeared about Shawtonfour bodies of the enemies' horse,
who had taken the alarme and got together : but all the
rest wee took before they could mount."
In 1761, when there was so much dissatisfaction in
Northumberland respecting a new regulation whereby
men were elected by ballot for the militia instead of being
hired by the landowners— dissatisfaction which resulted
in fatal riots at Hexham — Whittingham was thrown into
a state of excitement on March 3rd of that year by the
arrival of a number of rioters from Morpeth, who seized
all the lists and books relating to the militia from the
constables, burning them or tearing them to pieces before
their eyes.
From that time to this there has happened little to dis-
turb the calm tenour of life in the village.
Whittingham is justly proud of the two important
relics of the past still preserved in its midst— the church
of St. Bartholomew and the Pele Tower. The tower of
the former has quite an archaeological fame ; it is repre-
sented in Rickinan's great work on Gothic architecture.
In 1840, during a "restoration," falsely so-called, the
upper stages of the tower, the Norman arcade of the
north aisle, and other interesting features of the build-
ing, were ruthlessly destroyed. Most antiquaries find
the English language too inadequate to express their
feelings on the subject of this vandalism. Some Early
English additions on the south side ei the nave were,
however, happily spared.
The Pele Tower, in spite of the alterations which were
necessary to transform it into a charitable institution, is
still a fine specimen of a small Border stronghold of the
14th century, and we examine with interest the plinth,
partly covered with ivy, the barrel-vaulted chamber on the
ground floor, and the original doorway on the south side—
a fine pointed arch. In 1415 it was in the possession of
80
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
( February
t 1891.
William Heron, and in 1541 of Robert Collingwood, both
owners being members of famous North-Country families.
There was another pele tower here in the 16th century,
occupied by the vicars, but this was removed when the
present vicarage was built.
Whittingham formerly had its fair, which was the
occasion of much rustic festivity ; but it has now been
discontinued. The day on which it was held, the 24th of
August, is now set apart for athletic and other sports.
We are no longer hailed in the words of the quaint old
ballad " Are you going to Whittingham Fair ? '' — but if
confronted with the question, without the addition of the
"fair," in the brighter months of the year, we should
answer at once in the affirmative, with a lively anticipa-
tion of much serene pleasure from the visit.
W. W. TOMLIKSON-.
| ITU ATE some score of miles north of Moffat,
which is within easy distance by rail from
Carlisle, St. Mary's Loch is the resort of
thousands of tourists in the summer time ;
for the district literally teems with poetic and historic
associations ; and many are the pilgrimages to the places
that are everlastingly connected with such names as those
of Sir Walter Scott, the Ettrick Shepherd, Christopher
North, and William Wordsworth, not to mention lesser
luminaries.
Let us join the university undergraduate, say, who has
tsiken his seat on the top of the coach which is to bear its
freight along Moffatdale to the lochs— Loch Skene, Loch
of the Lowes, and St. Mary s Loch. As we are whirled
along the road which leads to Selkirk, we quickly realise
that the scenery is suggestive of calmness and repose,
though it is not devoid of a certain amount of grandeur.
If we were to alight and inspect every tower or
other interesting object that presents itself on the
journey, it would be some days before we reached
the far-famed lochs : so we content ourselves with
a mere glance at Cornal Tower on the east side of
the valley, and a small eminence which is suggestive
of a British fort. Approaching Craigieburn, we are
reminded of Burns's beautiful song, "Sweet fa's the
Eve on Craigieburn," and the Ettrick Shepherd's legend
of "Bonnie Mary.'1 To our left we soon see Saddleyoke,
or Saddleback, as it is sometimes named, the summit of
which is so narrow that, standing astride of it, you can
roll a stone a mile down the hill on either hand. Here-
abouts were the hiding places of many of the old
Covenanters.
Near to the tenth milestone is the famous waterfall, the
Grey Mare's Tail. The total height of the fall, with two
breaks, is about 300 feet, and of course it is seen to best
advantage immediately after a storm of rain. No one will
emulate the young man who, in 1811, lost his life whilst
attempting to scale the rock in the line of the waterfall,
and lovers of natural scenery will generally be content
with what they see from the ordinary point of view. Time
does not always allow of a visit to the gloomy Loch Skene
from which the Grey Mare's Tail issues, and one must
February \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
81
rest content with the description thereof by the Wizard
of the North.
Passing Watch Hill, one of the outposts of the
Covenanters, we reach the summit of the watershed, and,
following the course of the Yarrow, coine to the rather
uninteresting sheet of water called the Loch of the Lowes,
and arrive within sight of the Ettrick Shepherd's Monu-
ment. The statue, which is 8£ feet in height, stands on a
square pedestal 9i feet high, and was erected in I860-
The poet is seen seated on an old oak ; by his side is his
faithful dog Hector ; his right hand grasps a stout staff,
and he holds in his left a scroll on which is carved the last
line of the "Queen's Wake " —
He taught the wanderin? winds to aing.
The hostelry kept by the renowned Tibbie Shiel stands
on a piece of level ground, not far from the Ettrick
Shepherd's Monument, and between the Loch of the
Lowes and St. Mary's Loch, which is now in sight.
Tibbie owes her reputation to the pens of the great poets
of a past age who partook of her hospitality. A more
modern writer, Professor John Stuart Blackie, has sung
her praises in the following lines : —
TIBBIE SHIEL'S IN YARROW.
" And is this Yarrow?" Wordsworth sang ;
Though I am but a linnet,
And he a skylark, I may weave
A rhyme with something in it.
All things that are to all men given,
Sometimes a peeping sparrow,
May spy a beauty that escaped
An eagle's glance in Yarrow.
But wiser he whom once I knew
'Neath Tibbie's roof in Yarrow,
Who nevei- brimmed a cup to-day
That left a sting to-morrow.
High priest of "Maga," glorious John,
The troutful billow lashing,
Himself a grand old trout in floods
Of sportive wisdom splashing.
Nor he alone, but who with him
Had sworn a league together,
To greet the sun or face the blast
In bright or stormy weather,
And live a life in all things true
To Nature's prime intention,
And breathe free breath, and speak free words
That own no nice convention.
With him was Hogg, a minstrel born,
Who sang no stilted sonnets,
But bonny lasses, honest men,
And grey plaids and blue bonnets ;
And many an eldritch story told
Of brownies and of fairies,
That from the cellar witched the wine,
And soured the milk in dairies.
And others came whom I could name,
Stout men of bone and marrow,
To catch contagion from the whim
Of glorious John in Yarrow,
Whose brain was like a busy hive
Of humming bees in summer.
With honey free and never a sting
To every blithe new-comer.
To praise the green huge-shouldered hills,
The silver-shimmering waters,
82
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f February
The hill-fed well whose draught brings health
To Yarrow's sons and daughters ;
And I for love-lorn maids can spare
A tear of kindred sorrow.
And my best thought is glorious John
At Tibbie Shiel's in Yarrow.
St. Mary's Loch is surrounded by bare hills that do not
possess any beauty of outline. From Megget Bridge,
however, the views of the lake are very fine. We make
no apology for quoting Sir Walter Scott's vivid descrip-
tion of the scene : —
Thou know'st it well — nor fen, nor sedge
Pollute the pure lake's crystal edge ;
Abrupt and sheer the mountains sink,
At once upon the level brink ;
And just a trace of silver sand
Marks where the water meets the land.
Far in the mirror, bright and blue,
Each hill's huge outline you may view ;
Shaggy with heath, but lonely bare,
Nor tree, nor bush, nor brake is there,
Save where, of land, yon slender line
Bears 'thwart the lake the scattered pine.
Yet even this nakedness has power,
And aids the feeling of the hour :
Nor thicket, dell, nor copse you spy,
Where living thing concealed might lie ;
Nor point, retiring, hides a dell,
Where swain or woodman lone might dwell :
There's nothing left to fancy's guess,
You see that all is loneliness :
And silence aids — though the steep hills
Send to the lake a thousand rills,
In summertide so soft they weep,
The sound but lulls the ear asleep :
Your horse's hoof-tread sounds too rude,
So stilly is the solitude.
Not far from the east end of the lake is Drybope Tower,
noted as the birthplace of Mary Scott, the " Flower of
Yarrow," and the heroine of a song by Allan Ramsay.
All that remains to indicate the site of St. Mary's Kirk,
which continued to be a place of worship during the
seventeenth century, are a few gravestones which may be
found a little above the road not far from the lake. The
church is the scene of one of the main incidents in the old
ballad "The Gay Goss Hawk," which may be found in
Scott's "Border Minstrelsy."
The district known as Yarrow, to the east of St Mary's
Loch, has been sung by Wordsworth in immortal verse —
' Yarrow Unvisited," "Yarrow Visited," and "Yarrow
Revisited." The following lines from the first-named
poem are pleasantly anticipatory of the delight which he
afterwards experienced : —
Let beeves and horae-bred kine partake
The sweets of Burnhill meadow ;
The swan on still St. Mary's Lake
Float double — swan and shadow !
We will not see them ; will not go
To-day, nor yet to-morrow ;
Enough if in our hearts we know
There's such a place as Yarrow.
tytvcitd ffirtr Wetitminzttv
LARGE number of people assembled at
Westminster Abbey on the morning of
December 24, 1890, to see the remains of the
late Duchess of Northumberland — Louisa,
daughter of the celebrated Henry Drummond— deposited
in their final resting place. The body had been trans-
ferred from Alnwick Castle to the residence of Earl
Percy, in Grosvenor Square. There it remained until it
was removed, by way of Hyde Park Corner, to the
front of the family mansion in Grosvenor Place. As
soon as the bereaved duke joined his eldest son at this
point, the journey to the Abbey was resumed— the hearse
being stopped in front of the great west door. This
furnished the onlookers with their first surprise, for the
Percies not only claim a right of burial at Westminster,
but their dead are admitted by the entrance that is usually
reserved for royalty. The inscription on the coffin read
as follows : —
LOUISA,
Wife of Algernon George,
6th Duke of Northumberland,
Born October 22, 1815,
Fell asleep December 18, 1890.
Some interesting information concerning the ancient
prescriptive right of the ducal family of Northumberland
to interment in the Abbey has been given by the Dean of
Westminster to a Royal Commission, which has recently
published its first report of evidence on the present want
of space for monuments there. Asked whether there are
any prescriptive rights of burial in the Abbey other than
the burial of kings, Dean Bradley stated that there was a
very curious instance in what is called the Percy or
Northumberland tomb. It is in the Chapel of St.
Nicholas, where the Seymours were originally buried.
The following is a list of recent burials in the Duke of
Northumberland's vault in St. Nicholas' Chapel, viz.: —
On July 19th, 1817, Hug-h Percy, Duke of Northumber-
land ; January 20tb, 1820, Lady Elizabeth Percy ; May
10th, 1820, Frances Julia, Dowager Duchess of Northum-
berland ; February 23rd, 1849, Hugh Percy, Duke of
Northumberland ; February 25th, 1865, Algernon Percy,
Duke of Northumberland ; August 3rd, 1866, Charlotte
Florentia, Duchess of Northumberland ; August 30th,
1867, George Percy, Duke of Northumberland ; Decem-
ber 7th, 1877, Lord Henry Hugh Manners Percy ; De-
cember 29th, 1883, Lady Louisa Percy; and December
24th, 1890, Louisa, Duchess of Northumberland. It
was not until after the marriage with the Duke of
Somerset with the heiress of the Percies that the Percies
were buried in the Abbey, and there is a prescriptive
right, although the Dean said he could not trace its legal
value, that the Percies may claim to be buried in the
Percy vault. This right is still claimed and exercised, as
February \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
83
we have just seen. There are in the Abbey other vaults
beloncring to private families ; but there is no other claim
of prescriptive right.
The right of sepulture claimed by the Dukes of North-
umberland comes no doubt from the Percy alliance with
the Seymours, whose ancestors appear to have been buried
in the Chapel of St. Nicholas for centuries. One of the
present monuments, which stands 24- feet high, was
erected in memory of the Duchess of Somerset, who, as
wife of the great Protector, was sister-in-law of one of the
queens of Henry VIII., and aunt to Edward VI. On
another of the tombs is recorded the death of Elizabeth
Percy, who is described as sole heiress of Algernon, Duke
of Somerset, as well as of the Ancient Earls of North-
umberland. She is said to have "inherited all their
great and noble qualities, together with their amiable
and benevolent virtues." It was this lady who married
Sir Hugh Smithson, and who became Duchess of North-
umberland shortly before her death in 1766. Her
funeral, we are told, led to so much crushing and confu-
sion amongst the spectators that the screen of St.
Edmund's Chapel was knocked down and smashed to
pieces, stopping the ceremony for many hours, and in-
juring a large number of the onlookers. "The body,"
says Dean Stanley, "was left in the ruined chapel, and
the Dean did not return until after midnight, when the
funeral was completed, but still amidst the cries and
groans of sufferers from the fall of the screen who had not
yet been removed. "
at gang.
3> 3oh,n £tokoe.
BILLY OLIVER'S RAMBLE BETWEEN
BENWELL AND NEWCASTLE.
jjHE song of " Billy Oliver's Ramble " is one
of the old-time ditties which were as highly
popular fifty years ago as " Jimmy Joneson'a
Whurry," "My Lord 'Size," or any of our
historic local effusions. The author is unknown, but the
song is a characteristic description of the ways of an
old fashioned bard-working pitman bent on a pilgrimage
of pleasure to his Mecca, Newcastle, and doing it, we
fear, with anything but frugality or total abstinence.
The tune is a very old English melody, which Mr.
William Chappell, in his " Popular Music of the Olden
Time," traces back to 1641, when it was introduced in
Brome's comedy of "The Jovial Crew, or the Merry
Beggars," with the song of "A Begging we will go."
The latter was the prototype of several others sung to the
same melody, such as "A Bowling we will go," "A
Fishing we will go," "A Hunting we will go," &c.,
besides being used in a number of the principal ballad
operas performed in London during the eighteenth
century.
The "Parody on Billy Oliver " was written about the
same time, and enjoyed a share of popularity somewhat
less than the original song.
Me nyem it's Bil - ly
Ol • i - ver, Iv
n - well toon aw dwell. An' aw's a clev -er
chep, aw's sure, Tho' aw de say'd me - sel. Sio an a
chep am aw, am aw, am
aw, Sic an a
clever chep am aw.
Me nyem it's Billy Oliver,
Iv Benwell toon aw dwell;
An' aw's a clever chep, aw's sure,
Tho' aw de say'd mesel.
Sic an a, clever chep am aw, am aw, am aw,
Sic an a clever chep am aw.
There's not a lad iv a' wur wark
Can put or hew wi: me ;
Nor not a lad iv Benwell toon
Can coax the lasses sae.
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &c.
When aw gans tiv Newcassel toon,
Aw myeks mysel' sae fine,
Wur neybors stand and stare at me,
An' say " Eh ! what a shine ! "
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &c.
An' then aw walks wi' sic an air,
That, if the folks hev eyes.
They a'wis think its some greet man
That's cum in i' disguise.
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &c,
An' when aw gans down Westgate Street,
An' alang biv Denton Chare,
Aw whussels a' the way aw gans,
An' myek the people stare.
Sic an a clever chep am aw, & ;.
An' then aw gans intiv the Cock*
Ca's for a pint o" beer ;
An' when the lassie cums in wi'd,
Aw a'wis says maw dear !
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &c.
An' when »w gets a pint o' beer
Aw a'wis sings a sane ;
For aw've a nice yen aw can sing
Six an' thorty vairses lang.
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &c.
An' if the folks that's i' the house
Cry " Haud yor tongue, ye cull !"
* "The Cock," a favourite public-house of the pitmen, kept by
the late Martin Jude, stood nearly opposite the west door of St.
Nicholas' Cathedral.
84
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
( February
\ 1891.
Aw's sure to hev a fight wi' them,
For aw's as strang as ony bull.
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &c.
An' when aw've had a fight or twee
An' fairly useless grown,
Aw back, as drunk as aw can be.
To canny Benwell toon.
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &c.
A PARODY ON BILLY OLIVER'S RAMBLE.
Me nyem is Willy Dixon,
A coachmaker to my trade ;
And when aw see a pitman come.
Aw run — because aw's naid.
Sic an a clever chep am aw, am aw, am aw,
Sic an a clever chep am aw.
On pay-day neets aw gan to th' Cock,
When the pitmen's a' gyen hyem,
Then aw begins to rair and sing
An" myek o' them a gyem.
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &o.
On Sunday mornings, then ye see,
Aw dress mesel se tine ;
And wi' me white drill pantaloons,
Aw cuts a fearful shine.
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &c.
Then what a swagger a diz cut,
As aw gan alang the street ;
'But aw's myed se like nutcrackers,
That my nose and chin they meet.
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &c.
Then when aw gans to see the lass,
It's in the afternoon ;
An' then we gans a walking,
Wi' her fine lustre goon.
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &c.
And as we gan through Jesmond Fields
The lasses gyep and luik,
And efter we get past them a",
They cry " Ah ! what a guik !"
Sic an a clever chep am aw, &c.
Then efter wandering up an' down.
At neet we toddle hyem ;
And aw gie her a kiss, ye see,
And she cries " Fie for shem !"
Sic an clever chep am aw, &c.
Then aw seeks out my awd wark claes.
Gets on another sark ;
And on Monday morn, at six o'clock,
Gans whisslin' off to wark.
Sic an a clover chep am aw, &c. .
iSrfltoiT JHatt at tfit Maavti.
ROWNIES, it would appear, were divided
into two sets. Both belonged to the rebellious
spirits whom the Archangel Michael worsted
in fair fight and tumbled ignominiously out of heaven.
Some, when they reached the earth, took refuge in the
dwellings of men, and became domestic drudges, service-
able but capricious. Others fell down on the wild lonely
moors, and were the progenitors of those usually male-
volent elf-folk who terrified belated travellers and some-
times drowned them in moss-haggs. A being of the
latter class used in former days to haunt the extensive
wastes that spread over the upper part of Northumber-
land, houseless, treeless, and trackless. It was seldom,
indeed, that he was actually seen, for his colour was
that of the heather and ferns amid which he passed
his time.
The historian of Durham, Robert Surtees, tells, on the
authority of an old dame named Elizabeth Cockburn,
how, in the year before the Great Rebellion (that of 1715,
as we conclude), two young men from Newcastle were
sporting on the high moors above Elsdon, and at last sat
down to refresh themselves in a green glen near a moun
tain stream. After their repast, the younger lad ran to
the brook for water, and, after stooping to drink, was
surprised, on lifting his head again, by the appearance of
a brown dwarf, who stood on a crag covered with brackens
across the burn. This remarkable personage did not ap-
pear to be above half the stature of an ordinary man, but
was uncommonly stout and broad built, having the ap-
pearance of vast strength ; his dress was entirely brown,
the colour of the brackens, and his head covered with
frizzled red hair ; his countenance was expressive of the
most savage ferocity, and his eyes glared like those of a
bull.
Addressing the awe-struck young man, he threatened
vengeance for having trespassed on his demesnes, asking
him if he knew in whose presence he stood. The youth re-
plied that he supposed him to be the lord of the moors, but
added that he had offended through ignorance, and offered
to bring him the game he had killed. This seemed to
mollify the dwarf a little ; nevertheless, he protested that
nothing could be more offensive to him than such an offer.
For, said he, "I consider the wild animals as my subjects
and never fail to avenge their destruction. I do net feed
on anything that has life. In the summer I subsist on
whortle-berries, cloud-berries, dew-berries, and crane-
berries, with nuts and mushrooms for a change ; and
in winter my food is hazel nuts and crab apples, wild
plums and sloes, of which I have great store in the
woods."
The strange figure then invited the youth to partake of
his hospitality. And the lad was about to accept the in-
vitation when he heard the call of his companion. Turn-
ing to tell him that he would be with him erelong, he was
surprised to find, on looking round again, that " the Wee
Brown Man had fled."
Elizabeth Cockburn's information was to the effect that
the infatuated youth paid so little attention to the warn-
ing he had gotten from the Brown Man, that he continued
his day's sport over the moors on his way homewards,
reckless of the consequences. Sooth to tell, however,
soon after his return he fell into a lingering disorder, of
which he died before a year was out. People, of course
felt morally certain that it was the Brown Man of the
Moors that was the death of the irreverent sportsman
February \
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
83
who had made light of the warning to spare his feathered
and furred subjects.
annual
j]N the presence of a large assemblage of people,
the third annual Exhibition of Toys in
connection with the Dicky Bird Society,
conducted by Uncle Toby in the Newcastle
Weekly Chronicle, was opened in the Bath Lane Hall,
Newcastle, on the 19th of December, 1890. The spacious
room was specially fitted up for the occasion ; and the
splendid and well-displayed array of playthings collected
and subscribed for by the members and friends of the
society, and numbering 16,250 articles, presented an
exceedingly pretty and attractive sight.
The opening address was delivered by the Mayor of
Newcastle (Mr. J. Baxter Ellis), who reviewed briefly the
history of the society, and spoke of the good it did in
stimulating its young members to thoughts and acts of
kindness. Appropriate speeches were also delivered by
the Vicar of Newcastle (the Rev. Canon Lloyd), the
ex-Mayor (Mr. Thomas Bell), the Rev. Frank Walters,
Colonel Coulson, Dr. Hodgkin, and the Sheriff of New-
castle (Mr. Stephen Quin). Afterwards, accompanied by
Mr. C. X. Sykes, of the Weekly Chronicle, who had
charge of the musical arrangements, Madame Tomsett
sang a song, entitled "Robin Redbreast," composed for
the Dicky Bird Society by Miss Alice Simpkin.
During the two days on which it remained open, the
toy show was visited by large and interested throngs of
spectators, the estimate being that, in all, between 30,000
and 4-0,000 persons had passed through the room. Vocal
and instrumental music was performed at intervals. The
Wellesley Band, under the leadership of Mr. Wigg, Mus.
Bach., played "Uncle Toby's March," the composition of
Mr. Ernest Reid, of Newcastle ; and a very charming
pianoforte recital was given by Master Willie Wigg.
Mr. J. H. Amers kindly gave the services of his
orchestral band on the two afternoons, and selections
were likewise rendered by the Newcastle Industrial
Band, the Newcastle Workhouse Band, and ihe Gates-
head Workhouse Band. Among other performers were
Miss Etta Newborne, Mr. W. G. Whittaker, Master
Willie Scott, Miss Lillie Heenan, Master T. H. Morrison,
Master Harry Amers, Miss Ethel May Amers, and Miss
Kate Steele.
The closing address was delivered by Mr. Alderman
W. D. Stephens, the proceedings concluding with three
86
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
cheers for Uncle Toby and Father Chirpie. The
articles comprising the varied and extensive collection of
toys were afterwards, as usual, distributed among the
poor children in the charitable institutions of the North
of England and elsewhere.
$atl) $ane ©ljurcl) anb
More than thirty years ago, when the late Dr.
Rutherford was holding religious services in the Lecture
Room, Nelson Street, Newcastle, he gathered around him
a number of influential supporters, who, finding that the
popularity of this energetic preacher was increasing,
decided upon erecting for him a permanent place of wor-
ship. The edifice then raised was Bath Lane Church,
which was built and opened in 1860. It occupies a site at
the corner of Bath Lane and Corporation Street. Not
long after being settled in his new church, Dr. Ruther-
ford set about the foundation of schools. As a re-
sult of his energy and enterprise, the elementary schools
in Corporation Street adjoining the church were erected
in 1870. Accommodation was provided for 660 scholars,
but within a short time it was found necessary to provide
seats for double that number of children, while branch
schools were afterwards opened elsewhere. The next
progressive step in the cause of education was the erection
of the School of Science and Art, also in Corporation
Street, the foundation stone of which was laid on
November 21, 1877, by Mr. Joseph Cowen. This was
followed in 1886 by the establishment of a technical
college, situated in Diana Street, containing workshops,
dining hall, and about fifty separate dormitories. Over
all his educational undertakings, Dr. Rutherford ex-
ercised personal supervision. After a life of untiring
zeal, he died suddenly on March 22, 1890, to the great
grief of bis fellow-townsmen, more than one hundred
thousand of whom lined the streets as his remains were
borne to their last resting place. It was in the large hall
devoted to the elementary schools that Uncle Toby held
his third annual Exhibition of Toys.
Sttrtring at
Irmng'is Jirjit Appearance.
j]REAT preparations were being made in
December, 1855, for the production at the
Lyceum Theatre, Sunderland, of the panto-
mime, " Puss in Boots," in which Sam John-
eon was to play the Cat. Scenery of the most picturesque
and costumes of the most elaborate description were pre-
pared ; most careful rehearsals had brought us up to as near
perfection as was possible ; and on the Saturday night
iChristmas Eve) we parted at twelve o'clock with the
hope of meeting on the Monday and taking the town by
storm. The theatre was carefully looked over — from the
large front doors, which were fastened by heavy bars of
wood across the back as well as by lock and bolts, to the
purlieus of the stage, above and below, and so to the stage
exit. Everything was right, and apparently safe.
In the middle of my first sleep I was listening, it
seemed, to the vigorous plaudits of an audience, but these
soon resolved themselves into frantic knockings at ray
bedroom door, accompanied by cries of "Get up, Mr.
Davis ! The Lyceum is on fire ! " As may be imagined,
it did not take me long to struggle into some garments and
get to the theatre. The entire back part of the building,
by which alone entrance could be made, was a raging
furnace. That end was hopeless, "To the front !" was
then the cry. Those bars and bolts appeared to be
adamantine. Hatchets, crowbars, improvised battering
rams — all were applied vigorously and unceasingly
until the doors went down, and I made a rush
for the stairs leading to the wardrobe, which was
in the front of the house. The last thing I saw was a
roaring flame rushing at terrific speed towards me, but I
thought it might be just possible to save the costumes.
The next instant, as it seemed, I found friends round me
in the street forcing water and other refreshers into my
mouth. They said I had fallen, and providentially so
close to the stairs that I had rolled down them.
Dipping a handkerchief into water, I tied it over my
mouth and nostrils, and with a hatchet in my hand made
for another stair leading to the business office. Others
followed, we smashed a door or two, and with great
difficulty we contrived to get out the office desk with its
contents — the sole salvage from the entire wreck.
It was then about five in the morning ; snow deep on
the ground, the military drawn up in due array, and the
entire building a mass of flame — a beautiful sight to on-
lookers who had not a personal interest in the result. To
me it was different, "Have you telegraphed to E. D.
Davis?" "Certainly not; let him have his night's
rest. He'll know all about it quite soon enough." Some
one, however, wished to be the first to make the pleasing
announcement, and just as the roof had fallen in my
father arrived from Newcastle. As we met there was no
word spoken ; just an exchange of looks, and a good firm
hand grip. Then we went away to see what was to be
done.
While we— E. D. D. and self— were writing letters,
our friends came in troops to bring comfort and cheer us
ur>, and we were compelled in the kindest manner to join
an improvised dinner party, where jollity and enjoyment
were the order of the day.
The announcement was at once put out that the New
Lyceum Theatre would be opened in the month of Sep-
tember of the following year, and building was imme-
diately commenced. It being settled that the new
theatre should be much larger than the original Lyceum,
February \
1891. J
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
87
purchase was made of adjoining premises, and of course
there was not to be any large hall underneath to favour
"the entrance of any would-be fire-raiser." When com-
pleted the theatre was considered such a perfect model of
comfort in the auditorium, and of convenience behind the
curtain, that the builder (Mr. J. Potts, of Sunderland)
rose into eminence as a theatre architect, and was sent for
to improve and re-build several other houses in Glasgow,
Birkenhead, and elsewhere.
As promised, the theatre was opened in September,
1856, and on the 29th of that month we started. For
months previously a small army of scenic artists had been
at work, headed by John Johnson. Carpenters, property
makers, and of course costumiers had been working night
and day, and everything was, as far as could be foreseen,
ready and perfect. Among the names of a carefully
selected corps dramatique were those of our old friend Sam
Johnson, George Orvell (real name Frederick Kimpster),
Miss Sly Loveday (sister of H. J. Loveday, the present
much respected stage manager of the Lyceum, London),
afterwards married to Mr. Kimpster ; and a youthful
novice just eighteen, " his first appearance on any stage,"
called Henry Irving. Making his first appearance, he
spoke the first word in the first piece (played for the first
time in the town, I believe) on the first or opening night
of the new theatre, from which he has by his industry
and genius worked up to the proud position of the first
man in the first theatre of the first city of the world ! The
words of the speech itself, "Here's to our enterprise !" have
in them almost a prophetic tone of aspiration and success.
It will be readily believed that on such an occasion my
time was fully occupied. In fact, so busy was I in front
and behind the scenes that I was barely able to reach my
place on the stage in time for the rising of the curtain.
I kept my back to the audience till my cue to speak was
given, all the while buttoning up, tying, and finishing my
dressing generally, so that scant attention would be given
to others. But even under these circumstances I was
compelled to notice, and with perfect appreciation, the
great and most minute care which had been bestowed by
our aspirant on the completion of his costume. In those
days managers provided the mere dress. Accessories, or
"properties," as they were called, were found by every
actor.
Henry Irving was, from his splendid white hat and
feather; to the tips of his shoes, point-device, a perfect
picture ; and, no doubt, had borrowed his authority from
some historical picture of the Louis XIII. period. From
the very outset of his career, he gave an earnest of that
attention to detail, in its microscopic points, which has
culminated in his being facile princeps among stage
directors, and the beat arranger of realistic theatrical
pictures in the world.
The character in which Mr. Irving made his first
bow to the theatrical public was that of Orleans in
"Richelieu." ALFRED DAVIS.
SHE Flycatchers (ifuscicapcej, a rather
numerous group, constitute a family of
birds chiefly confined to Europe, Africa, and
Asia, our only British birds of the family,
both spring and autumn migrants, being the spotted and
pied flycatchers. The members of this family have
elongated bodies, short necks, and broad heads. Their
soft and rather fluffy plumage varies considerably in its
colouration, according to the age and sex of the bird, and
the young are easily recognised by their spotted appear-
ance. They frequent trees in preference to bushes, and
rarely seek their food on the ground. In fine weather
they may be seen darting from the branches of trees,
snapping up passing flies. In rainy weather, when flies
and insects are under cover, the birds feed on berries and
wild fruit.
The spotted flycatcher iMuscicapa griiola), which is
tolerably plentiful in the Northern Counties, is about the
latest of our summer arrivals, and it departs for warmer
climes correspondingly early. The bird is a regular
frequenter of gardens and orchards, where it is too often
killed by fruit growers while clearing the fruit trees and
bushes of insect pests. It is known as the beam bird,
rafter, cob-web bird, post bird, cherry chopper, cherry
sucker, and chanchider. Its scientific name, Afuscicapa
is derived from musca, a fly, and capio, to catch or take,
while grisola seems to indicate that the bird helps itself
to garden fruits. It is, however, by no means a fruit
eater, inasmuch as its food consists almost exclusively of
insects inimical to fruits, wild and cultivated. Gilbert
White, of Selborne, notes that the female, while hatch-
ing, is assiduously fed by her mate as late as nine o'clock
at night.
The following curious circumstance has been recorded
of a brood of flycatchers, which had been taken from a
nest, and placed in a large cage with some other birds of
different species, among which was a robin : —The young
88
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
f Fe'oruary
birds were fed regularly by one of their parents, the
female, while her mate, who accompanied her constantly
in her flight, used to wait outside the window, either
upon the roof of the house or on a neighbouring tree.
Sometimes the little birds were on the top perch of the
cage, and not always near enough to the wires of the
cage to be within reach of the old bird when she ap-
peared with food ; but the robin, who had been for some
time an inhabitant of the cage, where it lived in perfect
harmony with all its associates, and had from the first
taken great interest in the little flycatchers, now per-
ceiving that the nestlings could not reach the offered
food, but sat with their wings fluttering, and their
mouths open, anxious to obtain it, flew to the wires,
received the insects from the mother bird, and put them
into the open mouths of the nestlings. This was repeated
every succeeding day, as often as kind robin's services
were required.
The male bird (and in plumage and markings the hen
resembles her mate) is soberly feathered, and but for the
conformation of the beak, and the spotted feathers of the
breast, might be taken for the titlark, though the latter
affects a different habitat. It has an undulating flight,
not unlike that of the pied wagtail, and its only note is a
weak and somewhat monotonous chirp, which it mostly
utters from the branch of a tree or shrub. The birds,
which commence to nest about the beginning of June,
sometimes select extraordinary places for their nests, and
some have even been known to build on lamp-posts and in
letter boxes.
The average length of the male is five inches and a half ;
bill,' dusky, flattened and broad at the base, with a ridge
along the upper part ; the under mandible is yellowish
at the base ; iris, dark brown ; head, brown ; crown,
spotted with darker brown ; neck on the sides, streaked
with brown ; nape, as the back ; chin, dull white streaked
with brown; breast, as the chin, tinged on the sides
with yellowish brown ; back, light brown ; greater
and lesser wing coverts, as the back ; primaries, darker
brown, sometimes edged with buff brown ; the first feather
very short, the second and fourth nearly equal, the third
the largest ; secondaries, as the primaries ; tertiaries,
the same, with a narrow margin of light brown. Tail,
brown, paler at the tip, slightly forked ; under tail coverts,
dull white ; legs, toes, and claws, dusky black.
The pied flycatcher (Muscicapa luctuosa) is a much
rarer bird than the spotted flycatcher, and affects more
lonely localities. On this account, and as it cannot be
said to be plentiful anywhere, it is by no means as well
known as its more familiar relative. It is sometimes
called the coldfinch and epicurean warbler, and occurs
sparingly in most English districts, but seems most
partial to the Northern Counties. Morris remarks that
it appears to be only a summer visitant, and not a
resident throughout the year.
Mr. John Hancock, in his "Catalogue of the Birds of
Northumberland and Durham," has some interesting
notes on the bird. The pied flycatcher, he observes, "is
a spring-and-autumn migrant, though very rarely ob-
served breeding here. I never obtained its nest in the
district, though Bewick mentions the occurrence of one in
Axwell Park, near Newcastle, in June, 1801. And I am
informed by Mr. Isaac Clark that a nest was taken with
five eggs in Stella Park, a little west of Newcastle. A
few of the birds may always be seen on our coast in
autumn previous to their migration ; and in the middle
of May they are occasionally observed in the same
locality on their return to this country."
The bird has been found along the banks of the Eden,
near Carlisle ; on the banks of the Lyne, near the Border;
and in various parts of the Lake District. Years ago it
was by no means scarce in Castle Eden Dene. Morris
notes that it has been seen near Wearmouth (Sunder-
land), in Durham, and several others at Benton and other
parts of Northumberland. Indeed, it has of late years in-
creased in numbers, both in Northumberland and
Durham, and is found nesting regularly in the two
counties.
The food consists almost entirely of insects, which are
captured in the air when the birds are on the wing.
The male bird is about five inches in length ; tail,
black ; head on the sides, dark brown spotted with
white ; crown, black ; forehead, white, the connection of
two white spots ; neck and nape, brownish or yellowish
black ; chin, throat, and breast, white, tinged with
yellowish brown at the sides ; back black, blackish grey
in winter. The wings, which expand to a width of about
seven and a half inches, reach to one-third of the length
of the tail, which is black, with the exception of the basal
half of the outer web of the outer feather, but it is said to
be totally black in aged birds. The wings are brownish
black, edged with white ; tail coverts, greyish black ;
under tail coverts, white ; legs, toes, and claws, black.
The female is distinguished from the male by the white
portions of the plumage being of a duller hue chan in her
February \
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
89
mate. The young are at first mottled over with dull
white spots on the back, and with brown on the breast ;
the eyes, toes, and claws being of a dark slate colour.
J3r,
, arcfrfcteftap at
ILLIAM THOMSON, Archbishop of York,
and Primate of All England, whose death
occurred at Bishopthorpe on Christmas morn-
', 1890, was the son of Mr. John Thomson, of Kelswick
House, near Whitehaven, and was born in the year 1819.
It was at Shrewsbury and Queen's College, Oxford,
that he received his higher education. While at Oxford
he devoted a great portion of his time to the study of
k>g!c, and produced his well-known work, " An Outline
DR. THOMSON', LATE ARCHBISHOP OF TOKK.
of the Laws of Thought," which is used as a text-book in
several universities in this country and in America.
Entering the church, he was for three years curate of
St. Nicholas', Guildford, and there he came under the
notice of one of the greatest men of the day, Samuel
Wilberforce, father of the present Bishop of Newcastle,
who was then Archdeacon of Surrey. By hirn Mr.
Thomson was offered a curacy at Alverstoke; but
while the arrangement was being made the rector ol
Alverstoke became Bishop of Oxford, and Mr. Thomson
followed him to Cuddesdon as curate, the bishop being
then the vicar of that parish, in which the episcopal
palace is situated. Here he did not remain long, for in
1847 he was asked to return to his college as tutor,
a position that he occupied for over eight years,
during which period he successively became dean and
bursar.
The year after Mr. Thomson's return to Queen's
College, he was appointed Select Preacher to the Uni-
versity, which distinguished post he was again called
upon to fill in 1856. Previous to the latter date he was
chosen Bampton Lecturer — an honourable office which
the University bestows upon her most eminent men.
The year 1855 was an eventful one in the life aud career
of Mr. Thomson. In the month of July he married Miss
Zoe Skene, then living with her grandfather, James
Skene, of Rubislaw, known to many as the friend of Sir
Walter Scott, who dedicated to him the fourth canto of
"Marmion." The lady's father was James Henry
Skene, her Majesty's Consul at Aleppo, while her mother
was Rhalou Rangabe, a Greek lady of distinguished
birth.
And in this year commenced those appointments which
led up to Mr. Thomson's promotion to the Primacy of
England. It was then that he became Chaplain to the
Queen, and shortly after, when the important Crown
living of All Souls. Langham Place, became vacant, Lord
Palmerston, who was Prime Minister, offered it to Mr.
Thomson. Shortly after he had accepted the living of
All Souls, he was elected Provost of Queen's College. At
this time Mr. Thomson was only 36 — an unusually early
age for anyone to be elected to such a position. In 1856
Mr. Thomson took his degree of Doctor of Divinity. In
1858 the preachership of Lincoln's Inn became vacant,
and the Provost of Queen's, who had by this time estab-
lished a considerable reputation as a preacher, became
a candidate for the distinguished post. There were
thirty competitors, and from among them the benchers
of the society elected Dr. Thomson by a very large
majority.
After a few years' enjoyment of the comparatively
tranquil position of Provost of Queen's, Dr. Thomson was
called to a higher post and increased responsibilities. The
See of Gloucester and Bristol became vacant in 1861 by
the death of Bishop Monk ; and Lord Palmerston, who
was still Prime Minister, presented it to Dr. Thomson.
A year after this Dr. Longley was translated to Canter-
bury, and the newly-made Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol
was appointed in his room, and became Archbishop of
York.
The Archbishop was the projector of the "Speaker's
Commentary"; he also contributed largely to Smith's
"Dictionary of the Bible." A theologian, philosopher,
and poet, Archbishop Thomson was also a student of
physical science, and had a remarkable power of grasping
any subject to which he turned his mind. On one occa-
sion, when he addressed the students of St. Mary's
Hospital, Paddington, the medical men present ex-
claimed, "What a good doctor spoilt by being Arch-
90
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{February
1891.
bishop ! " Another time an ironmaster to whom he was
talking said, "If he hod been an ironmaster, he would
have beaten us all."
years ago, and was left with a grown-up family, chiefly
sons, the eldest of whom is 73 years old.
ROBIN GOODFELLOW.
atrti Cunwmrtaries.
THOMAS IRONSIDES, A TYNESIDE WORTHY.
A Dunston correspondent, who takes the name of Vil-
lage Blacksmith, lately informed the readers of the Weekly
Chronicle that a venerable gentleman who had nearly
reached his hundredth
year was still living,
hale and hearty, in the
neighbourhood of Kib-
blesworth. Village
Blacksmith has since
supplied me with a few
particulars of this re-
markable man, together
with a copy of a photo-
graph which was taken
by Mr. J. Eltriugham,
of the Telling. It is
from this photograph
that the accompanying
sketch has been copied.
Mr. Thomas Ironsides
was born at the quaint village of Kibblesworth, in the
county of Durham, in 1791, so that he is within a very
few months of celebrating his hundredth birthday. It
is an interesting fact that he first saw the light
in the same house — Kibblesworth East Farm— that
he now occupies, which has been his peaceable
home for close upon a century. Mr. Ironsides is a
son of the late William Ironsides, a well-known agricul-
turist in his day. Coming to Kibblesworth about 1786, the
father obtained from an ancestor of Lord Ravensworth the
farm which his son now holds. William was born in the
year 1766, and died on July 25, 1856, at the ripe age of
90 years. After his father's retirement, about 61 years
ago, Thomas took the farm (which he had managed for
some time previously) into his own hands, and he has
carried it on with success up to the present day.
Although the old gentleman walks at a slow pace,
and has to rely upon a trusty stick, he still takes plenty
of out-door exercise, enjoys good health, and has all his
mental faculties about him. When a young man, he
served in Sir Thomas Burdon's cavalry. Although he was
seven years a foot soldier and seven years a horse soldier,
he was never called out except once, and thatwasatthetime
of the great Keelmen's Strike on the Tyne, when troops
were despatched to Shields to assist in preserving the
peace. Village Blacksmith regrets to say that Mr.
Ironsides lost the partner of his joys and sorrows some
ELIZABETH ISABELLA SPENCE.
Elizabeth Isabella Spence, the descendant of a literary
family, was the only child of Dr. Spence of Durham, where
she was born in the year 1767. Her parents dying whilst
she was yet a child, she went to London and resided with
some friends, and there became imbued with a desire for
the study of literature. At the house of these relatives
she became the associate and friend of many of the leading
litterateurs of the period, and in time the authoress of
several works, including :— " Summer Excursions through
Part of England and Wales," "Letters from the North
Highlands," " Tales of Welsh Society and Scenery,"
"The Curate and his Daughter," "Dame Rebecca
Berry." She died at Chelsea on the 27th of July, 1832,
in the sixty-fifth year of her age.
J. W. FAWCETT, The Grange, Satley.
BROUGHAM'S FIRST BRIEF.
Old Samuel Wood, Town Clerk of Jedburgh, gave
Henry Brougham his first brief. He found him in his
office, pacing up and down like a bear in his den, with a
clerk, evidently afraid of him, writing to his dictation.
Mr. Wood stated his case, and then proceeded, with the
natural self-confidence of an old practitioner, to give him
some law points. Brougham stopped him. " Are these
the facts?" "Yes." "Then leave the law to me.
Good day !" And he hurried him out. The worthy old
gentleman thought he had engaged a madman; but
Brougham gained the cause. While it was going
on in the court, the young advocate curtly asked
the attorney if he could lend him ten pounds. He did so.
"I'll remit you," said Brougham. But the remittance
never came. Six months afterwards, Mr. Wood was
walking along Princes Street when he saw Brougham
approaching. He would have avoided him, but the
future Lord Chancellor's quick eye, catching sight of his
Jeddart friend, put it out of his power. Brougham came
forward with a bound, and, taking his hand, said, " I
remitted you yesterday, Mr. Wood, with ten thousand
thanks, and ten thousand apologies ; for I had entirely
forgotten all about it." He sent off the money by next
post. W. BROCKIE, Sunderland.
A WESTMORELAND MATHEMATICIAN.
William Gibson was born at Boulton, near Appleby,
Westmoreland, in 1720. From his childhood (so I
read in the "Imperial Dictionary,") he was brought
up to farming, receiving no education whatever. In
early manhood he obtained a farm at Hollins, near
Cartmell Fell, Lancashire. It was here he commenced
to teach himself how to read, his chief lesson book
being a work on arithmetic. While studying the art
of reading, he developed a marvellous power for work-
February \
189L /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
91
ing out sums of all kinds by sheer mental process. He
next set about mastering the art of writing; then he
devoted all his spare time to studying geometry, algebra,
trigonometry, and astronomy, proving himself an expert
in these sciences, finally acquiring a sound knowledge
of the higher grades in mathematics and their various
branches. The problems propounded in the " Ladies'
Diary," the "Palladium," the "Gentleman's Diary,"
and cognate publications, were answered by him with an
accuracy so astounding that his fame spread far and wide.
Mathematicians in various parts of England were glad to
consult him on abstruse matters. By the time he was
thirty years of age he opened a school at Cartmel for the
instruction of eight or ten pupils, who boarded at his
farm-house. He also held a good position as a laud-
surveyor and acquired a lucrative practice. He died from
the effects of a fall at his bouse at Blawitb, near Cartmel,
on Sept. 4, 1791, leaving a widow and ten children.
C. H. STEPHENSON, Southport.
THE HIGH LEVEL BRIDGE.
One of the first persons to suggest the idea of a high level
bridge between Newcastle and Gateshead was Edward
Hutchinson, master-mason, of Newcastle, who, when the
old Tyne Bridge was swept away in 1771, brought a
prospectus and plan before the Newcastle Corporation ;
but the project was premature, and nothing was done.
In 1853 a plan was presented for an elevated suspension
bridge, to connect Newcastle and Gateshead, by Mr. B. R.
Dodd, civil engineer, Newcastle, at a cost of £77,000 ; but
this project was also abandoned. About the year 1839
Messrs. John and Benjamin Green published a scheme for
a high level bridge. Although a committee of the New-
castle Corporation, of which Sir John Fife was a member,
reported in favour of the plan, it likewise was abandoned.
Another plan for a high level bridge was that of Mr.
Richard Grainger, who proposed to erect a superstruc-
ture on the Tyne Bridge, consisting of a viaduct for
passengers and other traffic, supported upon metal tubes
resting upon the piers of the bridge. Mr. Grainger's pro-
posal, which, like the others, left the railway connection
severed, did not meet with much favour. The eccentric
William Martin (brother of John Martin, the painter)
proposed to raise an additional storey upon the old bridge.
The most important proposal of all was that of Mr. John
Dobson, the architect of many of the fine buildings in
Newcastle. His plan provided a road for horse carriages
and foot passengers in addition to a viaduct with two
lines of railway, and included the formation of a grand
central and general railway station in Neville Street,
Newcastle. To Mr. Dobson is due the honour of
having initiated the idea of the High Level Bridge ; but
he did not design that noble structure. The directors of
the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway Company, who saw
the utility of the plan, judiciously engaged the services
of the greatest engineer of the day, Mr. Robert Stephen-
son, to carry the scheme into execution, engaging Mr.
Dobson at the same time to design the Central Railway
Station. x., Newcastle.
THE MERIDIAN PILLAR AT HAMMERFEST.
TERMINUS SEPTENTRIONALIB
arcus meridian! 25° 20'
quern
inde-ab-Oceano-Artico
ad fluvium Danubiun usque
per
Norvegiam, Sueoiam et Rossiam
j ussu et auspiciis
Eegis Augustissimi
OSCAR I.
et Imperatorura AuKUStissimorum
ALE.XAXDRI L
atque
NlCOLAI I.
Annis MDOOOXVI. ad UDCCOLII.
continue labore emensi sunt
triuiu gentium Geometry.
Latitudo 70' W 11" 3.
At a little distance outside the town of Hammerfest
(the most northern town in Norway and of the world),
there stands a handsome polished granite pillar, of
which I here give a drawing from a photograph. The
pillar is surmounted by a large bronze casting of
the globe, and upon
I this the hemispheres
are portrayed in re-
lief, the wholestand-
ing upon a suitable
base consisting of
three tiers of granite,
and enclosed by a
massive metal rail-
ing. Upon either
side of the granite
column may be read
an inscription in the
Latin and Norwe-
gian languages
which indicates that
the pillar has been
erected for putting
on record the fact
that the geometri-
cians of the three
northern countries — Norway, Sweden, and Russia — under
the auspices of the most august King Oscar I., and of the
most august Emperors Alexander I. and Nicholas I.,
have, by continuous labour, during the years 1816-1852,
measured the northern terminus of the arc of the meridian
of 25° 20', the latitude being recorded as 70° 40' 11" 3.
VIATOR, Newcastle.
THE FIRST TELEGRAPH MESSAGE BETWEEN
NEWCASTLE AND LONDON.
Mr. Joaeph W. Oliver, now of Birmingham, while
employed in the Electric Telegraph Company's office in
the Sandhill, Newcastle, in 1849, had the honour of
sending the first telegraphic message that was ever
92
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/ February
\ 189L
transmitted from Newcastle to London. How this hap-
pened has been thus described by himself :—
In those days, night-work was almost a sinecure, and,
except in the troublous times of 184-8, it was rare that
anything occurred to disturb our "watchful repose," or
the game of draughts in which we occasionally indulged
with our fellow-clerk at Edinburgh or York. On one
occasion— somewhere in the latter half of 1849—1 was
alone on night duty at the Sandhill, long after all active
business had ceased, when, looking up from a book I was
reading, I noticed a slight vibration of the needles taking
place. But it was so very slight, and so much like that
which was constantly being caused by disturbed condi-
tions of the atmosphere, that for some time I paid but
little heed. At last, however, I began to suspect that
someone was "calling " Newcastle, and I at once proceeded
to reply to the signal, taking it for granted that it was one
of the stations with which we usually communicated, but
that some accident had occurred to the wires, and thus
rendered the signal indistinct. For a long time, I could
make nothing of it, but at last, after a very slow and
deliberate putting of the question, " Who are you ?" I got
the reply, equally deliberately given, but with the very
faintest motion of the needles, "lam I. R." As far as
my memory goes, those were the code letters which stood
ior London ; at any rate, it was the code signal for Lon-
don which was given, and to my astonishment I found I
was speaking to the great metropolis, whereas up to that
time our messages had never gone further than Norman-
ton. We both of us tried a little further talk, but with-
out avail ; and presently Nprmanton intervened and told
me he had connected me with London, and that it was
with London I had been speaking. My chief and col
leagues were considerably surprised when I reported the
matter to them next morning.
ifJcrrtft=Cmwtrt> 8Mtt& ftunumr.
THE DRUNKARD'S REPLY.
A drunken character was accosted in the streets of
Blyth one day by a person of evangelistic propensities,
who found John in his usual condition. " Oh Jack," said
he, " drunk again, aa see. Wey. man, whaat'll become
o' ye ? Divvent ye knaa that drunkards cannot inherit
the kingdom of heaven?" "Aye," said Jack, "aaknaa
that; but aa divvent mean to get drunk when aa gans
thor !"
CONSOLATION.
A Pelton Fell man who had purchased the week's pro-
visions at the co-operative stores, called at a public-house
on his way home, and indulged rather freely in strong ale.
The result was that he lost his parcel. On his arrival at
his home, he told his wife of his misfortune, and she up-
braided him for his folly. "Begox," he suddenly shouted
in joyful tones, " it's not se bad ef tor aall. Nivvor mind
the grosseries — aa've getten the checks aall reet ! "
AS ARTIST'S LICENSE.
A Tyneside artist was painting the portrait of a sculler
who hails from the other side of the Atlantic. The oarsman
was seated in his boat, and the painter was desirous that
he should alter his position. " I want you to be a little
more foreshortened," said the painter. " What's that ?"
queried the other. "Oh, it's just an artist's expression —
an artist's license." "Waal," said the oarsman, " this is
the first time I've heard that English painters have to
obtain licenses !"
A FRIEND OF PUBLICANS AND SINNERS.
A local character in the neighbourhod of Jarrow, a
great frequenter of public-houses, was accosted recently
by a temperance friend who pointed out that he was des-
pised and rejected by all respectable people, owing to his
frequent visits to the public-house. " Ah, weel," was the
reply, " if aa is despised and rejected by them, aa can
easily see that it's for the syem reason that ma Lord and
Master was despised and rejected — because aa's a friend
of publicans and sinnors !"
PRIORITY IN SWEARING.
A gentleman and his wife were walking down Grey
Street, Newcastle, when a little sweep in front of them
delivered a volley of oaths, and then ran away. The
gentleman, disgusted, left his partner and hastened after
the boy to correct him. "You young scoundrel," he
cried, shaking the boy, "what made you swear before my
wife?" "What, sor?" "What made you swear before
my wife?" "Oh, aadident knaa, sor," whimpered the
laddie, " thet'yor wife wanted to sweer, or she shud ha'
sweered afore aa did !"
SPELLING.
Two miners were conversing together one morning dur-
ing the spelling bee rage. Bob says to Mick, " What an
a sort of a speller is thoo, Mick ?" "Wey, when aa went
te skyule, aa nivvor got varry far larn'd, but aa knaa
m-double-e spells me." "Whaat?" says Bob; "no.it
dissent." " Wey, it dis noo," says Mick. " Aa tell thoo,
man, thoo's wrang," said Bob. "Wabbot, aa's sure aa's
reet; it dis, mun." "Hoots man, had thee tongue ; aa
tell thoo thoo's wrang; it dissent spell me," says Bob.
" Wey. aa cannot tell whether it spells thoo or not, but
aa can insure thoo it spells me !"
"MIND YOR PIPESTOPPLES."
A few years ago a keelman opened the door of a carriage
at a Tyneside railway station, with the intention of
entering, but found that the passage was not clear, as a
tall, thin gentleman, deeply engaged in reading his paper,
and evidently too much interested to perceive the opening
of the door, had his legs stretched on to the opposite seat.
Making his way up the steps, the keelman shouted out,
" Mind thy pipestopples, man !" The gentleman at once
withdrew the offending extremities, and the keelman took
his seat. As soon as the train started, the former began,
"I am sorry, my friend, that I did not observe your
entrance, or I certainly should not have caused such an
offending request to be made to me. But just let me give
you a bit of advice. Be a little more respectful and
courteous to your fellows, make your requests with a
certain amount of civility and regard, and I'll warrant
you will get on much better in life." The keelman looked
at him with somewhat of a curious gaze, as if he hardly
understood him, but, determined not to be beaten, re-
plied, "Noo, let me gie thoo a bit advice. Always keep
February X
1391. I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
93
thy pipestopples oot o' folk's way, if thoo dissent war.t
them smashed !"
age being only 35 years. The deceased, who was born at
Blenkiasop, near Haltwhistle, in 1855, after studying at
D (Dfottuartto.
On the 12th of December, 1890, Mrs. Dodds, widow of Mr.
George Dodds, the well-known temperance advocate and
ex -Mayor of Tynemouth, died at the residence of her
grandson, Mr. Allison, at Liverpool. The remains of the
deceased were conveyed to Newcastle, and interred in
All Saints' Cemetery.
Mr. John Burnup, of the firm of Messrs John Burnup
and Sons, builders, and for many years chairman of St.
John's Burial Board, Newcastle, died in Newcastle, on
the 11th of December, in the 87th year of his age.
On the same day, Mr. Robert McQueen, senior partner
in the firm of R. McQueen and Son, cutlers, Grainger
Street, Newcastle, died at his residence at Gateshead.
On the 18th of December the Duchess of Northumber-
land died at Alnwick Castle. (See ante, p. 82.)
The death was announced, on the 20th of December, of
Joseph Inskip, an old standard of the city of Durham.
The deceased was a great favourite of John Gully, the
celebrated prize - fighter, horse • racer, legislator, and
colliery proprietor, by whom he was frequently enter-
tained at Cocken Hall.
On the 23rd of December, Mr. William Dodd Pratt, a
large land and property owner, died suddenly at Field
House, Hylton, in the 69th year of bis age. The deceased
was originally an architect, and in that capacity furnished
the design of the Lambton Monument at Penshaw. Mr.
Pratt was a member of several local public bodies.
On the same day, James C. Hunter, an old showman,
died at South Bank, Yorkshire. The deceased was a
Newcastle man, belonging to the Ouseburn, and a brick-
layer to trade, but at an early age he acquired a taste for
the drama, and as an actor and showman he travelled
round the Northern Counties, Northumberland and
Durham especially being his favourites.
Mrs. Watson, of Prestone, Weardale, a lady well known
for her philanthropy, died suddenly on the 24th of
December.
Mr. Joseph Michael Smith, of Monkwearmouth, a
retired draper, local philanthropist, and originator of the
Volunteer Life Brigade at Roker, died on the 24th of
December, 80 years of age.
Dr. Thomson, Archbishop of York, in his 72nd year,
died in that city on the 25th of December. (See ante,
page 89.)
On the 27th of December, Mr. Matthew Stephenson
Dodds, the oldest printer in business in Newcastle, died
at his residence in Gateshead, aged 70 years.
Mr. Thomas Richardson, member of Parliament for
the Hartlepools, died at his residence, Kirklevington, near
Yarm, on the 29th of December. The deceased gentle-
man, who was 69 years of age, was head of the firm of
Richardson and Sons, marine engineers, Hartlepool.
On the 30th of December, the remains of the late Mr.
Jonathan Claude Wylie, a noted linguist, and a frequent
contributor to theological and philological discussions,
were interred in the cemetery at Blackhill.
Mr. George Walton, artist, of Newcastle, who was
especially distinguished as a portrait painter, died at
Appleby, Westmoreland, on the 30th of December, his
orv.
the School of Art, Newcastle, the Royal Academy, and
in Paris, painted many portraits of great excellence both
in England and in Australia.
On the 1st of January, 1891. Mrs. Harkness, wife of
the chief officer of the Tyne Division of the Salvation
Army, died in Westgate Road, Newcastle.
At the age of 75 years, Mr. William Knott, for upwards
of thirty years outdoor manager fortheSunderland Water
Company, died on the 4th of January,
Mr. J. G. Robinson, one of the principal clerks in
Backhouse's Bank at Durham, a prominent architologist,
and a captain in the 4th Durham Volunteers, died on the
5th of January, aged 50 years.
The death occurred on the 6th of January, at an ad-
vanced age, of Mr. Thomas Brentnall, J.P., of South-
field Terrace, Middlesbrough. The deceased was Mayor
of that borough in 1862-63.
On the 6th of January, news was received of the death,
at Hull, of Mr. William Joliffe, the founder of the
famous steam-tug boat company at Liverpool, to which
town, in early life, he had removed from Shields.
Mr. Thomas Tucker, managing partner of the firm of
Isaac Tucker and Co., brewers and merchants, Gates-
head, died suddenly on the 6th of January, aged 41.
On the 8th of January, intelligence was received of the
death from fever at Usambiro, in Africa, of two mission-
aries belonging to the party of Bishop Tucker. One of
the unfortunate gentlemen was Mr. James William
Dunn, a native of Blaydon.
Mr, John Thompson, who for thirty years was a builder
of wooden ships at Sunderland, died on the 8th of
January.
On the same day, the death took place of Mr. John
Binks, for forty years assistant-overseer and poor-rate
collector for the township of Westoe, in the South Shields
94
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f February
Union. Mr. Binks was a native of Alnwick, and was 81
years of age.
Mr. H. Bowman Brady, of the firm of Brady ana
Martin, chemists, Newcastle, and one of the sons of Dr.
Brady, of Gateshead, died at Bournemouth on the 10th of
January. Mr. Brady, who was an accomplished natur-
alist, was a member of the Society of Friends, and was 56
years of age.
On the same day died, in his 70th year, Mr. Thomas
Main, a member of the Northumberland County Council.
On the 10th, also, in the 91st year of his age, Mr.
Andrew Brown died at Linthaugh Farm, near Ford,
Northumberland.
at
DECEMBER, 1890.
11.— Mr. G. E. T. Smithson, secretary of the Tyneside
Geographical Society, addressed a letter to the local
papers, enclosing a communication from Mr. Albert Grey,
who drew attention to the fact that the initial steps
of the Anglo-Siberian enterprise, which had recently been
crowned with success, grew directly out of the admirable
lecture delivered by Captain Wiggins under the auspices
of that society about twelve months previously.
12.— The Bishop of Durham laid the foundation stone
of a new wing of the Lady Vernon Schools, Gateshead.
13.— At the offices of the Miners' Permanent Belief
Fund, Newcastle, Mr. Thomas Weatherley, of Pelton
Fell, was presented with a testimonial, in the form of a
purse containing a hundred sovereigns, together with a
handsomely bound volume of Allan's edition de luxe of
Joe Wilson's poems and a copy of Wilson's "Pitman's
Pay," in recognition of the services he had rendered to the
miners of the Morth of England during a period of fifty
years. Mr. T. Burt, M.P., presided, and the presentation
was made by Mr. George Parkinson, of Sherburn, Dur-
ham.
— Messrs. Palmer and Co., Jarrow-on-Tyne, launched
from their yard at Howdon, a second-class twin-screw
steamer, named the Pique, for the English Government.
— The first prize awarded by the directors of the North-
Eastern Railway Company for the best floral display at
railway stations was awarded to the station-master at
Heddon-on-the-Wall, and the second to the station-
master at Newburn.
— The Dundee and Newcastle steamer Pladda went
ashore, and subsequently became a wreck, on the Fifeshire
coast, near Crail, but the passengers and crew were saved.
14. — At two mass meetings, held in Newcastle, an almost
unanimous resolution was passed in favour of a strike
among the servants of the North-Eastern Railway Com-
pany in the event of certain demands relating to the
hours of work and the rate of wages not being conceded,
and a large number of notices of an intended cessation
of labour on the expiration of a week were subsequently
handed in to the company. Before the expiration of the
notices, however, an amicable settlement of the difficul-
ties was effected, liberal concessions having been made to
the men.
—In the Tyne T heatre, Newcastle, Miss Amelia B.
Edwards, LL.D,, PH.D., lectured under the auspices of
the Tyneside Sunday Lecture Society on "The Literature
and Religion of the Ancient Egyptians."
15.— Mr. Thomas Wilson, the father of the Newcastle
Council, and for many years chairman of the Town Im-
provement Committee, tendered his resignation as an
alderman of the city of Newcastle. Mr. Richard Henry
Holmes, of the firm of Messrs. Holmi>s and Spence,
chartered accountants, and honorary secretary to the
Newcastle Hospital Sunday Fund, was subsequently
elected in his stead.
—The Newcastle City Council declined the proposal of
the Byker Bridge Company to sell the bridge to the
Corporation for £112,000.
— Mr. Sims Reeves, the celebrated tenor vocalist, gave
a farewell concert in the Victoria Hall, Sunderland.
— A meeting was held in reference to a freehold farm,
consisting of a hundred acres, about four miles west, of
Newcastle, which it was proposed to purchase with a
view to its subdivision into allotments, and applications
were eventually received for the whole of the lots.
— The foundation stone was laid of a new "Citadel,"
to be erected by the Salvation Army on the site of the
old Lyceum Theatre, in Lambton Street, Sunderland.
16.— At Newcastle Christmas Cattle Market the total
number of cattle shown was 2,650, and the prices realised
ranged from 8s. 3d. to 8s. 6d. per stone.
17. — Mr. E. A. Hedley was appointed a director of the
Newcastle and Gateshead Gas Company in the room of
his late brother, Mr. Alderman Hedley.
— Three men, named Birbeck, Laverick, and Maddison,
were fatally suffocated by a sudden escape of gas from
some old workings at North Biddick Colliery.
18. — Mr. Charles Percy, solicitor, Alnwick, was elected
coroner for the northern division of the county of North-
umberland.
19.— The third annual exhibition of toys for poor
children, under the auspices of Uncle Toby, the conductor
February X
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
95
of the Dicky Bird Society of the Weekly Chronicle, was
opened by the Mayor of Newcastle in the Bath Lane Hall
in that city. (See page 85.)
—The Rev. R. Stewart Wright, who three years ago
left Newcastle to act as a missionary in Central Africa,
but who had had to return home invalided, paid a visit to
Newcastle.
—It was announced that the will of the late Mr. Daniel
Adamson, of the Towers, Didsbury, formerly of Shildon,
in the county of Durham, and one of the originators
of the Manchester Ship Canal, had been sworn at
£54,168 10s. lOd. Other local wills of the month were
those of Mrs. Bolckow, widow of Mr. H. W. F. Bolckow,
M.P. for Middlesbrough, £29,281, and of Mr. Robert
Walters, of Eldon Square, Newcastle, valued at £16,376.
Under the last of these testaments a considerable sum
was left to local charities.
2L — Damage to the extent of £4,000 was caused by a
fire which broke out in Messrs, Lauder and Company's
saw mills at West Hartlepool.
22.— The Rev. C. P. Sherman, who had been appointed
to the living of St. John Lee, Hexham, was presented
with several gifts by the parishioners of St. Paul's,
Elswick, Newcastle.
23. — A severe frost, which had lasted several days,
prevailed at this time, skating being freely enjoyed on
the ponds in the public parks ; and as showing the great
waste of water, from the fear of frozen pipes, it was stated
that 15,500,000 gallons per day had been sent from Whittle
Dene to the Benwell reservoir, whereas the usual quantity
did not exceed 12,000,000 gallons.
24. — It was announced that Mr. Charles William F.
Goss, sub-librarian of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Public
Libraries, hid been appointed principal librarian to the
Lewisham Public Libraries and Museum, London, S.E.
— The Christmas pantomime of " Dick Whittington and
his Cat" was produced at the Theatre Royal ; and the
same evening witnessed the first representation of " Jack
and the Beanstalk " at the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle,
25. — The frost having given way, rain fell smartly
during the greater part of Christmas Day. There were
the customary festivities and entertainments, including a
breakfast to poor children given by the Mayor (Mr. J.
Baxter Ellis), in Bath Lane Hall, Newcastle.
— A married woman at Consett was delivered of
triplets, all boys.
— Dr. and Mrs. Beatty celebrated their golden wedding
at Seaham Harbour.
26. — The little Border church of Falstone was destroyed
by fire ; the sacramental plate, a fine harmonium, and a
painted window, presented by Mr. T. Spencer, of Ryton
Grove, being lost in the conflagration.
— A massive silver pencil case was presented to Colonel
Coulson by a number of the girls whom he had helped in
connection with the Northumberland Association for the
Protection of Women and Children.
27. — Mr. J. R. D. Lynn, as umpire, decided that the
drawing hours of double shift pits in the county of
Durham should be twenty hours per day.
— A second-class protected cruiser, the Sybille, built
for the Government, was launched from the shipbuilding
yard of Mesrs. Robert Stephenson and Co., at Hebburn,
— The foundation of a Workmen's Institute for the
workmen of IHirradon was laid by Mrs. Reah, of
Gosforth, wife of the managing owner of the Burradon
and Coxlodge Coal Company.
29. — A meeting of the governors of the Wellesley
Training Ship in the river Tyne was held in Newcastle, in
reference to certain changes in the rules ; but, owing to the
difficulty of coining to a unanimous agreement, the pro-
ceedings were eventually adjourned.
30. — Robert Kitching was executed in York Castle for
the murder of Police-Sergeant Weedy, at Leeming, near
Bedale, on the 9th of September, the executioner being a
man named Billington.
JANUARY, 1891.
1. — In Newcastle, and throughout the North of
England generally, the New Year of 1891 was ushered in
by a strict observance of the customs, secular and sacred,
traditionally associated with the season. There were the
usual festive and other social gatherings, while in the
evening all the places of entertainment were largely
patronised. In the afternoon, the Mayor of Newcastle
entertained about 250 aged persons, male and female, to
a comfortable meal in the schoolroom attached to the
Church of the Divine Unity, New Bridge Street. One of
the guests, Catherine O'Hara, of Wall Knoll, was of the
reputed age of 104 years.
— The annual gathering and singing competition pro-
moted by the Cleveland and Durham Eisteddfod was held
in the Town Hall, Middlesbrough, under the presidency
of the Marquis of Londonderry.
2. — Mr. Thomas Stamp Alder's annual New Year's
breakfast to poor children took place in the Bath Lane
Hall, Newcastle, the little guests numbering 2,500.
Through Mr. Alder's instrumentality, also, about 200 of
the poorest and most destitute children in the neighbour-
hood were, on the 4th, entertained to breakfast in All
Saints' Church Mission Room, Silver Street, in the same
city.
— John Power, a labourer, but formerly stationed as a
Customs officer at North Shields, was found lying dead
on the North-Eastern Railway between North Shields
and Tynemouth.
3. — The steamer Caroline Robert de Massey, of Stock-
ton, was sunk off Dungeness after collision with another
steamer, the Braithwaite Hall.
— It was announced that the degree of D.D. had been
conferred by the University of Dublin on the Rev. Thos.
Randall, Principal of Bede College, Durham.
5. — The Rev. J. C. Street, formerly minister of the
Church of the Divine Unity, Newcastle, received and
accepted a unanimous call to the pastorate of the Church
of the Saviour in Birmingham, with which the late Mr.
George Dawson, M.A., was identified.
— A large new Board School at Todd's Nook, affording
accommodation for 1,200 children, and erected at a cost of
£11,000, was formally opened by the Mayor of Newcastle.
—In the Central Hall, Hood Street, Newcastle, the Rev.
Canon Talbot commenced a series of six lectures on " The
English Reformation in the Sixteenth Century." The
Bishop of Newcastle presided.
6. — A number of men were seriously burned by the
accidental upsetting of a ladle of molten steel at the
Eston Steel Works of Messrs. Bolckow, Vaughan, & Co.
— The Stockton Town Council resolved to confer the
honorary freedom of the boroueh on Major Ropner, J.P.,
in recognition of his munificent gift of a park to the
town.
— Mr. G. F. Kobinson, a local artist, and his wife,
celebrated their golden wedding at tbeir residence,
96
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/February
\ 1891.
Elsdon Road, Gosforth, and were the recipients of
numerous congratulations.
7. — There being no cases for hearing at the Sunderland
Police Court, the customary pair of white gloves was pre-
sented t*> the Mayor, who presided on the Bench.
— It was stated that the total output of iron in the
Cleveland district during 1890 had amounted to 2,846,000
tons, being the largest quantity ever known in one year.
9. — George Sterling, late assistant-overseer of the town-
ship of Elswick, pleaded guilty to falsifying the books of
the township and embezzling large sums of money
received by him on account of the overseers. The
Recorder (Mr. W. Digby Seymour, Q.C.j sentenced the
prisoner to 18 months' imprisonment.
— Mr. Thomas Stamp Alder gave the first of a series of
free indoor winter concerts for the poor, in the People's
Palace, Haymarket, Newcastle.
— Five men were injured by the sudden collapse of a
portion of the roof of the North Bridge Street Presby-
terian Church, Snnderland, at which they were working.
10. — A gold watch and guard and a pair of gold-rimmed
spectacles were presented, on the occasion of his retire-
ment, to Mr. John Baines, permanent-way inspector for
the North-Eastern Railway Co., at Malton. Mr. Baines
began his career on the Stockton and Darlington Railway,
under George Stephenson, sixty-four years ago.
— A conversazione was held in the Burras Bridge
Assembly Rooms, Newcastle, under the auspices of the
Tyneside Sunday Lecture Society. Dr. R. Spence
Watson, who presided, stated that the attendance at the
lectures had averaged 1,900.
— Considerable damage was caused by a fire which broke
out in the shop of Miss H. Pye, milliner, 177, Westgate
Road, Newcastle.
(general ©reumnecs.
DECEMBER, 1890.
12. — Sir Edgar Boehm, K.A., the famous sculptor,
died suddenly in his studio, Fulham Road, London.
15. — A Parliamentary election for the Bassetlaw
division of Nottinghamshire resulted as follows : — Sir
Frederick Milner (Conservative), 4,381; Mr. Mellor, Q.C.
(Liberal), 3,653.
—Owing to the prospect of a rising of Indians in the
United States, the authorities arrested a noted chief.
Sitting Bull, and his son. Their followers attempted a
rescue, and the two chiefs were killed.
16.— Serious disturbances occurred at Ballinakill,
Ireland, in connection with an election for North Kil-
kenny. Among those assaulted were Mr. Michael
Davitt and several members of the Irish party. Mr.
Parnell was nearly blinded by having two bags of lime
thrown in his face.
—The trial of Michael Eyraud and Gabrielle Bompard
for the murder of a man named Gouffe was commenced at
Paris. After a very sensational and prolonged inquiry,
both the prisoners were found guilty. Bompard was
sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment, while Eyraud
was sentenced to death.
19- — Charles Lyddon, a medical student, was committed
for trial by the coroner of Faversham on a charge of
having feloniously administered a poisonous dose of
morphia to his brother, Dr. Lyddon.
21. — The Scotch railway servants decided to coma out
on strike, owing to the refusal of the directors to grant a
ten hours' day. The traffic was almost paralysed for a
time by the action of the men.
22, — M. Niels Gade, the eminent Danish composer,
died suddenly, aged 73.
— The North Kilkenny election took place. The result
was the defeat of the Parnellite candidate, Mr. Vincent
Scully, by a majority of 1,162 votes, Sir J. Pope
Hennessy, the Gladstonian candidate, being returned
with 2,527 votes.
23. — Mary Eleanor Wheeler, alias Mrs. Pearcey, was
executed at Newgate Prison for the murder of Phoebe
Hogg, the wife of Frank Hogg, and their infant daughter,
Phoebe Hanslope Hogg, on 24th October last, in Kentish
Town, London.
27. — Mr. Walter Grimshaw, a well-known chess player,
committed suicide.
28.— A terrible fight ensued between American troops
and Red Indians at Porcupine Creek, Nebraska, U.S.,
owing to the attempted disarmament of the latter. The
Indians were mown down by artillery, and during their
flight many women and children were killed.
29.— M. Octave Feuillet, the well-known French author,
died, aged 78.
30.— Thomas Macdonald was executed at Liverpool for
the murder of Miss Holt at Belmont, near Bolton.
JANUARY, 1891.
1- — Nine children lost their lives and many others were
seriously burnt at an entertainment at Leeds. While
they were being dressed in cotton wool to represent th«
winter season, a Chinese lantern caught fire and ignited
the costumes of the children.
2.— A great tire occurred at New York, the Fifth
Avenue and Hermann Theatres being destroyed.
3.— About two hundred men employed in the Savings
Bank department of the General Post Office were dis-
charged for having declined to work two hours extra the
day previous. They afterwards apologised, and were
re-instated.
5.— Serious disturbances took place at Motherwell in
connection with the Scotch railway strike. The affair
arose through men being evicted from houses belonging
to the Caledonian company. The soldiers were called
out, and the Riot Act was read. Blank cartridges were
fired upon the crowd, which then quickly dispersed.
—Intelligence was received of the suppression of a
native insurrection in the Caroline Islands with terrible
slaughter.
10.— Kiotous proceedings occurred at Carlisle in con-
nection with the strike on the North British Railway.
11.— Two steamers— the Britannia, trading between
Leith and Newcastle, and the Bear, belonging to Glasgow
—accidentally collided in the Firth of Forth. Both
vessels were sunk, thirteen persons being drowned.
—It was announced that the Right Rev. William
Connor Magee, Bishop of Peterborough, had been ap-
pointed Archbishop of York.
Printed by WALTEB SCOTT, Felling-on-Tyne.
Gbronicle
OF
NORTH-COUNTRY*LORE*AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 49.
MARCH, 1891.
PRICK 60.
Cltfficrrtt, 3&t|jft JHtrnff trf
j|EORGE CLIFFORD, third Earl of Cum-
berland, the father of the subject of our
sketch, was a brave, extravagant, reckless,
and eccentric man. Endowed by nature
with strength and agility, splendid in his dress, and
accomplished in all knightly exercises, he was renowned
alike for his personal attractions and his Quixotic
valour. A skilful navigator and an intrepid com-
mander, he made many successful voyages to the
Spanish Main — an El Dorado whose golden stores were
the goal of all sea adventurers in Elizabethan
days. Spending his substance in fitting out ships for
these expeditions, this high-born buccaneer won the
favour of Queen Elizabeth, who, true to her
Boleyn blood, liked nothing better than to share
the profits of enterprises whioh cost her nothing ;
in fact, the handsome cavalier was held in so much
esteem by the Queen, who loved a "proper man,"
that she honoured the most skilful horseman and tilter
of his day by appointing him her special champion at all
tournaments, an office for which he was admirably
qualified by taste and personal advantages.
The suit of tilting armour which he wore when
challenging all-comers to combat in honour of his Royal
mistress now hangs in "monumental mockery" at
Appleby Castle, and some idea of the gallant champion's
strength and vigour may be formed from the great size
and weight of the helmet, which no living shoulders can
now support. In 1592 he was invested with the Order
of the Garter, which he is represented as wearing in
the Skipton family picture, while another whole length
portrait of the earl preserves the memory of a cireura-
etance characteristic of that chivalric age, when even
the most trifling observance bore some romantic or
allegorical meaning. On his return from one of his semi-
piratical voyages the Queen accorded him an audience,
during which she inadvertently dropped her glove. Earl
George immediately picked it up, and presented it kneel-
ing ; his sovereign, with a gracious smile, bade him keep
it, and he, fully conscious of the honour Elizabeth had be-
stowed upon him, had the gauntlet richly set in diamonds,
and wore it ever afterwards in front of his hat at all
courtly ceremonials.
In 1577 this Earl of Cumberland married Margaret
Russell, daughter of the Earl of Bedford, and Ann Clif-
ford, the youngest and ultimately only surviving child
of this union, was born at Skiptou in 1590. Her father
and mother, though knowing each other from infancy,
and married before either of them had reached twenty
years of age, led a moit unhappy life, the reckless and
roving disposition of the earl causing him to be a negli-
gent and unfaithful husband to a wife whose only faults
appear to have been goodness and virtue. They were
separated while their daughter was still in her childhood,
and she was thenceforth entirely left to the care of her
mother — a prudent, sensible woman, who entrusted her
education to efficient teachers. Samuel Daniel, a poet of
no mean fame, was appointed her tutor, and it was from
him she acquired that fondness for literature and com-
position which led her afterwards to write the long
and curious account of herself and family which is still
extant. Her account of her own personal appearance is
worthy of notice ; she details the length and thickness of
her hair, the beauty of her eyes and figure, the dimple on
her cheek, &c., but in her idea her physical advantages
were more thau equalled by her intellectual charms, for,
" though I say it, the perfections of my mind were
much above those of my body; I had a strong and
98
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I March
1. 1S91.
copious memory ; a sound judgment ; and a discerning
spirit; and so much of a strong imagination as at
many times even my dreams and apprehensions proved
to be true." From a very early age the Lady Anne, as
the only child of her noble parents, was regarded as a
little lady of no small importance. Before she was ten
she was introduced at the Court of Queen Elizabeth by
her maternal aunt the Countess of Warwick, and after
that Queen's death she accompanied her mother to
Tibbals to see King James when he first came to England.
Of that visit she writes : — " We all saw a great change
between the fashion of the Court as it was BOW, and of
that in the Queen's (time), for we were all lousy by sitting
in Sir Thomas Erskine's chamber."
The Lady Anne was not present at the coronation of
James and Anne of Denmark, " because the plague was
then so bad in London " ; but afterwards we find her
in constant attendance at courtly festivities in company
with her mother and her aunt of Warwick, and we learn
that her " father at this tyme followed his suite to the
kinge about the border lands, so that sometimes my
mother and ho did meet by chance when their countenance
did shew the dislik they had one of ye other, yet he
would speak to me in a slight fashion and give me his
blessinge."
The extravagances of the Earl of Cumberland plunged
the countess into poverty, and the education of his
daughter had to be conducted on the strictest principles
of economy. During the two years Lady Anne was in
London with her governess (Mrs. Taylor), her whole ex-
penses amounted to £55 13s. 8d. This small allowance
was, however, supplemented by constant gifts from her
wealthy relatives, the Countess of Warwick, the Countess
of Derby, and the Countess of Northumberland, who sent
her presents of silver groats and small gold pieces packed
in little silver barrels, besides trinkets, fruit, and game,
and sometimes a whole stag at a time. Her most expen-
sive accomplishment was dancing, for we find twenty
shillings was paid for " teaching my lady to daunce for
one month." If she could read the books the titles
of which are seen on the backs of volumes depicted
in the portrait representing her as a prim girl
of thirteen, she must have been a very learned little
woman, for among them are Josephus, Eusebius, Sidney's
"Arcadia, "and works on alchemy. Her general educa-
tion, however, was in no particular neglected ; she was in-
structed in the precepte and practice of frugality and
domestic economy, and to her careful training in early
youth must be ascribed the business habits and adminis-
trative power she developed in after life. She made
journeys with her mother to Brougham, Skipton, and
Appleby, and paid visits to numerous relatives. During
one of these visits she tells us, "I used to wear my hair-
coloured velvet gown every day, and learned to sing and
play on the bass viol of Jack Jenkins, my aunt's boy."
But a great change in Lady Anne Clifford's circum-
stances and position was about to take place. Her
father's iron constitution broke down during a course of
wild dissipation, and he died in London in the autumn of
1605, after a mouth's illness. In spite of all previous
estrangements and disagreements his wife and daughter
were with him at the bitter end. The latter testifies that
he expressed great sorrow for his conduct to her saint-like
mother, and died a very penitent man. He left the world,
however, without repairing a grievous injury he had done
his child. Pride of family was with him a stronger
feeling than paternal affection, and by a will and deeds
executed some years previously he arranged that all bis
lands should go with the earldom to his brother, and
should only return to his daughter on the failure of his
brother's heir male ; the only provision bequeathed to
Anne Clifford, expect this apparently remote reversion,
being a present portion of £15,000.
After the death of the earl, Anne, by the advice and
under the direction of her mother, contested the validity
of her father's settlement, grounding her claim to the
estates and barony of Clifford on the old entail granted
by King John. Her case was laid before the House of
Peers, and judgment was given against her at York.
Both mother and daughter refused to accept this
decision, and demanded a fresh trial ; but before
the case was ready for a new tribunal Anne Clifford,
then in her nineteenth year, was married to Richard,
Earl of Dorset, a youth who was a few months older than
herself. From the first the marriage was an unhappy
one ; her husband, like all the Buckhursts, was immoral
and extravagant ; he soon wearied of the perpetual law-
suit, and urged his wife to accept a sum of money in lieu
of her birthright. She held out ; the case was tried over and
over again ; quarrels ensued and put an end to all harmony
between husband and wife ; and, though never finally
separated, they lived as much apart as if they had been
separated. The Earl of Dorset's life was, however, not
a long one ; he died in 1624, leaving by his wife only two
daughters. Some years afterwards Lady Dorset's eldest
daughter, then about fifteen, was married to Lord
Lupton, and she herself took as her second husband
Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. This union
was no more fortunate than her preceding one, and my
lady's matrimonial miseries, and the state of terror in
which she lived, may be imagined when we find that she
was obliged to write to her uncle, Lord Bedford, begging
him to ask her husband to allow her to spend a few days
in London, " for I dare not ventter to come up without
his leve, lest he should take that occasion to turne me
outt of his howse, as he did outt of Whitehall, and then I
shall not know wher to put my hede." Under such cir-
cumstances well might she exclaim that "the marble
pillars of Knowle and Melton were to her aftertimes but
the gay arbours of anguish." Events now occurred which
were of more vital interest to this daughter of the house of
Clifford than the acquisition or loss of a husband. Her
Mnrchl
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
99
uncle ^Francis, the fourth Earl of Cumberland, died,
after holding the title and estates for thirty-five years,
and his son Henry, who succeeded him, expired at York
about two years afterwards, without leaving an heir male.
On the death of this last earl the long contest was finally
cl.>sed, and Anne, Countess Dowager of Dorset, Countess
of Pembroke and Montgomery, in accordance with her
father's will, as well as heir of entail, became Baroness
Clifford, and the ancient title and inheritance once more
settled in the old line.
It was not, however, till the death of her tyrannical
husband, the Earl of Pembroke, in 1649, that she found
herself for the first time in her life a free agent. She then
set out, though nearly sixty years ot age, with all the
activity and energy of a great nature long suppressed, to
take personal possession of her superb estates in the
North, and never again quitted her native mountains.
With every impediment removed, and two rich jointures
added to her paternal possessions, she at once commenced
the great works which have made her as celebrated a
builder as Bess of Hardwicke. She completely rebuilt
the castles of Brougham, Skipton, Pendragon, Appleby,
Brough, and Barden, some of which had been in ruins for
centuries, and "scarce one showed more than the skeleton
of a house," for "she did think upon the stones, and it
pitied her to see them in the dust." As "she was not one to
live in ceiled palaces while the Lord's House lay waste,"
she did not neglect more sacred edifices, but restored the
parish churches of Appleby, Brougham, Barden, Skipton,
Bongate, Mallerstang, and Ninekirks; she also repaired
an almshouse, built by her mother at Bearmly, and built
and endowed another at Appleby for thirteen poor
women. In this way she imagined she earned the
blessings promised in scripture to "the repairer of
breaches, and the restorer of paths to dwell in."
One of her first pious works was the erection of a
memorial pillar on the road between Penrith and
Appleby, marking the never-to-be-forgotten spot
where years before she had said her last sad
good-bye to her beloved mother. (See Monthly
Chronicle, 1890, page 71.) The memory of this dear
parent was cherished through life ; she constantly
alludes to her in her memoirs, and ascribes whatever
good fortune befell her to "the prayers of my
devout mother, who incessantly begged of God
for my safety and preservation." She never forgot
or forgave her mother's injuries ; even in the long epitaph
she inscribed on her father's magnificent monument this
feeling peeps out, for she assures us that it was erected by
his sole surviving legitimate offspring, an innuendo most
daughters would have avoided, particularly in Craven (her
father was interred at Skipton), where many families claim
a sinister descent from George, Earl of Cumberland.
Moving from castle to castle, the Countess Anne spread
plenty and happiness around her, consuming the produce
of her estates and spending large sums in hospitality and
benevolence. She caused all the groceries, spices, stuffs,
wine, corn, and malt required in her households to be
bought from her neighbours, being desirous that the
country should be benefited by her expenditure. Amongst
other charitable acts, she caused a dole of money to be dis-
tributed to twenty poor persons in the neighbourhood of
her residence every Monday morning. Exceedingly
temperate in her diet, she rarely tasted wine, even
after she w»s past eighty years of age, nor did
she ever take physic in her life ; her dress was plain to
meanness, for though she attired her waiting women (who
were all daughters of her tenants) in handsome garments,
a petticoat and waistcoat of black serge was her own con-
stant dress after her second widowhood. It was her
custom to pass the year among her six castles, spending a
certain number of weeks or months at each, not only
inspecting the works she had in progress, but insisting in a
tenacious and inflexible manner on what she believed to be
her just rights.
It was a custom on her estates for each tenant, in
addition to his rent, to pay an annual boon hen, as it was
called, and this survival of an old custom had come to be
considered the steward's perquisite. It happened that a
rich tradesman from Halifax, named Murgatroyd,
having taken a house near Skipton,' refused to pay
bis boon hen. The countess, whenever relinquished even
the most shadowy of her claims, at once commenced
a suit against him. As her tenant was as obstinate and
determined as herself, the case was argued at consider-
able length, and when at last the law decided in her
favour she found her hen had cost her £200. After the
affair was settled, she invited Mr. Murgatroyd to dine
with her, and the hen was the first dish served at table.
"Come," said she, "let us now be good friends; since
you allow the hen to be dressed at my table, we will
divide it between us." Many other anecdotes of
her . inflexible determination are related. She defied
Oliver Cromwell, refused his proffered arbitration in some
difficulty with her tenants, and when he threatened to
blow her castle down with his cannon she said she would
build them up again so long as she had a shilling in her
pocket. Who has not heard of her celebrated letter to
the Minister who attempted to interfere with her right of
nomination to the borough of Appleby ? "I have been
bullied by a usurper and neglected by a court, but I will
not be dictated to by a subject : your man shan't stand. —
ANNE DOBSET, Pembroke and Montgomery." Whether
this letter is authentic or not, it is difficult to say.
Horace Walpole believed it to be genuine, and he was no
mean authority.
The countess was particularly proud of a singular
dignity derived from her paternal ancestors, who had a
hereditary right to act as High Sheriffs of Westmoreland.
It has been stated again and again that Anne Clifford
filled this office in person, and, like her great ancestress,
Alethea, sat on the bench with the judges. That she
100
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f March
\ 1891.
ever did so is uncertain ; she was, however, recognised
as Sheriff, and exercised the authority of the office by
deputy. After having lain in abeyance for many years,
this right was at length abolished by an Act of Parliament
passed in 1850, ordaining the appointment of Sheriffs for
that county in the usual manner.
' Lady Dorset preserved her mental and physical activity
to the end of her life, keeping up her journal of the events
and transactions of every passing day to the very last.
She met death with the same uncomplaining fortitude
which had characterised her life, always answering when
asked how she felt during her last brief illness, " I thank
God I am very well." She died at Brougham Castle in
1675, in the 86th year of her age, and was buried in the
sepulchre which she had herself erected at Appleby,
choosing rather to rest beside her adored mother than to
be interred with her martial ancestors at Skipton.
M. S. HAKDCASTLE.
5Tfte
at tfte Utartttr.
ii.
GIPSY GENTLEMEN.
| HUNDRED and fifty years ago, or less, the
superior order of gipsies used to swagger
about the country like "perfect gentlemen."
Simson tells us, in his History of the
Gipsies, that the male head of the Hut livens — a man
who, according to the newspapers of the day, lived to the
advanced age of 115 years — when in full dress in his
youth, wore a white wig, a ruffled shirt, a blue Scottish
bonnet, and white stockings, with silver buckles in his
shoes. And William Baillie, well-known in Tweeddale
and Clydesdale, was said to be the handsomest, the best
dressed, the best looking, and the best bred man of his
day. He acted, however, the character of the gentleman,
the robber, and the tinker, indifferently, just as it
answered his purpose. He was considered the most
accomplished swordsman in all Scotland. Weapon in
hand, and his back at a wall, he set almost everything.
save fire-arms, at defiance.
THE WINTEES.
The Winters, one of whom was the principal in the
Elsdon tragedy, for which murderous exploit he was hung
in chains, were a gang of ferocious gipsies who long in-
fested the wastes of Northumberland and committed many
crimes. Several of them, we believe, were hanged for
horse-stealing, house-breaking, or murder, and others were
sent to the plantations or the hulks for various offences.
The only member of the family that turned out well, for
several generations, was a girl who was taken from her
father when he was in prison, previous to execution, and
brought up apart from her brothers and sisters. The
father had a quarrel with one of his sons about the sale
of some property, and shot him dead. The mother
cohabited with another man, and was one morning found
dead, with her throat cut. The remnant of this gang
went down to Scotland about a hundred years ago, and
assumed the Roxburghshire name of Wintrup, as they
found their own somewhat odious. They settled at a
cottage within four miles of Earlstoun, on the Leader,
and became great plagues to the country round, until
they were secured, after a pitched battle, tried before the
Circuit Court at Jedburgb, and banished to England.
The dalesmen of Reedwater showed great reluctance to
receive these returned emigrants when they were set
loose on the southern side of the Carter Bar. After the
Sunday service at a little chapel near Otterburn, one of
the squires rose, and, addressing the congregation, told
them they would no longer be accounted Reedsdale
men, but Reedsdale women, if they permitted this
marked and atrocious family to enter the district. The
people answered that they would not allow them to come
that way; and the proscribed family, hearing of the
unanimous resolution to oppose their passage, slunk away
across the Kielder Moors to the head of North Tyne,
and thence southward, where they were lost sight of.
One of them was the redoubtable boxer, Tom Spring,
Champion of England, who changed his name of Winter
to that of a more kindly season on severing connection
with his tribe.
THE KOMANNO POLTMACHT.
The quarrels of the gipsies frequently broke out in an
instant, and almost without a visible cause. Some of
their conflicts were terrible. Dr. Pennecuik gives the
following account of one of them that took place on his
estate of Romanno, in the parish of Newlands, in Tweed-
dale : —
Upon the 1st of October, 1677, there happened at
Romanno a remarkable polymachy between two clans of
gipsies, the Fawes and the Shawes, who had come
from Haddington fair, and were going to Harestanes to
meet two other clans of these rogues, the Baillies and
Browns, with a resolution to fight them. They fell out
at Romanno among themselves about dividing the spoil
they got at Haddington, and fought it manfully. Of the
Fawes, there were four brethren and a brother's son ; of
the Shawes, the father with three sons ; and several
women on both sides. Old Sandy Fawe, a bold and
proper fellow, with his wife, then with child, were both
killed dead upon the place, and his brother George very
dangerously wounded. In February, 1678, old Robin
Shawe, the gipsy, and his three sons, were hanged at the
Grassmarket for the above-mentioned murder, committed
at Romanno ; and John Fawe was hanged the Wednes-
day following, for another murder.
This gipsy battle is also noticed by Lord Fountainhall, in
a MS. preserved in the Advocates' Library. The Browns
and Baillies (whom he calls Bailezies) had come over from
Ireland, he says, a short time before, and the others were
determined to chase them back. The bodies of the four
Shawes who were hanged were thrown into a hole dug
for them in the Greyfriars' Churchyard, with their clothes
on, but the next morning that of the youngest, who was
scarce sixteen, was missed. "Some thought," says his
March!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
101
lordship, "that, being last thrown over the ladder and
first cut down, and in full vigour, aud not much earth
placed upon him, and lying uppermost, and so not so
ready to smother, the fermentation of the blood, and heat
of the bodies under him, might cause him to rebound, and
throw off the earth, and recover ere the morning and
steal away, which, if true, he deserved his life, though
the magistrates deserved a reprimand. But others, more
probably, thought his body was stolen away by some
chirurgeon, or his servant, to make an anatomical
dissection on." Dr. Pennecuik erected a dove-cot on the
spot where the fray took place ; and to commemorate the
battle, put upon the lintel of the door the following in-
scription : —
A.D. 1683.
The field of gipsie blood, which here you see,
A shelter for the harmless dove shall be.
THE BATTLE OF HAWIOK BBIO.
A very bloody, though not fatal, gipsy battle took
place at the bridge of Hawick, in Teviotdale, in the
spring of the year 1772 or 1773. The following particu-
lars, given in Simson's History, were derived from a
former tenant of Falnash, Mr. Robert Laidlaw, a gentle-
man of respectability, who was an eye-witness. It was
understood that the battle originated in some encroach-
ments of one tribe upon the district assigned to another ;
and it had been agreed by the contending parties to fight
ont their dispute the first time they should meet : —
On the one side, in this battle, was the famous Alex-
ander Kennedy, a handsome and intelligent man, and
head of his tribe. Next to him in consideration was little
Wull Ruthven, Kennedy's father-in-law. This man was
known, all over the country, by the extraordinary title
of the Earl of Hell ; and although he was above five feet
ten inches in height, he got the appellation of Little
Wnll to distinguish him from Muckle Wull Rutbven,
who was a man of uncommon stature and personal
strength. The earl's son was also in the fray. These
were the chief men in Kennedy's band. Jean Ruthven,
Kennedy's wife, was also present, with a great number of
inferior members of the clan, males as well as females, of
all ages, down to mere children. The opposite band
consisted of old Rob Tait, the chieftain of his horde,
Jacob Tait, young Rob Tait, and three of old Rob Tait's
sons-in-law. These individuals, with Jean Gordon, old
Tait's wife, and a numerous train of youths of both sexes
and various ages, composed the adherents ot old Robert
Tait. These adverse tribes were all closely connected
with one another by the ties of blood. The Kennedies
and Ruthvens were from the ancient burgh of Loch-
maben. The whole of the gipsies in the field, females as
well as males, were armed with bludgeons, excepting
some of the Taits, who carried cutlasses, and pieces of
iron hoops notched and serrated on either side like a saw,
and fixed to the end of sticks. The boldest of the tribe
were in front of their respective bands, with their
children and the other members of their clan in the rear,
forming a long train behind them. In this order both
parties boldly advanced, with their weapons uplifted
above their heads. Both sides fought with extraordinary
fury and obstinacy. Sometimes the one band gave way,
and sometimes the other ; but both, again and again,
returned to the combat with fresh ardour. Not a word
was spoken during the struggle ; nothing was heard but
the rattling of the cudgels and the strokes of
the cutlasses. After a long and doubtful contest,
Jean Ruthven, big with child at the time, at
last received, among many other blows, a dreadful
wound with a cutlass. She was cut to the bone, above
and below the breast, particularly on one side. It was
said the slashes were so large and so deep that one of her
breasts was nearly severed from her body, and that
the motions of her lungs, while she breathed, were
observed through the aperture between her ribs. But,
notwithstanding her dreadful condition, she would
neither quit the field nor yield, but continued
to assist her husband as long as she was able.
Jean's father, the Earl of Hell, was also shockingly
wounded, the flesh being literally cut from the bone of
one of his legs, and hanging down over his ankles, "like
beefsteaks." The earl left the field to get his wounds
dressed ; but, observing his daughter, Kennedy's wife, so
dangerously wounded, he lost heart, and, with others of
his party, fled, leaving Kennedy alone to defend himself
against the whole of the clan of Tait. Having now all
the Taits, young and old, male and female, to contend
with, Kennedy, like an experienced warrior, took advan-
tage of the place. Posting himself on the narrow bridge
of Hawick (over the Teviot), he defended himself in the
defile, with his bludgeon, against the whole of his in-
furiated enemies. His handsome person, his undaunted
bravery, his extraordinary dexterity in handling his
weapon, and his desperate situation (for it was evident
that the Taits thirsted for his blood, and were determined
to despatch him on the spot) excited a general and lively
interest in his favour among the inhabitants of the town
who were present, gazing on the conflict with amazement
and horror. In one dash to the front, and with one
powerful sweep of his cudgel, he disarmed two of the
Taits, aud, cutting a third to the skull, felled him to the
ground. He sometimes daringly advanced upon his
assailants, and drove the whole band before him pell-melL
When he broke one cudgel on his enemies, by his powerful
arm, the town's people were ready to hand him another.
Still, the vindictive Taits rallied, and renewed the charge
with unabated vigour ; and everyone expected that
Kennedy would fall a sacrifice to their desperate fury.
Jean Gordon stole, unobserved, from her band, and,
taking a circuitous route, came behind Kennedy, and
struck him on the head with her cudgel, but failed to
stun him. A party of messengers and constables at last
arrived to his relief, when the Taits were all apprehended
and imprisoned ; but as none of the gipsies were actually
slain in the fray, they were soon set at liberty.
This gipsy fray at Hawick is known as " The Battle o'
the Brig." Every one engaged in it, save Alexander
Kennedy, was severely wounded, and the ground on
which they fought was wet with blood. Mr. Murray, of
Hawick, in his " Gipsies of the Border," gives an account
of another conflict which took place at Hawick, about
the year 1730, between the Yetholm and Lochmaben
tribes. The incident, he tells us, is gleaned from Wilson's
" History of Hawick," where it may be read at length.
FATAL SKIRMISH ON ESKDALE MOOB.
Alexander Kennedy's grandson, of the same name as
himself, was sent to Botany Bay for fourteen years, about
the year 1819, for the manslaughter of a gipsy named
Irving, at Yarrowford, the cause of the quarrel having
been the same feud which gave rise to the Hawick battle.
The latter engagement was not decisive to either party.
The hostile bands, a short time afterwards, came in
contact in Ettrick Forest, at a place on the water of
Teema, called Deepshope. They did not, however, en-
gage then and there, though the women on both sides,
at some distance from each other, with the stream
between them, scolded, cursed, and banned, urging the
males to fight. The men, more cautious, observed for the
nonce a sullen and gloomy silence. After this they
102
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/March
\ 1891.
separated, taking different roads ; but in the course of a
few days, meeting again on Eskdale Moor, a second
desperate conflict ensued. In thia the Taits were com-
pletely routed, and the result was that they were driven
from the district. The country people were horrified at
the sight of the wounded tinklers, after these bloody
engagements. Several of them, lame and exhausted, in
consequence of the severity of their wounds, were carried
up and down, by the assistance of the tribe, on the backs
of asses, till they either recovered or died. Some of them
were slain outright in the Eskdale Moor fight, and buried
on the field, or at least were never heard of more.
FIGHT AT LOWRIE'S DEN.
There used to be, and perhaps still is, a small public-
house on the roadside between Lauder and Dalkeith,
called Lowrie's Den. It stood in a very lonely situation,
near the steep mountain pass of Soutra Hill, the terror of
the South-Country carters in pre-railway times. It was
seldom one could get past it without witnessing a
drunken fight, if not getting implicated in it. In fact,
the place was infamous. The neighbourhood was a
harbourage for the gipsies, who could make their way
thence across the hills, without let or hindrance, either to
Galawater, Leithen and Eddlestone waters, the Black-
adder, which runs down into the Merse, the Haddingtou-
shire Tyne, the South Esk in Mid-Lothian, or right down
Lauderdale into Teviotdale, and thence into England.
Many a gipsy fight, as well as carters' squabble, has taken
place at Lowrie's Den. Little more than a century ago it
was the scene of a terrible conflict. Two gipsy chiefs,
named respectively Robert Keith and Charles Anderson,
who had somehow fallen out, and followed each other for
some time, for the purpose of fighting out their quarrel,
met at last at Lowrie'a Den. The two antagonists were
brothers-in-law, Anderson being married to Keith's sister.
Anderson proved an over-match for Keith ; and William
Keith, to save his brother, laid hold of Anderson.
Whereupon Madee Grieg, Robert's wife, handed her
husband a knife, and called on him to despatch the
villain, while unable to defend himself, owing to his
hands being held. Robert repeatedly struck with the
knife, but it rebounded from the unhappy man's ribs
without much effect. Impatient at the delay, Madge
called out to the assassin, "Strike laigh ! strike laigh !'
Following her directions, he stabbed him to the heart.
The only remark made by any of the gang was this ex-
clamation from one of them:— "Gude faith, Rob, ye've
dune for 'im noo !" William Keith was astonished when
he found that Anderson had been stabbed in his arms, as
his interference was only to save his brother from being
overpowered by him. Robert Keith instantly fled, but
was pursued by the country folks, armed with pitchforks
and muskets. He was caught in a bracken-bush, in which
he had concealed himself, and was executed at Jedburgh,
on the 24th November, 1772. One of the persons who
assisted at Keith's capture was the father of Sir Walter
Scott. Long afterwards William Keith was apprehended
in a ruinous house in Peeblesshire, but not till he had made,
th»ugh half-naked, a desperate resistance to the officers
sent to capture him. He was tried, condemned, and
banished to the plantations.
THE SIEQE OF PENNICUIK HOUSE.
So formidable were the numbers of the gipsies, at one
time, and so alarming their desperate and bloody battles,
in the upper section of Tweeddale and parts adjoining,
that the fencible men of the district had sometimes to turn
out to disperse them. A clergyman was on one occa-
sion under the necessity of dismissing the congregation
in the middle of divine service, that they might
quell one of these furious tumults in the immediate
vicinity of the church. On another occasion, a band
of gipsies broke into the house of Pennicuik, when
the greater part of the family were at church. Sit
John Clerk, the proprietor, barricaded himself in hi&
own room, where he sustained a sort of siege, firing from
the windows upon the robbers, who fired upon him in re-
turn. One of them, while straying through the house in
quest of booty, happened to mount the stairs of a very
narrow turret, but his foot slipping, be caught hold of the
rope of the alarm bell, the ringing of which startled the
congregation assembled in the parish church. The people
instantly came to the rescue of the laird, and succeeded,
it is said, in apprehending some of the gipsies, who were
executed in due course in the Grass Market of Edinburgh.
A volume might be filled with tales of violence and outrage
similar to the above, recorded in the Scotch law books.
pNTIL a comparatively recent date, the higher
districts of Northumberland were entirely
destitute of made roads. All traffic between
one part and another was carried on by means of pack
horses, generally shelties from Shetland or galloways
from the wild uplands of Wigton and Kirkcudbright-
shires. These shaggy little creatures, wonderfully strong
for their size, furnished with rope halters instead of
bridles, and having their backs fitted with straw-stuffed
cloth pads, would be marched in single file, or driven, if
ten or a dozen, from twenty to thirty miles a day, for
several days consecutively, with loads of four, five, or
even six bushels of oats, barley, or rye, poised across their
backs, in sacks made for the express purpose, with a slit
on each side to pour or empty the corn through.
The principal route taken across that wild and dreary
tract of country which lies between Corbridge on the
Tyne and Woodburn on the Reed was by the old Roman
road, the Watling Street, which "runs in its arrow-like
course over hill and dale, swerving not to the right or the
left, undaunted, untrammelled by any physical difficulty,
March 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
103
whether in the form of deep set valley, running water,
boggy tract, or ridgy precipitous hill— in short, over-
coming any hindrance which may present itself, rather
than deviate from its straightforward course." If the
traveller rashly diverged from it, either to the right or to
the left, he was almost sure to get entangled and lost in
the trackless waste, or, at all events, to find himself in
such a situation that, as Hutchinson the historian says,
" he would prove himself a patient Christian if he
forebore to execrate the want of guide posts, and the
neglect of those whose duty it was to remedy the delay,
fatigue, hazard, and anxiety of the stranger whose stars
infatuated him to engage in the labyrinths and wilds of
such a country."
But to our tale. We shall tell it as it was told to Mr.
William Pattison, about fifty years ago, by the landlord
of a little roadside public-house, at Tone Pits, near Carry
Coates, in Throckrington parish, and as he afterwards
communicated it to Richardson's "Table Book." The
landlord spoke as follows : —
It is as nigh fifty years as I can guess, that old Johnnie
Craigie, of the Whitesidelaw, on the South Tyne, went to
Cowden, in Reedswater, to bring oats. He had twelve
ponies, and carried with him his son, who was an idiot
born. The lad was counted harmless, and was besides
very useful — being a capital hand among horses. Well,
they went to Cowden, where they met with many others
on the same errand. The oats were soon bought, and the
money as quickly paid, and then the whisky drinking
commenced, which did not end as soon or so well.
Terrible hands for drinking whisky in those days ! I've
known my father stay a month, and heard of others stay-
ing from seed-time to harvest. Well, .old Craigie drank
whisky until he was well nigh full, and, what was worse
than that, they gave it to his idiot lad, who was not
drunk with it, but staring mad. His looks almost
frightened the whole company to death, so that instead of
detaining old Craigie (as was many a time the case with
others), the people of the house very gladly seconded bis
proposal to depart, when, much to the relief of the rest of
the guests, be left on the afternoon of the following day.
After proceeding a few miles on their journey the lad
began to be very mischievous, turning the horses off upon
the moor, and upsetting the sacks on their backs. For a
time the old father kept putting things to rights, but at
last his patience was exhausted ; and, when the lad was
in the act of throwing off a sack, the old man struck him
a smart blow across his fingers with the stock of his whip.
In a moment, maddened with pain and opposition, the
wretch, implanted with the fury of a demon, suddenly
seizing the whip, wrenched it from his father, and with
one blow felled him to the ground. A g^rl attending some
sheep which were pasturing around witnessed the whole
affair. Of all the deeds ever transacted, perhaps this was
one of the most appalling. The lad jumped upon his
father, and kicked him until he was tired ; then withdrew
to a distance and watched him attentively ; ran again and
inflicted another shower of blows. There then lay on one
side a heap of stones intended for the repair of the road ;
these he took up, and, selecting the sharpest, pelted the
body with such unerring aim and effect, that it might as
lief have been a heap of road scrapings as that it could be
said to bear any resemblance to humanity. This done,
the lad mounted one of the ponies, scoured over the moor,
and, reaching home, informed his mother of the deed.
Meanwhile, assistance arrived, but too late. There lay in
a bloody mass all that was mortal of poor Craigie — his
brains and grey hairs besmeared and matted among the
stones, whilst I myself, a little boy at the time, picked up
five of his fingers, which had been knocked off by the
stroke of the stones. The lad, on his arrival home, went
to bed, and lay till he was secured and sent to a lunatic
asylum in Newcastle, where he died. When the common
was enclosed, the masons employed in erecting the fence,
built a cross into the wall — Crafgie's Cross — which, being
destroyed by some accident or other, a rude death's head
was made to supply its place.
Mine host concluded by observing : — " Often have I
heard it said that at night the form of old Craigie might
be seen stealing quietly about the fatal spot ; but I'm not
one, sir, that believes in such stories."
Jptwrtoffafce awtt
iitwturcj.
j|HE snowflake or snow bunting (Emberiza
nivalis, Bewick — Pleetrophanes nivalis, Yar-
rell) is a purely winter visitant, and only
makes its appearance in the North of Eng-
land when the winters are unusually rigorous. Mr. Han-
cock remarks in his Catalogue — " Occasionally abundant,
it arrives on our coast, singly or in pairs, in September or
October, and during the winter assemble in large flocks.
In the breeding season, the snowflake has a very different
appearance from that which it assumes with us. The
change is produced in the same manner as in the moun-
tain finch, namely, by the margins of the feathers wearing
off. The change in appearance thus produced is very
remarkable in this species ; the head, neck, breast, and
belly become quite white, while the back and scapulars
are changed to pure black." Large flocks of snowflakes
used formerly to visit Newcastle Town Moor, but are
now rarely seen. Whether the decrease in numbers is
owing to drainage and other agricultural changes, or
because it is getting less numerous from other causes, it
is hard to say.
The bird, which is a native of the Polar regions, is
found over the whole of the northern parts of Europe and
America, and was seen by Captain Scoresby, in immense
numbers, in icy Spitzbergen, where it breeds during tie
brief northern summer. It is also occasionally found in
winter in the warmer countries of Southern Europe and
in Mid and Southern England and Ireland, but it is
always most plentiful in Scotland and the Border
Counties. As Morris remarks, the number of those
wintry visitants diminish from Yorkshire southward.
Mountainous regions are their natural resort, which they
leave for lower and more sheltered ground when severe
weather sets in. They return to their breeding haunts
in the far north about April.
The male, in shape and size not unlike the yellow
bunting, is from six to seven inches in length. The short
bill is yellow, darker at the tip in winter, but wholly
yellow in summer. The iris of the eye is a chestnut
brown. The head, on the back, is a pale yellowish
brown, white in summer ; crown, bright chestnut brown,
mixed with white, the tips of the feathers being reddish
104
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/March
"I 1891.
brown in winter, though sometimes white. Neck, on the
back, greyish brown, white in summer; in front, a
gorget of bright chestnut brown, mixed with white ; nape
of the neck, white in summer, tinged with greyish or
brownish red in winter ; chin white, with more or less
yellow brown on the sides, white in summer. The back
feathers are beautifully mottled black and brown. The
wings, which extend to the width of thirteen inches, are
black and white. The tail is black, the outside feathers
white. The legs, toes, and claws are black, the hind claw
being prolonged and nearly straight. The female is
somewhat duller plumaged than the male, and rather
smaller in size.
Snowflakes run with rapidity on the ground when in
search of food, perch on rocks and walls, seldom on trees,
and roost on the ground. Their food consists chiefly of
different kinds of grain, the seeds of grasses and plants,
as also of small mollusca, caterpillars, and insects. The
note is low and soft, and uttered on the wing. The male
bird sings to his mate when the latter is on the nest, and
rises a little way in the air with hoverintr wings and out-
spread tail.
Dr. Brehm, the German naturalist, thus refers to the
arrival of the snow buntings in Northern Europe : — "The
flocks of these beautiful creatures (in winter) are remark-
ably numerous ; they pour in den.io masses over the
country, and drop like Snowflakes upon such spots as
seem to offer them the food of which they are in search —
indeed, so strong is the resemblance of these swarms to a
snow-storm, when thus seen congregated in large num-
bers, that the birds are popularly called ' Snowflakes ' in
St. Petersburg, where they are met with in much greater
multitudes than in other parts of Europe. Many tales
are told of these flocks settling down during their migra-
tion, on the decks of ships, in order to enjoy a short
repose ; upon such occasions, however, they rise again
into the air almost immediately, and continue their long
and weary journey, even should they have to encounter
the full violence of a contrary wind."
The Lapland bunting ( ' Plectrophanei Lapponica) is a
rare accidental visitor to this country. The first instance
of its occurrence was early in the year 1826, the fact being
announced by Selby to the Linntean Society. This speci-
men was discovered in Leadenhall Market, where it had
been sent with some larks from Cambridgeshire. Since
that date about a score of examples have been obtained in
Great Britain. One was killed among a flock of snow
buntings near Durham, in January, 1860, and is now in
the Durham Museum. The adult male in breeding-
plumage has the entire head, throat, and upper part
black, except a nearly white streak, which, beginning
behind the eye and passing at the back of the ear-coverts,
forms a white patch on the sides of the neck. A rich
chestnut collar reaches from behind the head to the upper
back. The rest of the feathers of the upper parts, in-
cluding the wing-coverts, innermost secondaries, and
centre tail feathers, are brownish black, margined with
white and buff. The quills and tail feathers are brown,
with narrow pale margins, the two outer tail feathers
with more or less smoky white at the tip. The black on
the upper breast extends to the flanks, and the rest of the
underparts is nearly white. The bill is yellow, black at
the tip ; the legs, feet, and claws are dark brown ; and
the irides are hazel.
, (Srarfntm.
[OWARDS the close of last century William
Wordsworth settled down at Dove Cottage,
Townend, Grasmere. At that time the seclu-
sion of the lovely neighbourhood would seldom be
intruded upon ; but the English Lake District gradually
became the haunt of thousands of tourists. Wordsworth
himself was in some way responsible for the invasion, for
he published a " Guide to the Lakes."
The cottage at Townend has of late been surrounded by
the out-buildings of an hotel, and no doubt the time was
not far distant when it would have been either consider-
March!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
105
ably altered or pulled down. Recognising this possibility
some admirers of the poet have acquired possession of the
premises. It is proposed to place in them editions of
Wordsworth's poems, to fill the little nook with all the
mementoes of the poet that can be obtained, and to
maintain the cottage by voluntary subscriptions as public
trust property.
No better description of Dove Cottage, as it was when
Wordsworth entered into possession, can be desired than
that of Dorothy Wordsworth, the poet's sister, who in a
letter dated September M, 1800, refers to it in the follow
ing terms : —
We are daily more delighted with Grasmere and its
neighbourhood. Our walks are perpetually varied, and
we are more fond of the mountains as our acquaintance
with tbem increases. We have a boat upon the lake, and
a small orchard and smaller garden, which, as it is the
work of our own hands, we regard with pride and
partiality. Our cottage is quite large enough for us,
though very small ; and we have made ill neat and com-
fortable within doors ; and it looks very nice on the
outside : for though the roses and honeysuckles which we
have planted against it are only of this year's growth, yet
it is covered all over with green leaves and scarlet flowers;
for we have trained scarlet beans upon threads, which are
not only exceedingly beautiful, but very useful, as their
produce is immense. Wo have made a lodging-room of
the parlour below stairs, which has a stone floor; therefore
we have covered it all over with matting. We sib in a
room above stairs, and we have one lodging-room with
two single beds, a sort of lumber-room, and a small low
unceiled room, which I have papered with newspapers,
and in which we have put a small bed.
The following poem was written by Wordsworth during
his residence at Dove Cottage : —
On Nature's invitation do I come,
By Reason sanctioned. Can the choice mislead,
That made the calmest, fairest spot on earth,
With all its unappropriated good.
My own, and not mine only, for with me
Entrenched — say rather peacefully embowered —
Under yon orchard, in yon humble cot,
A younger orphan of a name extinct,
The only daughter of my parents dwells?
Aye, think on that, my heart, and cease to stir ;
Pause upon that, and let the breathing frame
No longer breathe, but all be satisfied.
Oh. if such silence be not thanks to God
For what hath been bestowed, then where, where then,
Shall gratitude find rest? Mine eyes did ne'er
Fix on a lovely object, nor my mind
Take pleasure in the midst of happy thought,
But either she, whom now I ha,ve, who now
Divides with me that loved abode, was there.
Or not far off. Where'er my footsteps turned,
Her voice was like a hidden bird that sang ;
The thought of her was like a flash of light
Or an unseen companionship, a breath
Or fragrance independent of the wind.
In all my goings, in the new and old
Of all my meditations, and in this
Favourite of all, in this the most of all. . . ,
Kmbrace me then, ye hills, and close me in.
Now on the clear and open day I feel
Your guardianship : I take it to my heart ;
'Tis like the solemn shelter of the night.
But I would call thee beautiful ; for mild,
And soft, and gay, and beautiful thou art,
Dear valley, having in thy face a smile,
Though peaceful, full of gladness. Thou art pleased.
Pleased with thy crags, and woody steeps, thy lake,
Its one green island, and its winding shores,
The multitude of little rocky hills,
Thy church, and cottages of mountain stone
Clustered like stars some few. but single most,
And lurking dimly in their shy retreats,
Or glancing at each other cheerful looks,
Like separated stars with clouds between.
It was to Dove Cottage that Wordsworth brought his
bride in 1802, and here he spent many happy years. But
the accommodation was very limited, and his increasing
family soon necessitated a transfer to a larger house. In
the spring of 1808 he went to live at Allan Bank, at the
north end of Grasmere; but, finding this place unsuitable,
he removed for a time to the parsonage at Grasmere. The
loss of some of his dear ones and the circumstance that
they lay iu Grasmere churchyard rendered him anxious
to leave a house that, to use his own words, "by recalling
to our minds at every moment the losses we have sus-
tained in the course of last year, would grievously retard
our progress towards that tranquillity which it is our
duty to aim at." Finally, a suitable residence was found
at Bydal Mount, on the rocky side of Nab Scar, and
overlooking Rydal Water. Thither he and his family
migrated in the spring of 1813, and there he spent the
remainder of his days.
at JKarfc 'tEtoijrt ftgtu atttt
JttdjarD SKdfort.
/orjster,
GEOLOGIST AND MINING ENGINEER.
[ESTGARTH Forster, author of "A Section
of the Strata from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to
Cross Fell," was the eldest son of Westgarth
and Lucy Forster, of Ivy House, Garrigill,
Alston, and grandson of George Forster, of Jeffry's
Rake, Hunstanworth, who married a daughter of the
ancient family of Westgarth, owners for many generations
of the estate of Unthank, in Weardale. Westgarth
DOVE COTTAGE, GKASMERE.
106
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/March
I 1891.
Forster, the elder, was a mining agent, who, in 1774,
received the appointment of assistant-manager of the
Allendale and Coaloleugh mines, and who, at his death in
February, 1797, was described in the Newcastle Chronicle
as "one of the best judges of lead mines in the North of
England." Westgarth, the younger, was born in 1772,
and it is believed that the family mansion of Jeffry's
Kake was his birthplace. There, and at Allenheads, his
boyhood was spent.
Upon the death of his father, Westgarth Forster under-
took the agency of the Allendale mines, and held it for
about ten years. When he resigned, he was preparing
his great work on the Strata. The first edition of this
elaborate treatise was issued in 1809. In the same year
appeared the first geological map of England, by William
Smith. These two productions— both the results of
patient investigation conducted in two different portions
of the same field of inquiry— laid the foundation of a .
sound knowledge of English geology.
Though the profits accruing from the sale of the work
were small, the author had good reason to be satisfied with
the success it had achieved. It brought his name promi-
nently before the mining community ; and he was hence-
forth recognised as an authority on geological and mining
questions. Owners of mining property, directors of min-
ing companies, and mining agents sought his assistance in
their difficulties. A new career as a surveyor was thus
opened out to him. He may be said to have fully entered
upon his duties as a mine surveyor in 1810 ; he retired
into private life in 1833, His professional course thus
extended over twenty-three years, exclusive of the time
during which he acted as agent for Sir Thomas Blackett
and Colonel Beaumont. As compared with the averaee
duration of professional careers, his was a short one ; but,
if measured by the amount of work accomplished, it is
justly entitled to be considered a long one. During those
twenty-three years he surveyed, mapped, and reported
upon, mining fields in Cumberland. Westmoreland, the
North Riding of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire, Shrop-
shire, North and South Wales. He also visited Spain
and North America, for the purpose of surveying mines
in those countries, He had offers of employment in
Ireland and Norway, but was unable to accept them. Some
of his reports and many of his plans are still extant. The
former are noticeable for their clearness, and for the c«m
prehensive grasp of the subjects with which they deal ;
the latter are remarkable for their order and neatness.
The second edition of the " Strata " appeared in 1821.
Among the subscribers to this edition were Dr. Buck-
land, author of the " Bridgewater Treatise on Geology " ;
Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society ; the
Duke of Devonshire ; the Earls of Darlington and Strath-
more ; Dr. Barrington, Bishop of Durham ; Professor Mill-
inifton, of the Royal Institution ; Dr. Thompson, Regius
Professor of Chemistry, Glasgow, and Col. Beaumont.
In the same year in which the second edition of the
"Strata " appeared, Forster went down to Somersetshire,
where he surveyed some mining property, and directed
the efforts of a company who were interested in a new
colliery. During the years 1825 and 1826, he surveyed,
sketched, and reported upon mining properties in
Cardiganshire, Merionethshire, Glamorgan, Monmouth-
shire, Pembrokeshire, Montgomeryshire, Denbighshire,
Shropshire, and the Isle of Man. He sailed for North
America in April, 1830, and returned in May, 1831, bring-
ing with him a series of sketches which he had made
during his stay on that continent. That he visited Spain
during the interval between May, 1831, and April, 1833,
is more than probable.
In his retirement at Ivy House, Garrigill, Westgarth
Forster found such occupation as failing health permitted
in outdoor sketching and planning when the weather was
favourable, and in colouring plates of unsold copies of the
"Strata " when outdoor work was impracticable, busying
himself at the same time in the affairs of the village, and
keeping up a correspondence with Professor Sedgwick,
Hugh Lee Pattinson, and other friends of his prime.
These congenial employments were, however, of but brief
duration. During the summer of 1835 be was seized with
a fatal illness, and on the 9th of November in that year
he died.
Though half a century has elapsed since the grave
closed over Westgarth Forster's remains, his name still
continues a household word among the people of Alston
Moor, Weardale, and the two Allendales. He lives in
their minds as a clever though somewhat eccentric man,
different in many respects from the ordinary run of man-
kind. Local mining agents and local geologists are
familiar with his name; mining agents and geologists
who have a reputation which is more than local still
continue to quote him as an authority on mining and
geological questions. His " Section of the Strata " is
still the standard work on the geology of the two
Northern Counties, and it was never more highly prized
by miners than it is now. Though the book was written
when the science of geology was in its initial stage ; when
even people of education recognised no distinction
between one kind of rock and another ; when such terms
as "stratified" and "unstratified," "aqueous" and
"igneous," seldom appeared in print, and were scarcely
ever heard ; when the great works of Buckland, De la
Beche, Philips, Lyall, Murchison, Sedgewick, and other
geologists had not yet appeared, the classification of the
strata which it contains is the one still in use.
[The foregoing narrative is condensed from an apprecia-
tive memoir of Mr. Forster (prefixed to a third edition of
the "Strata "), by the Rev. William Nail, M.A.]
FREEMAN'S LEADER AND BIBLIOPHILE.
Sacred to th« Memory of William Garret, who for
forty years devoted himself to the interests of the free-
men, and was ever ready to defend their rights and
March 1
1891. I"
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
107
privileges. He filled the office of Chairman of the
Stewards of the Incorporated Companies for a long
period, and was Steward of the Skinners' and Glovers'
Company. He also contributed to our local literature by
editing a black-letter manuscript of the Battle of Flodden,
and compiling an account of the principal Floods in
Northumberland and Durham. Died 28 December,
1857, aged 63 years. Erected by the Skinners' and
Glovers' Company, and private friends of Mr. Garret, in
commemoration of his public services. This stone was
erected in its place on the 31st March, I860.— Monumental
Inscription in Jesmond Cemetery.
A generation of Novocastriaus that has scarcely yet
passed away, was familiar with William Garret, whose
portly form, fluent speech, and imperious bearing gave
him a distinct individuality in the town forty to fifty
years ago. Champion of the freemen of Newcastle
against their civic rulers, and far-searching collector of
every available chip that could exemplify or scrap that
could illustrate the workmanship of Thomas Bewick, be
CWL&71
figured for many yeara as a minor light in local adminis-
tration on the one hand, and as a bibliophile and relic-
hunter of wide-spreading repute on the other. The
highest official position to which he attained was that of
Chairman of the Stewards of the Incorporated Com-
panies ; his commercial status was that of a bookseller ;
yet, in the thirties and forties of the present century, one
could not be many days in Newcastle without hearing of
William Garret.
Born in 1793, the son of John Garret, a hairdresser,
who carried on his business first in the Groat Market and
afterwards in the Bigg Market, William Garret received
« good education, for his father was a man of advanced
ideas, a promoter of the Royal Jubilee School, and a
supporter, to the extent of his means, of other institutions
designed to encourage menial and social improvement.
Developing studious habits and exhibiting bookish ten-
dencies, he was bound apprentice, in or about the year
1807, to his father's neighbour, the famous bookseller,
Emerson Charnley. Soon after his term of servitude
expired, on the 3rd November, 1814, he was admitted to
the freedom of the Stationers' Company, and thencefor-
ward became qualified to exercise his calling in any way
most conducive to his wishes. He chose to remain at the
famous shop wherein he bad acquired his business know-
ledge, and for thirty years he continued with Mr.
Charniey, rising from the position of 'prentice lad to that
of assistant, and from the post of assistant to that of
manager.
During the early days of his engagement with Mr.
Charnley, Mr. Garret indulged in mild literary recrea-
tions on his own account, encouraged thereto, without
doubt, by his fnend and pastor, the Rev. William Turner.
The formation of the Newcastle Typographical Society,
in 1817, provided him with the temptation to see himself
in print, and he contributed between that year and 1822,
the following tracts to the society's series : —
An Elegy to the Memory of Her Royal Highness the
Princess Charlotte of Wales, 1817.
An Account of the Great Floods in the Rivers Tyne,
Tees, Wear, Eden, &c., in 1771 and 1815. With the
Names of the Principal Sufferers in Northumberland, the
Amount of their Estimates, and of the Damage done in
each Township ; Also an Account of the Subscriptions
made for their Relief, in 1771. To which is added an
Account of the Irruption of Solway Moss. Newcastle :
Printed for Emerson Charnley, 1818. Four Bewick Cuts.
[Dedicated to John Adamson.
The Battle of Flodden Field. Reprint, in black-letter,
of a rare tract originally issued by Richard Fawkes,
printer, about 1514. Newcastle : Printed for Emerson
Charnley, 1822. With one Bewick Cut. [Dedication of
three pages to John Trotter Brockett.]
Nothing more appears to his credit in local literature
till the election of 1830, when he issued a well-known
broadside entitled " The Gathering of the Whigs in Sir
Matthew White Ridley's Committee Room," commenc-
ing—
Little wot ye wha's comin,
Dan o" Blagdon Ha's comin,
Harry's comin, Scaife's comin,
Henderson and a's comin,
and running on through nine other verses of the same
character. By this time more absorbing, and perhaps
more useful, work than the compilation of local tracts had
been found for Mr. Garret to do. At an early period of
his freedom he had been elected steward of his company,
and now he was engaged in continuing the work which
Joseph Clark had begun, of denouncing municipal ex-
travagance, and demanding a restoration to the freemen
of their alleged rights and privileges. Those who consult
"The Corporation Mirror," "The Northern John Bull,"
and other ephemeral periodicals of the time will read re-
ports of the noisy guild meetings that preceded the Great
108
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I March
1. 189L
Reform Bill, and be able to gauge the height and depth of
the agitation that ensued in favour of a similar measure
for securing Municipal Reform. At all those meetings
Mr. Garret was one of the guiding spirits ; through all
that agitation he was a chief spokesman ; sometimes lead-
ing the attack, sometimes conducting the defence. At the
Municipal Inquiry held in Newcastle during the early part
of November, 1833, he took the lead in cross-examining
the representatives of the Corporation, and in addressing
critical remarks to the Commissioners. Mr. John Clay-
ton, the Town Clerk, principal witness for the civic
authorities, received a regular fusillade of questions
from the freemen's chief inquisitor, and the genial way
in which he turned the tables on his interlocutor formed
a subject of admiration and amusement for long after.
The passing of the Municipal Reform Act in 1835
settled most of the disputes between the Corporation and
the freemen. Several of the latter found their way into
the Reformed Town Council : but Mr. Garret, although
nominated by both wards of the parish of St. Andrew,
did not enter the charmed circle. He remained outside,
and, as chairman of the Stewards of the Incorporated
Companies, led the freemen through many a wordy fray
and convivial encounter, for which, later on, they re-
warded him with the customary "handsome piece of
plate."
In 1844 (the year before Mr. Charnley died), Mr.
Garret left the famous book mart in the Bigg Market,
after thirty years' service, and started in business on his
own account in Mosley Street. He began with a goodly
number of local books, and before long he had one of the
largest stocks in town. Bewick's blocks and illustrations
were the principal objects of his search. His first cata-
logue contained six copies of the "Birds," six of the
"Quadrupeds," four of the "Select Fables," and three of
"jEsop," with several separate cuts, prints, and draw-
ings. In little more than a twelvemonth he sent out a
catalogue in which were no fewer than 108 entries under
the name of Bewick, and an announcement that, besides
these, he had in stock " upwards of one thousand speci-
mens " of the " minor and early " work of that great
engraver. Local curios and relics also added interest to
his collections. Among other objects that he offered for
sale were : —
Saint Nicholas' Church : A beautiful Model in Wood,
upwards of eight feet high, "accurate by Measurement in
all its Parts."
Lord Derwentwater's Wine Glass : A curious old
"Party Glass," engraved "F. R.," surmounted by a
coronet on one side, and " Success to Prince Charles " on
the other.
Lord Derwentwater's Girdle Purse: An old Leather
Double Purse, the Tassels fringed with Silver Lace.
Wine Pant : A Tin Model, 19 inches high, of the Pant
that ran Wine on the Sandhill, Newcastle, at the corona-
tion of George IV.
A Fine solid Plaster Bust of William Martin, the
Natural Philosopher.
Sixty Saxon Stycas found at Hexham.
Seven Pairs of very old Leather Shoes made in New-
castle, in fine condition, and very curious.
Fruit Piece by George Gray, " admitted to contain
some of the ripest fruit he ever painted."
Devotion to Bewick brought Mr. Garret into com-
munication with that enthusiastic collector the Rev.
Thos. Hugo. In the preface to the first volume of his
"Descriptive Catalogue of the Works of Thomas and
John Bewick," Mr. Hugo attributes to two men in New-
castle— William Garret and John Bell — his chief success
in gathering together the vast and unique collection
which bore his name. The book itself is full of notes
from Mr. Garret's pen, giving little histories of the
objects enumerated, bits of gossip about the workmanship
of them, or stories concerning their previous owners.
Besides these jottings, Mr. Garret does not appear to
have added anything to his early efforts in literature.
He issued the "Fisher's Garlands " in 1844 and 1845, and
afterwards made up a few sets of those charming songs
with a title page dated 1842. He gathered together
handbills, broadsides, and tracts relating to special sub-
jects, and bound them in unique volumes, like those of
John and Thomas Bell, with title pages and occasional
notes — volumes prized by local collectors, and now rarely
obtainable. Beyond this class of bookmaking he did not
venture.
Four or five years after Mr. Garret started in business
for himself, some local dispute with the Stationers' Com-
pany led to his withdrawal frem the fellowship. The
Skinners' and Glovers' Company, taking into considera-
tion his extensive knowledge of Corporate affairs, ad-
mitted him an honorary member, and on the resignation of
Mr. George Halliday, they appointed him the Glovers,
Steward. Towards the close of his life, finding book-
selling less remunerative, and his natural powers failing
him, he accepted the position of deputy-registrar of
births and deaths for the district of St. Nicholas and St.
John. Occupying that office, he died on the 28th
December, 1857, and was buried in Jesmond Cemetery.
Stye (StbsioniS of Deijjam anb £tonecroft,
FBIABS, PRIESTS, AND BISHOPS.
That part of the Tyne valley above which the renerable
Abbey Church of Hexham rears its time-worn tower, has
been, for three hundred years, the birthplace and the
home of a family bearing the ancient patronymic of
Gibson. Their pedigree commences with Richard Gib-
son, who obtained a grant from the Crown of lands at
Hexham, and settled there in the latter part of the
sixteenth century. Public interest in them begins a
hundred years later, when Richard, son of George Gibson,
of Hexham, adding to his patrimonial inheritance other
property in the town, and acquiring lands at Corbridge,
laid the foundation of a goodly estate. To him were
born three sons, two of whom, George and William,
choosing the religious life, joined the order of St
Dominic, while the other son, Thomas, remained at
home, married, and perpetuated the race.
March!
1S91. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
109
George Gibson, the eldest of these three brothers, was
professed at the Dominican Convent of Bornhetu, near
Malines, in 1673, where he taught philosophy and theo-
logy, and for a year occupied the responsible position of
tub-prior. From Bornhem he went to Rome, where he
rose to the more exalted office of prior in that great house
of his order which bore the united names of St. John and
St. Paul. In the summer of 1686, he was sent to
England as chaplain to the Claverings of Callaly, with
whom he remained till 1693, when his brother Thomas,
having acquired the estate of Stonecroft, near Hexham,
put him in charge of a mission there. At Stonecroft he
died on the 17th of December, 1696, and was buried in
Newbrough churchyard.
William Gibson, born in 1668, professed at Bornhem in
1687, and ordained priest at Rome in 1692, taught
philosophy at Aglia, in Piedmont, till upon the death of
his brother George he took up the work of the Stonecroft
mission. At Stonecroft he remained till 1712, when he
was obliged to leave the country. He had solemnized a
marriage, and for that heinous offence an information
was laid against him, and warrants were issued for his
apprehension. Flying to Bornhem, he was welcomed by
the brethren, who made him Professor of Theology,
Master of Novices, and Spiritual Director of secular
students, and in May, 1714, elected him to be their Prior.
Three years later he became confessor to the Dominican
house at Brussels. In 1719, having received his degree of
S.T.M., he returned to England, and was appointed
chaplain to one of the foreign embassies in London, where
he died on the 7th June, 1724, aged 56.
Thomas Gibson, brother of the two Dominicans,
married Bridget, daughter of Jasper Charlton, of Hawk-
hope. Through this alliance he acquired a moiety of
Hawkhope ; later on he purchased from his wife's sister
the other half, and thus became possessed of the whole
estate. He bought, also, Stagshaw Close House from Sir
William Blackett; Stonecroft and Nuubush from
William, Lord Widdringtou ; and Housesteada from the
Armstrong family. Two of his sons were men of mark,
as well as marked men. George, the heir, was out with
the Earl of Derwentwater and General Forster in 1715,
was captured at Preston, tried and condemned for
treason, and would have suffered, like many others, but
for an outbreak of fever in Newgate, which carried him
off before the date fixed for his execution. Another son,
Thomas Gibson, born September 29, 1688, was ordained
priest at Douay, and shortly after the death of his
brother in Newgate received an appointment to the
Catholic mission in Newcastle. By the attainder of the
Earl of Derwentwater the mission had been deprived of
its chapel — a part of the old residence of the Radcliffe
family, situate in a court or yard, known long after as
Bell's Court, Newgate Street ; but Mr. Gibson found a
home and raised his altar on the opposite side of the
way, in the Nun's Gate. There he officiated in peace
(being also Archdeacon of Yorkshire) till the second
Rebellion — that of 1745 — broke out. Newcastle and
Gateshead were intensely loyal to the Hanoverian
dynasty, and when the Duke of Cumberland came over
the Tyne, marching to the victory of Culloden, the
populace evinced their gratitude by burning the Catholic
chapel at Gateshead, and wrecking Mr. Gibson's in New-
castle. For some time the ousted priest went in fear of
his life ; but, resorting to various disguises, even adopting
women's attire, he was able to visit his flock till the
storm blew over. Meanwhile, the old Radcliffe mansion
in Newgate Street had fallen into Catholic hands again.
It was occupied by Mary, widow of Albert Silvertop
(daughter of Joseph Dunn, of Blaydon) ; and one of her
daughters being married to a nephew of Mr. Gibson's,
she invited the persecuted ecclesiastic to return, like a
wandering shepherd, to the old fold, and he accepted the
invitation. For nearly twenty years after the return of
the mission to its former domicile Mr. Gibson remained
in charge, and, dying on the 20th January, 1765, aged 76,
was buried in All Saints' Churchyard.
A third son of Thomas Gibson, and, therefore, brother
of the " rebel " and of the Newcastle priest, bore the name
of Jasper. He married, September 26, 1719, Margaret,
daughter of Nicholas Leadbitter, of Nether Warden, by
whom he had two-and- twenty children. Four of his sons
entered the Catholic priesthood, and two of them rose to
be bishops. George and Richard were the two sons who
remained priests ; Matthew and William were the
brothers who donned the mitre.
George Gibson, the eldest of the four, born in March
1726, was educated at Douay, and for some years remained
in the college there as general prefect. Upon his return
to England he was appointed to the misson at Hexham,
where he established a manufactory for spinning wool to
provide employment for the children of the poor. He
died at that place, on the 3rd December, 1778, aged 52.
Richard Gibson, the youngest of the four, born in 1739,
was ordained at Douay. After leaving the college, he
assisted in a school at Standon, in Hertfordshire, and was
successively appointed to Hare Street and Old Hall, in
the same county. About the year 1784, he removed to
Mawley Hall, the seat of Sir Walter Blount, in Shrop-
shire, where he spent the remainder of his life, "much
respected and beloved by the family and his congrega-
tion, notwithstanding his constitutional roughness and
apparent harshness." He died there on the 13th Septem-
ber, 1801, aged 62.
Matthew Gibson, fourth son of Jasper, was born in
1734, and, like his brothers, was sent to Douay to be
educated for the priesthood. After his ordination he
occupied for four years the chair of Philosophy, and
afterwards, for six years, the professorship of Divinity.
Returning to England in 1768, he entered into the general
work of the mission, and two years later was chosen
Archdeacon of Kent and Surrey. In 1776, under Bishop
110
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/March
\ 1891.
Walton, Vicar- Apostolic of the Northern District, he be-
came Vicar-General, and the following year received the
higher appointment of Special Vicar. When, through the
death of Bishop Walton, a vacancy occurred in the
supreme office of Vicar-Apoatolic, the Pope, approving
his zeal for the faith, his success in propaganda, and his
undoubted abilities in administration, appointed Mr.
Gibson to be Bishop Walton's successor. He was con-
secrated in London, September 3, 1780, by the title of
Bishop of Comana in Cappadocia, and a few days after-
wards entered upon the onaroi.rf duties of his office. How
onerous these were may be inferred when it is explained
that the Northern District, mapped out in the reign of
James II., and unaltered till 1840, comprised the counties
of Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, Westmore-
land, York, Lancaster and Chester, and therefore ex-
tended, at a time when railroads had not been invented,
from the Tweed in the North, to the Humber and the
Mersey in the South.
Up to the date of Matthew Gibson's appointment the
Catholics of Northumberland and Durham saw their
bishops at long intervals only, and their vicars-general
as seldom. The Rev. W. Maire, of Lartington, who
acted from 1767 to 1769 as coadjutor to Bishop Petre, and
was buried at Romaldkirk in the latter year, formed the
only exception to this rule. Bishop Gibson, being a
Tynesider, not only paid frequent visits to his native
county while discharging subordinate functions, but four
years after his consecration he came to the North to
reside. There was a Catholic mission at Stella, founded
a hundred years before by the Tempests, and worked
from their ancestral home, Stella Hall; Under the pro-
tection of the Widdrington family, successors of the
Tempests, the mission had been continued, the officiating
priest sharing the hall with the agent of the estates, and
celebrating mass in a chapel attached to it. Thither, in
the spring of 1784, Bishop Matthew Gibson took up his
residence with the priest of the mission, the Rev. Thomas
Eyre, and from thence he governed his extensive charge.
Upon Tyneside his life was quiet and unobtrusive. In
no public capacity outside of his spiritual functions did
he appear ; nor did he contribute much to ecclesiastical
literature. Nothing is known to have issued from his pen
but a revised edition of "The London, or Little Cate-
chism, "and a Pastoral Letter on a proposed oath to be
taken by "Protesting Catholic Dissenters." He died
at Stella Hall, on the 19th May, 1790, aged 57, and was
buried among his relatives at Newbrough.
William Gibson, fifth son of Jasper, born in February,
1738, was educated and ordained at Douay, where he took
the college oath, November 3, 1755, Returning to Eng-
land, he took up his residence at Minsteracres, as
domestic chaplain to the Silvertops. He was appointed
President of Douay in 1781, and remained there till
the death of his brother, whom he succeeded as Vicar-
Apostolic of the Northern District, with the title of
Bishop of Acanthos, in 1790. This Bishop was the
founder of the great Catholic College of Ushaw. He had
resigned the presidency of Douay to assume the mitre,
and when, three years later, that famous French training
house of English priests, and its companion establish-
ment at St. Omer, had been broken up by the French
Revolution, he devoted himself to the task of gathering
together the scattered students, and carrying on in Eng-
land the educational work which the Republic had sup-
pressed. Some of the refugees were provided for at Old
Hall Green, Herts; others were placed for a time in a
lay school at Tudhoe. In 1794, Bishop Gibson obtained
a lease of Crook Hall, ancient seat of the Bakers, in the
parish of Lanchester, and opened it as the first Catholic
college established in England after the Reformation,
Thither students flocked in annually increasing numbers,
until Crook Hall became inadequate to their accommoda-
tion. Then the Bishop took in hand a project of greater
magnitude — the founding of an institution which, in size
and teaching power, might campare with the college at
Douay. He applied to Sir Edward Sinythe to sell him
a farm of 300 acres, situated near the village of Ushaw,
four miles west of Durham ; the price being arranged, the
land was purchased, and a scheme drawn up for a large
collegiate edifice. Early in the year 1805 the first stone
was laid of a quadrangular building, enclosing a large
open court, surrounded by corridors. Three wings of the
college were so far completed in the summer of 1808, that,
on the 19th July, the President sent the first body of
students to take possession of their New Alma Mater.
Residing generally at York, but occasionally at Dur-
ham with the resident priest, the Bishop managed to
conduct the business of his huge district without flinch-
ing, and without neglecting any part of it. " For many
months," he wrote, "I administered the sacrament of
confirmation three or four times a week, and as often
preached sermons before Catholics and Protestants. My
journeys were very long and fatiguing. In Lancashire I
confirmed about 8,000, and almost all of those confirmed
received the holy communion." It was not until the
seventeenth year of his episcopate that he obtained the
services of a coadjutor. After that time, his health gave
way under the weight of years and the burden of his
office. He died at Durham on the 2nd of June, 1821,
aged 83, and was buried in the college cemetery at
Ushaw. His literary work comprises a translation of a
French book, "The Truth of the Catholic Religion,
proved from the Holy Scriptures," published at New-
castle by Edward Walker, in 1799; a "Charge, "delivered
on the passing of the Act of 1791, which freed Catholics
from various declarations and disabilities; the joint
authorship of an encyclical letter in 1791, and of a
Pastoral Letter in 1793, and a " Conversation between
the Right Hon. Edmund Burke and Dr. W. Gibson,"
undated.
March \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
Ill
STft* Jfirrft
af
JINDREW WHITE, of Frederick Lodge, Sun-
derland, and Tunstall Lodge, county Durham,
first and three times Mayor of Sunderland,
Member of Parliament, Borough and County Justice,
and a Deputy-Lieutenant for the county of Durham,
was born in Sunderland in the year 1788. He was
a son of John White, of Thorny Close, Durham, the
most extensive shipowner in Sunderland at that time,
a colliery owner, and the proprietor of the Bishopwear-
mouth Iron Works— a gentleman of large means and
philanthropic spirit, who built at his own cost the
Wesleyan Schools in Hendon Road.
After receiving a sound education (he was a pupil of
Rev. John Hayton), Andrew White early entered upon a
business and public career. Together with his brother
Richard, he was taken into partnership by his father,
and the firm became John White and Sons. Endowed
with more than average ability, and the happy possessor
of a genial and polished manner, he was not long in
making his influence felt in the good town of Sunderland.
When in 1835 an agitation arose for taking advantage of
the Municipal Reform Act, he was the chosen champion
of the Municipal party. Although Bishop Morton had
in 1634 vested the government of the town in a "Mayor,
twelve Aldermen, and Commonalty" — all duly elected
and acknowledged by the State — the charter had fallen
into disuse, and a strong faction now objected to the
formation of a council without a special Act of
Parliament. Mr. White, however, presided at a
meeting on the 16th December, 1835, and, strength-
ened by the opinion of the then Attorney-General,
the meeting unanimously resolved to take advan-
tage of the Act. An opposition meeting was held on the
17th, when Mr. R. Pemberton, Mr. Fenwick, and Mr.
Featherstonehaugh, together with some of their friends,
strongly opposed the resolution adopted at the previous
meeting. Their objections were, however, overruled, and
on December 26, 1835, the first election of councillors for
the newly-constituted borough of Sunderland took place.
The subject of our sketch was returned at the head of
the poll for two wards— the Bishopwearmouth and the
West Wards— his brother Richard being returned for the
Ward of St. Michael, also at the head of the poll.
The first meeting of the Council was held on December
31, and at a subsequent meeting on New Year's Day, 1836,
Mr. Andrew White was chosen first Mayor, and Mr.
Ritson Town Clerk. On this occasion the ladies of
Sunderlaud presented the Mayor with an elaborate silken
banner on which was emblazoned in letters of gold the
statement that he was "the pride of his native borough."
This banner, at a later date, Mr. White presented to the
Corporation, and it now occupies a conspicuous position in
the New Municipal Buildings.
The chief magistracy, however, was not to be an
enviable position, for on the first occasion that Mr.
White took his seat at the head of the Bench he
was hustled, and a demonstration was made, more
against the office than the occupier of it. The county
magistrates declined to recognise the Mayor's authority,
and the battle waged long and furiously; but Mr,
White held his court at a different hour to the
opposition until he was left in undisputed possession of
the field. He was re-elected Mayor on the 9th Nov.,
1836, but retired in July, 1837, to fill the more important
position of Member of Parliament for the borough. The
new member sat in the Whig interest, his colleague
being Mr. Thompson, a Conservative. As showing the
contrast between past and present elections, it may be
mentioned that Mr. White's election expenses on that
occasion amounted to £16,000 !
From this time new honours came thick and fast. Mr.
White was made a deputy-lieutenant of his county, was
present at the coronation and marriage of his Sovereign,
and presented her with a congratulatory address from
the borough of Suaderlaud on the occasion of the birth of
the Princess Royal. For many years he held a prominent
position in the county, taking a leading part in all
philanthropic movements. It was an annual custom of his
at Christmas time to entertain to dinner in his town
house, Frederick Lodge., the whole of the chimney sweeps
of Sunderland— a portion of the community at that time
in anything but affluent circumstances.
Severe losses in winning coal came upon him in the
closing years of his life, and he retired from all public
work. Mr. White, who died in 1856, had no offspring,
and the only male representative of his family in the
112
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/ March
\ 1891.
North of England is Mr. John White, of Claremont
Terrace, Newcastle, who is the only son of Andrew's
brother and partner, Mr. Kichard White (Mayor of
Sunderland in 18W). Some younger brothers went to
reside in the South of England early in life, and many of
their progeny now occupy exalted positions in the Church
and Army.
Our portrait is taken from an engraving of Bewick's
painting of Mr. White whilst Member for Sunderland,
now in the possession of his great-nephew, Mr. J. Holmes
White, of Newcastle.
, aitDr
JEW parts of the North of England so well
repay a visit as that fertile tract of
Nortbumberland called Glendale, of which
Wooler is the capital, and Doddington and
Milfield are neighbouring villages. Wooler itself can-
not be said to raise any enthusiasm ; it is a dull, unin-
teresting market town, with no feature of attraction in
itself. The accompanying view of a bit of the town is taken
from as good a point of view as any. It includes, besides
the fountain in the middle of the street, a distant view of
the church, and, what is now somewhat of a curiosity,
a chemist's shop marked by the sign of the serpent.
The town was described thirty years ago as follows : —
" Wooler is such a town as you would expect to see in the
heart of a country, decidedly rustic, with roofs of thatch
here and there to temper aspiring notions, with shops
that remind you of the days of George IIL, but yet with
indications of homely prosperity. The parson preached
in the thatched church till it was burnt down about 100
years ago." The thatched roofs mostly disappeared at
the time of the second fire at Wooler in 1862, when a
great part of the town, notably High Street, was de-
stroyed. There is nothing intrinsically attractive in the
parish church of St. Mary, a plain building at the north-
east of the Market Place. It dates back to 1765 only, the
former edifice, which, like most of the churches round
Glendale, had a thatched roof, having been destroyed by
the fire of 1722. It is supposed that the mother
church was at Fenton, some five miles to the north,
where its ruins still may be found. But, on the
other hand, it is contended that Fenton was probably a
separate and independent parish, and existed before that
of Wooler. In 1882, however, the township of Fenton was
incorporated with the parish of Doddington, through an
exchange between the incumbents of Wooler and Dodding-
ton, the townships of Humbleton and Earle being in
return connected with the parish of Wooler.
Behind Tower Hill Church (Presbyterian) is found
about the only bit of antiquity in the town, this being the
ruins of an old tower, which, like most of the minor
towers in the district, has an uncertain history. In the
time of the Muschamps it was described as "a certain
waste fortress." In the reign of Richard II. it was used
as a hospital, and latterly was made a place of refuge and
safety from the rough Borderers.
The village of Doddington contained at one time,
and up to as late as 1734, like most of the ancient
M-.rc.hl
1891. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
113
vill.-xges of Northumberland, a large number of small pro-
prietors, who held copyhold houses and lands, and had
rights on the extensive common. As an example of the
general prosperity of those days, it may be stated that,
on one occasion, forty of these lairds, each mounted on
his own horse, attended the funeral of a deceased fellow-
proprietor.
"It is remarkable," says Marks, speaking of Dodding-
beautiful natural fountain at the base of a freestone rock ;
but in 1846 the present fountain and cross were erected,
chiefly through the exertions of the then incumbent, th?
Rev. William Proctor.
Milfield is an ancient place, where British remains
have been found. It was once the residence of the
Saxon kings of Beruicia. After the death of Edwin,
the royal palace of Yeavering was forsaken, and another
made "atMelmin, but at this day Melfield." On the
south aide of the beautiful plain to the east and south-
east of the village, a large body of Scots, under Lord
Home, were defeated by Sir William Bulmer, of Brauce-
peth Castle, commander of the forces of the Bishopric of
Durham. Four hundred Scots were killed, and over two
hundred made prisoners, among them Lord Home's
brother. This skirmish took place a month before
Flodden, and it was regarded as of ill omen, the road
through the plains being afterwaids called "the ill rode."
at titt
ton, "for one of the largest and best springs in the
country, which sends out a current sufficient to turn a
mill." Of the four large springs in the immediate
neighbourhood, the Dod Well yields about 72 gallons
per minute ; Cuddy's Well, 60 yards east of the Dod
Well, about 20 gallons ; Bhmty or Blinty Well, near the
village, about 24 gallons ; and a little less than this is
given by the Blind Well. At one time Dod Well had a
||NLY a few short memorials are extant of a
distraught occupant of an old house in Redes-
dale, long since demolished, called the Hock-
ing Tower. These particulars were communicated to Mr.
Robert "White by Robert Beighet, of Otterburn Waulk
Mill, who died at an advanced age about sixty years ago.
The Rocking Tower, which had been an old peel-house,
stood upon the left bank of the Reed, about a mile north-
east of Otterburn, on the opposite side of the stream from
the Dow Craig, and near the present farm-steading of
Hope Foot. This old peel-house was the residence, some
114
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/March
I 1891.
hundred and thirty years since, of a small farmer or
cottager named Nimmo. He was a stupid, inactive,
inoffensive man, endowed with such a small amount of
energy that his wife Marjory, "a rallying, magisterial
woman, got the heavy end of the barrow to carry, " as the
neighbours said. Their son John, a lad of ten or twelve
at the time of our story, had some of his mother's stout
heart in him ; and, as there was little work for him at
home, he was hired as a cowherd to a neighbouring
farmer, living at Elishaw, a mile or two further up the
river. John set off in bonnet and plaid, accompanied by
his dog Moss, heartily bent on his new work, which was
the first thing to make a man of him.
After a little time, a report got to his mother's ears
that his master's pantry was not very full, and that her
son Jack was scantily fed. Without inquiring into the
truth of the story, Marjory sent off her husband to set
things to rights by bringing the starveling home, telling
him twice over before she let him go what he had to do
when he got to Elishaw. On reaching that place, the
simple old man found his boy following his milky charge,
as brisk as a bee, plaiting, for his amusement, a rush cap,
and " lilting like a lintwhite " the well-known old Border
song, "Wha daur meddle wi' me? "which is recorded to
have been the last sung by the accomplished poet and
Orientalist, John Leyden, when roused on his deathbed
at Batavia, in Java, by the news of the battle of Barossa,
wherein Sir Thomas Graham, afterwards Lord Lynedoch,
achieved one of the most glorious triumphs of the Penin-
sular war. The lad was quite surprised at his father's
errand, and declared that he would not leave his master
till his time was un, for he was well treated and got
plenty to eat. The dog Moss, however, was too glad to
see his old master to be willing to stay where he was ; and
so, after fawning upon him, as he had often] done, he
trotted home along with him. The following is Mr.
White's account of the dialogue that ensued between
Nitnmo and his wife on his return to the Rocking
Tower : —
"Weel, where has tu John?" inquired Marjory, as her
husband entered the house.
"Oh ! he says he gets plenty o' meat," replied Nimmo,
" an' winna come hame, for a' I can eyther dey or say."
"Then thou's get tin thy labour for thy pains," said the
dame in a bantering mood; "thou's gane a' the way to
'Lisha an' back, an' no a hair the better."
"Nay, gudewife, no just saebad as that, eyther," inter-
posed Nimmo, looking at Marjory and directing her eye
to the dog.
"Oh! thou's brought hame Moss, has thou?" she ob-
served, darting a still more displeased glance at her
husband; "an1 thou's left the callant by his ainsel'?
Should the stickin bull o' the Stobbs come down amang
the kye, an' they gang a' wrang, an' he hae na dog to
hound them wi', he may rin, puir thing, till he burst his
vera heart ! Dye, thou's o' nae use, an' naebody '11 miss
thou, if thou'll just get a rape an' hang thysel' at yence.
Mercy me ! was ever woman like mysel' i' this world
pestered wi' sic a Backless, dozen'd creature as thou? "
" Wey, eudewife, sae nae mair about it," replied
Nimmo, in an unmoved tone, for practice had perfected
his forbearance. " I did the thing for the best ; but I'll
tak' back the dog to the callant again to please ye. Only,
when I was at 'Lisha, kennin' that Moss was our ain aa
weel as Jack, I brought the poor tyke away, thinkin' it
better to save ane than lose two, 1 "
Nimmo's stupidity was shown in almost every act he
performed. Thus, when killing a sheep, he would first
cut the shanks from the unfortunate animal to prevent its
getting away, and then bleed it leisurely to death.
These memorials, trifling in themselves, may be of
interest to those who know Redesdale as it now is, and
care to cast a backward glance on what it formerly was.
Cite
anil Capture Jtrf
1644.
jjNE of the most important incidents in the
great Civil War was the siege and sack of
Newcastle by the Scots in 1644. The town
was conspicuously loyal. The Scots Coven-
anters, who had been the first to declare openly against
the unfortunate Charles, were the objects of mingled
hatred and contempt there. The bulk of the gentlemen
of Northumberland and Durham shared heartily in these
feelings. When Charles visited Newcastle in May, 1639,
on his march northward against the Scots, he was
magnificently entertained by the Mayor and magistrates.
'•All the town," writes Rushworth, "seemed but as one
man against the Scots in case of an invasion." The
Mayor, Mr. Alexander Davidson, and the Town Clerk,
Mr. Thomas Riddell (son of Sir Thomas Riddell, the Re-
corder), were knighted by his Majesty. The town had
previously been fortified at the charge of the inhabitants,
according to the practice of former times. There were
1,500 men able to bear arms in the town and suburbs,
besides the trained bands, and it was expected that at
least a thousand more would corne from the outlying
districts for their own safety. Further, there were a
troop of 100 horse, consisting of Northumbrian gentlemen
of good estates and fortunes, who, all gallantly mounted.
went to warfare at their own charges, not putting the
King to any expense for their maintenance.
Never on earth, perhaps, since the days of Gideon and
Judas Maccabeus, did so pious an army take the field as
that of the Scots Covenanters when they invaded
England, under Alexander Lesley, afterwards Earl of
Leven, in the month of August, 1640. At every captain's
tent-door colours were flying, with the Scots arms upon
them, and this motto in golden letters, t " For Christ's
Crown and Covenant." There were daily sermons from
their ministers, and prayers morning and evening, under
the canopy of heaven, to which the men were called by
tuck of drum ; and, besides this, reading the Scriptures
aloud, praying and psalm-singing were to be heard in
every tent. Both in numbers and discipline the Scots
were likewise superior to the English. The battle of
Newburn, in which the Covenanters defeated and routed
March!
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
115
the Royalists, spread panic among the English soldiers.
In a council of war held at Newcastle, at twelve o'clock
the night after the defeat, it was determined that the
place was untenable, and Lord Conway accordingly forth-
with abandoned it, and marched south into Yorkshire,
leaving all the royal stores and magazines collected there
as a prize to the victors. The occupation of the town,
which the Scots entered the next day, gave them military
possession of both the two North-Eastern Counties. The
inhabitants were panic-struck, and offered no sort of
opposition ; and the magistrates seem to have merely con-
sidered how to make the bast terms they could. At this
time, writes Rushworth : —
Newcastle and the coal mines, that has wont to employ
10,000 people all the year long, some working under
ground, some above, and others upon the water in keels
or lighters, now not a man to be seen, not a coal wrought,
all absconding, being possessed with a fear that the Scots
would give no quarter ; 400 ships using to be here at a
time in the river, not a ship durst come in ; an hundred
and odd coming to the mouth of the haven the day after
the fight, and hearing the Scots had possessed Newcastle,
returned all empty, and tradesmen in the town for some
days kept their shops shut ; many families gone, leaving
their goods to the mercy of the Scots, who possessed
themselves of such corn, cheese, beer, &c., as they found,
giving the owners thereof, or some in their stead, some
money in band and security for the rest, to be paid at
four or six months' end in money or corn ; and if they
refuse, said the Scots, such is the necessity of their
army that they must take it without security rather
than starve.
Durham was in like manner deserted and occupied.
The bishop forsook his flock and fled. For four days
After the fighting not one shop in the city was open. Not
one house in ten had either man, woman, or child in it.
And not one bit of bread was to be had for money, for
the King's army had eaten and drunk all up in their
march into Yorkshire. At Darlington much the same
state of things existed. His Majesty's troops swept the
whole land north of the Tees of comestibles before they
left it to its fate. They also ordered all the upper mill-
stones to be broken or buried, everything of a movable
nature to be removed, and the cattle and sheep to be
driven off. It was to little purpose that the inhabitants
petitioned the King for relief, and represented that they
and their posterity were likely to be "ruinated and
undone." The King could not help them, and the Scots
might harry them to their heart's content, without let or
hindrance. And so it was that the Scots compelled
Durham to pay them £350 a day, Northumberland £300
a day, and Newcastle £200 a day, besides furnishing
them with great quantities of hay and straw. Between
the two contending parties, then, the people were
woefully tested.
Early in August, 1641, the Scots, having received from
the English Parliament a large sum of money, or the
promise of it, quitted Newcastle. A few days after their
departure, the King passed through the town, journeying
North to pacify the malcontents across the Border,
whence (having neither pleased his friends nor con-
ciliated his enemies) he returned by the same route in
November. By this time civil war was seen to be
inevitable, and both parties were anxious to secure pos-
session of Newcastle. An order to this effect was issued
by the House of Commons ; but the Royalist party were
in the ascendant upon Tyneside, and the order was dis-
obeyed. William Cavendish, Earl of Newcastle, being
appointed governor of the town by the King, was warmly
welcomed, and generously helped to put the district in an
efficient state of defence. So highly gratified were the
burgesses with both King and Earl that they lent his
Majesty £700, and gave the Earl their honorary freedom.
In the month of January, 1644, another Scottish army,
consisting of 18,000 foot and 3,000 horse, commanded by
the same experienced general as before, crossed the
Tweed to the assistance of Parliament in the midst of a
severe storm. The King's forces in Northumberland,
under Sir Thomas Glenham, were very inferior in
number, and their leaders laboured under the disadvan-
tage of being of various ways of thinking. The York-
shire gentlemen voted for devastating the country before
the invaders, while the Northumbrians were naturally
averse to seeing their estates laid waste, and proposed to
return a conciliatory answer to the propositions of the
Scots Commissioners. All agreed that it was impossible
to meet the Soots in the field, and the result was that the
King's troops fell back, first over the Aln, and then over
the Coquet, after some desultory skirmishes ; and the
Scots experienced no serious difficulty till they arrived
under the walls of Newcastle, except such as bad roads
and wretched weather occasioned.
General Lesley came before the town on Saturday, the
3rd of February, and summoned the place the same day.
The Mayor and Corporation returned a resolute answer.
In the evening the suburb of Sandgate, a poor place
without the walls on the east side of the town, was set on
fire to prevent the enemy from making his advances
under cover. This was on Saturday night, and the suburb
continued burning all Sunday and Monday. After
three weeks' waiting, seeing that the siege, or rather
blockade, was likely to be a long and wearisome affair,
Lesley determined to waste no more time. So he broke up
his camp and marched to Heddon-on-the-Wail, leaving
behind him only six regiments of foot and some troops of
horse to hold the garrison in check. On the 28th of
February the Scots crossed the Tyne, without opposition,
at the three several fords of Ovingham, Bywell, and
Eltringham. The next day they passed the Derwent at
Ebchester, their foot crossing the river, which was both
deep and rapid, being greatly flooded, in single file, over
a bridge of trees. Two days afterwards they crossed the
Wear, at the new bridge near Lumley, and on Monday,
the 4th of March, they entered Sunderland. Marching
and counter-marching up and down North Durham, with
skirmishes at South Shields, Hylton, and other places
filled up the time till the second week in August. Mean-
116
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/March
\ 1891.
while, the battle of Marston Moor had completed the
ruin of the King's affairs in the North ; and the surrender
of York to the Parliamentarians left Newcastle the last
bulwark of the Royal cause in this part of the kingdom.
The Earl of Crawford and other Royalists had thrown
themselves into the town. But General Lesley, having
been joined by the Earl of Callendar, with a reserve army
of 10,000 Scots, determined to make himself master of the
place, and accordingly sat down before it on the 13th of
August, beleaguering it on all sides.
The chief Scottish engineer, William Hunter, had
formed a new kind of great guns, never before discovered,
which were made purposely for this design, "above three-
quarters of a yard long, or some a yard, that would carry
a twelve-pound bullet, to do good execution at a good
distance, and yet so formed that a horse might carry one
of them." The Scots also brought with them one hun-
dred and twenty other great guns, and a train of ammuni-
tion, "very full and large." We learn from "A True
Impartial Relation of the Taking of Newcastle," pub-
lished by authority in 1644, and reprinted in 1825 as
one of the Newcastle Typographical Society's Tracts, that
no fair means were unessayed to invite the townspeople
for their own safety to surrender themselves " unto the
Obedience of King and Parliament." In a letter from "the
Committee of both Kingdomes" to "the Mayor, Alder-
men, Burgesses, and Common Councell of the towne," the
latter were adjured not to trust to rotten reeds and
broken staves, which would suddenly bring the town to
ruin, but to acquit themselves like rational men.
Numerous copies of a letter from " a well-wisher to the
town " were cast over the walls, in order that they might
come into the hands of the inhabitants, who were
therein told that it was "no more wisdome, nor
Honour, but extreame madnesse, any longer to hold
out, when the danger was "present and certain," and
when all hopes of relief had failed them. But " when all
thece waves could nothing prevaile against the obstinacy
of the Enemy, the Army having endured much hardship
with patience, and the Mines and Batteries being in
readinesse,"it was resolved without loss of time to send
in a peremptory summons. A courteous correspondence
followed, in which the parties designated each other as
"loving friends," and both professed the utmost anxiety
to shun the effusion off Christian blood. The result was
the appointment, "after many shiftings and delays," of
three gentlemen, besides a secretary, to arrange with
the Earl of Leven the terms of a treaty. Sir John
Marley (the Mayor), Sir Nicholas Cole and Sir George
Baker, Colonel Charles Brandling, Lieut-Colonel Thomas
Davidson, and Captain Cuthbert Carr, late Sheriff of
Newcastle, were named as hostages on th» part of the
town for the safety of the Scots Commissioners who went
in to treat ; and the trio accordingly went out to the
Sandgate. But, as the "true and impartial relater"
says, " the time appointed for Treaty was very improfit-
ably spent." The Newcastle gentlemen "would not
suffer any propositions to be put in writ, but used high
and intollerable expressions against the power of Parlia-
ment, and their own power to stand out, and nothing ap-
pertaining to the businesse of that meeting. And after
three or foure houres' debate, all they would resolve upon
was to send out Propositions to the Lord General within
two or three dayes, and in the meantime they declared
that whatever should be the conditions of their agreement,
they would onely give Hostages to render the Towne
after twenty days, if reliefe came not." Whereupon the
Scottish Commissioners, finding themselves deluded and
delayed by the governor, who was "void of all candor,
and tyrannized so absolutely over the mindes and fortunes
of the people that none durst expresse their inclinations
to peace and happinesse," were "forced to part and
desert the Treaty, the Governor refusing to doe so much
as seeke a continuation thereof while to-morrow." He
"evanished so farre in his owne conceit, that be thought
the Army would have taken a summe of money, and have
beene gone, and himselfe have been desired to be a
Mediator betwixt the King and Parliament. But all
hopes of accommodation failing, the Commissioners and
the hostages were mutually returned ; and thereupon
orders were given to the whole Army, and at the sevarall
Batteries, to be in a posture ready for action the next
day, early in the morning, seeing all fair meanes were
ineffectuall."
Further delay was desired by the besieged, but Lesley
refused to give it. Then Sir John Marley, in bin own
name alone, sent this imprudent message to the Scottish
camp, addressed to Lord Sinclair : —
My Lord, — I have received divers Letters and Warrants
subscribed by the name of Leven, but of late can hear of
none that have seen such a man ; besides, there is strong
report he is dead ; therefore, to remove all scruples, I
desire our Drummer may deliver one letter to himself; thus
wishing you could think on some other course to compose
the differences of these sad distracted Kingdomes than by
battering Newcastle, and annoying us who never wronged
any of you ; for if you seriously consider, you will find
that these courses will aggravate and not moderate dis-
tempers ; but I will referre all to your owne consciences,
and rest Your friend, JOHN MABLBV.
Sir John Marley's foolish epistle bears date the 19th,
and was probably written shortly after midnight on
Friday, the 18th of October. Barely had the drummer
who bore it returned to his place within the walls, when
the final assault began.
During the siege, Lord Leven, with the forces imme-
diately under him, beleaguering the west and north-west
parts of the town, was quartered at Elswick, then a
village about a mile west of Newcastle. Lord Sinclair's
regiment lay to the east, separated from the main body by
Shieldfield Fort belonging to the town. The Earl of Gal- ,
lendar, with his division, was stationed at Gateshead, on
the bridge, and at the glass-houses, below which he had
thrown a bridge of "keill boats" over the river, for the
passing and repassing of his forces, to both sides, and
March!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
117
also for the use of the country people, who brought in
daily provisions for the army. The bridge itself, being
duly guarded by Lord Kenmoor's regiment at both ends,
and a strong sentry set at each of them, with two
redoubts, had also there a " watery guard " of " keill
boats," tied with cable ropes from bank to bank, to secure
it from any sudden surprise. The besiegers were domi-
ciled on the Town Moor, Leazes, and elsewhere in huts
composed of turf, clay, straw, and wattles. On the other
hand, a round tower in the Castle Garth, called the Half-
Moon Battery (on the site of which the Assize Courts
were long afterwards built) was used by Sir John Marley
to secure the Close and the Quayside ; and the Castle,
which had been suffered to fall into a very ruinous state
since the union of the crowns, he put into good repair.
The walls are described by William Lithgow, an eye-
witness of the siege on the Scottish side, as being a great
deal stronger than those of York, and "not unlike the
walls of Avignon, but especially Jerusalem." As for the
inhabitants, he says, " the richest or better sort of them,
as seven or eight common knights; aldermen, coal mer-
chants, puddlers, and the like creatures, " were "altogether
malignants, most of them being Papists, and the greater
part of all irreligious Atheists ; the vulgar condition being
a mass of silly ignorants, living rather like to the Berdoans
in Libya (wanting knowledge, conscience, and honesty)
than like to well-disposed Christians, pliable to religion,
civil order, or church discipline."
On the morning of the 19th of October Lord Leven
ordered his batteries to be opened all round the town.
The besieged made a gallant defence, and the Scots
suffered considerable loss, yet still they pressed on. Af t«r
some hours' desperate fighting at breaches which they
had made near the White Friar's Tower, and in the neigh-
bourhood of Sandgate, the Scots forced an entry, made
themselves masters of the gates of Newgate and Pilgrim
Street, and, being joined by comrades who had entered at
other breaches in the walls, effected the capture of the
town.
The Milbank Manuscript adds several particulars of
the defence from the Royalist side. "The Newgate
Ward, which was under Captain Cuthbert Carr, ' was
taken by the enemy, who entered at the White Fryer
Tower and Sandgate, and encompassed (hem before and
behind ; and Pilgrim Street Gate was maintained by
Captain George Errington, Lieutenant William Kobson,
and Ensign Thomas Swan, who fought and killed very
many, they themselves not having one hurt, until they
were encompassed by the enemy before and behind ; and
even then would not parley with the Scots who fought
against them from without, but did capitulate with
"Lieutenant-Colonel Sinclair, who loved and honoured
them, and kept his agreement well with them, that not
one of them was robbed of bis clothes or money, nor were
any of his men suffered to give any evil word ; and it was
the great blessing of God that all that time there was not
one man slaine nor hurt, although that company consisted
of nine score men, all tradesmen ; and there were divnri
sallies made out at that gate, for it was the largest of all
the gates of the town, it being barrocaded and shut up.
And after they had surrendered, and the enemy was
called over at that breach, they durst not approach, but
shot at their friends that called them, and would not
believe that the town was taken."
Edward Man, Merchant Adventurer of Newcastle, was
on the side of the Parliament, and was made Town Clerk
after the capture (an office which he retained down to his
death in 1654). On the day that the town was stormed
and taken, he wrote off to a Member of Parliament,
informing him of the fact. "The storm lasted," said he,
" two hours or thereabouts. It was very hott, and
managed bravely on both parts, till the towne was over-
mastered. I am happie God made me a spectator of the
fall of those wicked men who were born to vacuate so
famcus a towne. The Maiors house, or some other
adjoyning, are burning ; yet my Lord Generall hath
given order for the staying off the fire, if possible."
The Scots wondered at their own moderation in the
hour of their triumph. If there was some pillage, there
might have been more. There would have been less if
the ruling authorities could have had their own way.
"Then began the whole armic, " writes Lithgow, "com-
manded and uncommanded— -(observing King David's
ancient rule that they who stayd with ths baggage and
they who fought in the field should share the booties
alike) — to plunder, I say, for twenty-foure houres time,
being an act of parmission, although to no great purpose.
And why ? Because the common souldiers, being only able
to plunder the common people (although they might have
justly stretched their hands further), had for the greatest
part of them small benefite," getting little "excepting
only household stuff, such as bedclothes, linens, tanned
leather, calve skins, men and women's apparel, pots,
pans, and such like common things." The store of
victuals and ammunition within the town was found to
be almost spent, so that they could not have holden out
ten days longer, " unless the one half had devoured the
other." After the lapse of a day, further plundering was
prohibited under pain of death ; but the Scots are said in
the meanwhile to have rifled the town's hutch, and
destroyed most of the deeds and documents belonging to
the Corporation.
A news-sheet, entitled "Perfect Occurrences," bears
witness to the religious discretion observed by the
soldiery :— " They have not taken anything' from any
godly persons, men or .women, that they finde never acted
or carried themselves against the Parliament ; and they
do so piously that they show them all the respect that
maybe." Still, saints and sinners al! suffered. "Loot-
ing " fell not only on the ungodly, but pretty impartially
on all who had anything to lose. Even the globes of the
Trinity House, terrestrial and celestial, were seized by
118
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/March
\ 1891.
warriors who would "make the best of both worlds,"
and turned them into ten shillings — the sum accepted for
their ransom.
The ballad mongers were not behind in turning a penny
by the sack of the town ; and their candid rhymes confess
that the pillagers were no respecters of persons.
Straightway to plundering we did fall,
Of great and small, for we were all
Most valiant that day ;
And Jenny in her silken gown,
The best in town from foot to crown,
Was bonny and gay.
While Jenny flaunted in ill-gotten silk, there was Te
//i tint sung. Both sides claimed the favour of God.
Lord Leven and his comrades went to church " to give
thanks to God that He was pleased, even according to the
words and wishes of their enemies, to prosper and bless
His people, according to the justness of their cause.'
Sir John Marley, the defeated commander, who had now
cause to believe in Lord Leven's presence without the
evidence of a drummer, addressed his lordship on the 21st
from the Castle, of which he still held possession. He
desired that he and chose with him might have liberty to
stay, or go out of the town, with His Excellency's safe
pass, to His Majesty's next garrison not beleaguered, with
their horses, pistols, and swords, and have fourteen days'
time to dispatch their journey, so many as pleased to go.
"And truly, my Lord, "says he, "I am yet confident to
receive so much favour from you as that you will take
such care of me as that I shall receive no wrong from the
ignoble spirits of the vulgar sort ; for I doubt no other.
I must confesse, I cannot keep it [the Castle] long from
you ; yet I am resolved, rather than to be a spectacle
of misery and disgrace to any, I will bequeathe my soul
to Him that gave it, and then referre my body to be a
spectacle to your severity. But, upon the tearmes above-
said, I will deliver it to you." Upon his surrendering
himself, he was almost torn to pieces by the mob ; was
committed to his house, under a strong guard, to protect
him from the fury of the people ; and, not being con-
sidered safe there, was cast, writes Lithgow, "into a
dungeon within the Castle, where now that presumptuous
Governor remaineth, till the hangman salute his neck
with a blow of Strafford's courtesy." Parliament and
Army were, however, more lenient. His life was spared,
and he shared the exile of Charles and Clarendon, and
lived to enjoy their Restoration.
Many were the ccmpanions-in-arms of Sir John Marley
who suffered death in the defence of the town. Con-
spicuous among the fallen was Sir Alexander Davison,
whose mansion was on the Sandhill, opposite the Ex-
change. Under its roof, in all probability, he received
from the King, during his second mayoralty, the honour
conferred upon him in 1639. At the siege, he fought on
the walls as a lieutenant-colonel, with his son Joseph by
his side as captain. Father and son were borne away
wounded, and did not long survive the defeat of their
cause. They died, and were buried in the church of St.
Nicholas, the former being laid in his temb on the 25th,
and the latter on the 29th of October. On the llth of
November, the eldest son of the fallen knight placed in
St. Mary's Porch a mural monument recording the
manner of their death.
There is a tradition that the Scottish general threatened
the Mayor, during the siege, that if the town was not
instantly delivered up, he would direct his cannon so as
to demolish the beautiful steeple of St. Nicholas. Sir
John Marley thereupon promptly ordered the chief of the
Scotch prisoners to be taken to the top of the tower,
below the lantern, and returned Lord Leven an answer,
that if the structure fell, it should not fall alone, as his
countrymen were placed in it And so St. Nicholas'
Church was saved.
) (garlatttr
THE GATHERING ODE OF THE FENWYKE.
llR. WILLIAM RICHARDSON, the au-
thor of this ditty, modelled from Scott's
famous gathering ode "The Pibroch of
Donui Dhu," was born at Little Harle
Well-House, in the parish of Kirkwhelpington, in
1759, and died at North Shields, aged 65 years, in
1824. He was a teacher in. his youth, and kept a school
for a few years at Backworth, after which he removed
to North Shields, where he practised as a notary public
for the long period of thirty-five years, and also be-
came secretary to several Marine Insurance Clubs of
the Port of Tyne. He was endowed with keen literary
tastes, and cultivated the Muses to good purpose during
his leisure hours.
Mr. Richardson was likewise a great admirer of the
music, songs, and tales of the Northumbrians, and an
authority in all that pertained to the antiquities of the
county. But his most important literary work was a
translation of the Odes of Anacreon, in chaste, smooth,
and elegant verse.
The "Gathering Ode of the Fenwyke " first appeared
in the "Life of James Allen," published by Eneas Mac-
kenzie, second edition, 1818. The air to which it was
intended to be sung is "Lochiel's March," also well-
known as the " Pibroch of Donui Dhu." Written for the
Northumberland Regimental Bagpipes, the ode was
"respectfully inscribed to a descendant of the warlike
band of Fenwicke."
Pipe of North-um-bria, sound ! War pipe of Aln-wyke,
Marehl
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
119
Wane the wild hills a • round ! Sum-mon the Fen-wyke I
Per • cy at Pay-mro war. Fen -wyke stands fore-most,
Scots in ar - ray from far Swell wide their war-host
fc
See, fierce from the bor - der, Wolf-like he rushes, Drives
fc^
e.
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south-ward the War-der, Gore-stream forth crushes. Come,
1* S
t$=i=3;
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*=^
--/ V
Spear-man, come, Bow-man, Come, bold-heart-ed True- wyke, Re-
pel the proud foe-man ; Join li - on - like Bew - yke.
Pip« of Northumbria, sound !
War pipe of Alnwyke !
Wake the wild hills around ;
Summon the Fenwyke !
Percy at Paynim (1) war, —
Fenwyke stands foremost.
Scots in array from far
Swell with their war-host.
See, fierce from the Border,
Wolf-like he rushes —
Drives southward the Warder —
Gore-stream forth gushes.
Co-Tie, Spearman, come. Bowman,
Come, bold-hearted Truewyke, (2)
Repel the proud foeman,
Join lion-like Bewyke !
From Fenwyke and Denwyke, (3)
Harlow and Wallington,
Sound buele at Alnwyke,
Bag-pipe at Wallingtou f
(1) An inroad of the Scots is supposed to have taken place in the
absence of the Percy in Palestine, warrinp; against the Paynims,
Saracens, or Infidels.
(2) Spearman, Bowman, Truewyke, and Bewyke were names of
clans that were retainers and vassals of the Earls of Northumber-
land, and allies of the Fenwyke, the most powerful of the old
families.
(3) Hamlets in Northumberland owned or occupied oy the Fen-
wicka.
On Elf-hills th' Alarm Wisp (+)
Smoulders in pale ray ;
Maids, babes that scarce can lisp,
Point trembling the bale-way.
Leave the plough, leave the mow,
Leave loom and smithie ;
Come with your trusty yew,
Strong arm and pithy ;
Leave the herd on the hill,
Lowing and flying ;
Leave the vill, cot, and mill —
The dead and the dying.
Come, clad in your steel-jack,
Your war-gear in order,
And down hew or drive back
The Scot o'er the Border.
And yield ye to no man ;
Stand firm in the van-guard ;
Brave death in each foeman,
Or die on the green sward.
JJOMBINING in an eminent degree all the ele-
ments of the picturesque, the ancient town
of Richmond is a veritable artist's paradise.
Whether we view it from the vicinity of the
bridge leading to Leyburn and Hart Leap Well (im-
mortalised by Wordsworth), from various points on the
footpath that skirts the south shore of the river Swale,
from the elevated sylvan terrace to the east, or from
the northern suburbs, the prospect is always beautiful,
often romantic, never commonplace.
Ever since Turner reproduced, with his magic pencil,
the salient features of the old castle and its surroundings,
the place has been a favourite haunt for painters, who all
coincide in the opinion that its natural charms are not
surpassed by any town in the North Country. There
is here every object that is imperative in a grand pic-
ture— noble ruins, a dashing river with a waterfall, grace-
ful and varied foliage, and an extended perspective.
Richmond is supposed to derive its name from the
fertility of the district and the excellence of its situation ;
hence, Rich-mount. But there are writers who aver that
the name may have been borrowed from a castle of the
same title in Brittany, or from the Anglo-Saxon Eeced,
a dwelling, modified by the prevalence of the Norse or
Danish in Swaledale into Beiki ; thus we arrive at Reced-
mund, Reiki-mund, the dwelling or settlement on the
mound or dike. The dike referred to is the Scot's Dyke,
an entrenchment bisecting the country from the Swale
near Richmond to the Tees at Barforih or Old Richmond.
Before the Norman Conquest that portion of the North
Riding of Yorkshire known as Richmondshire was the
property of Earl Edwin, a Saxon noble. When William
of Normandy was distributing favours to his prominent
(4) The Elf Hills or Hills of the Fairies, near Cambo, on which a
watch used to be kept and a beacon was fired In cast of alarm.
The vvisp was a weeze of straw or tow, steeped in tar, set on fire,
and mounted on the point of a spear, and carried in the direction
taV-en hy the raiders, to rouse the country to the "hot trod."
120
MONTHL Y CHRONICLE.
I March
i 1891.
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o
a
H
1
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March I
1891. I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
121
p
o
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u
3
122
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
fMii-ch
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adherents, he bestowed the vast estate upon Alan Niger,
or Rufus, one of the sons of the Earl of Bretagne. But
though he held the title, Alan soon found that it would be
no easy matter to enter into possession. The vassals of
Earl Edwin, in common with the general population of
the North, detested the Normans. Alan, therefore,
selecting a suitable situation overhanging the Swale,
erected thereon a fortress of impregnable strength, well
calculated to overawe the hostile population. Probably
commenced about 1071, the massive structure was not
completed until about 1100.
One of our illustrations is taken from the High Terrace
to the east of the castle — a favourite promenade of the in-
habitants. The bridge seen to the left is that leading
from the railway station to the town. The Free Grammar
School, or Tate Memorial, seen to the right, was erected
to commemorate the virtues and scholarly attainments of
the Rev. James Tate, known in the literary world as " Mr.
Tate of Richmond." Appointed to the position of head-
master of the Grammar School in 1769, he retained that
position for thirty-seven years, during which time a long
list of finished scholars, destined to rank amongst the
most distinguished men of the day, were sent into the
world.
Above the line of the houses in the distance is seen the
r
FROM PHOTO. BY VALENTINE & SONS, 152 PERl'H ROAD, DUNDEE.
upper portion of the beautiful tower of Grey Friars, of
which a separate drawing is given, showing its elegant
proportions. The tower of the Grey Friars is in a re-
markable state of preservation, more especially when
compared with the ruins of Easby Abbey and St.
Agatha's Abbey in the same neighbourhood. After the
Norman Keep, which dwarfs all other buildings through
sheer preponderance of bulk, the tower of Grey Friars is
the greatest architectural ornament of Richmond. The
name of the consummate artist who designed it is
unknown, and its history is somewhat obscure. The
house, which was founded in 1257 by Ralph Fitz Ran-
dulph, Lord of Middleham, appears to have been prosper-
ous for about three hundred years. At the Dissolution of
the Monasteries in 1539, it was surrendered to the tender
mercies of the King, who treated the brethren with
considerable severity, owing to their opposition, and since
then the building has passed through several hands. It
is now in the possession of a gentleman whose desire it is
to preserve the tower from further decay.
Another illustration gives a fair view of Richmond's
Market Place. From the number of stalls and vehicles
gathered around the town cross, it may safely be assumed
that the drawing was made on a Saturday, the market
day, the only day in the week when there may be said to
-_ be any "throng on." At no time very
flourishing, the trade of Richmond has recently
become somewhat depressed. Fortunately,
the town is gradually becoming popular as a
health resort.
Anent the old church which figures in the
drawing, it may be affirmed that few (if any)
sacred buildings are so peculiarly constituted.
Under the north gallery are three lock-up
shops ; there is another shop between the church
and the steeple, while a fifth occupies the base
of the tower. Above the latter place of busi-
ness is the residence of the Town Crier, wha
has the rare option of ringing the curfew bell
(placed in the church steeple by order of the
Conqueror) from his bed on cold frosty morn-
ings. The curfew bell is tolled twice a day,
but the sound has, of course, for centuries
ceased to have any significance to the good
people of Richmond. The old church has,
indeed, suffered from neglect. Erected on the
site of a more ancient structure, all vestiges
of which have disappeared, it was only rebuilt
when its former importance had been usurped
by the new parish church beyond the walls.
The south aisle has disappeared, several houses
occupying its site. Other portions of the
old fabric remained for a considerable time in
ruins, and during this condition of things
it is probable that the incongruous shops came
into existence. In 1740, the Corporation of
March!
1691. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
123
Richmond, being desirous of obtaining a benefaction from
the governors of Queen Anne's Bounty, repaired the
church, and since that time divine service has regularly
been performed in it. The church was restored in 186+
by Messrs. Austin and Johnson, architects, of Newcastle.
Henry Greathead, the builder of the first lifeboat, was
a native of Richmond.
itr Jptmtrerlantr
j]BOUT noon on Thursday, the 13th of June, .
1839, the people of Sunderland were thrown
into a state of excitement by a rumour that
the body of a murdered man bad been found
in the river Wear. The body was discovered by a keel-
man, named James Alderson, about thirty yards from the
north shore. Alderson saw the head in the water, and
giving the alarm to the people on board a ship lying near,
with their assistance he raised the body, which was found
to be tied to a large square piece of limestone, weighing
upwards of seven stones. The rope, which was of foreign
make, and seemed to have been used in the running
rigging of a ship, was tied tightly round the waist of the
murdered man, and both ends had been safely knotted, in
sailor fashion, about the stone, leaving some four feet of
rope between the stone and the corpse. On the body
there was no other apparel than a pair of stockings, a
flannel shirt, and a cotton shirt torn open, and marked at
the bosom with red cotton, " J. B. 1." Attached to the
neck was a small camphor bag, and on the fourth finger
of the left hand a plain gold ring.
The body was soon afterwards recognised by the crew
of the brigantine Phoenix, of Stettin, as that of their
captain, John Frederick Berckholtz. This ship, which
was in ballast from Leith, had been lying for some days a
considerable distance below where the body was found.
The captain had spent the previous Tuesday evening
on board a Prussian vessel lying alongside, and he left to
go on board his own vessel about eleven o'clock at night.
The account given by his crew was that he went ashore
about half-past four on the following morning, at the
ferryboat landing on the north side of the river, dressed
in a new pilot coat, new silk hat, &c., and wearing a
watch and gold chain and seals. From that time, they
said, they never saw him alive ; but his absence excited
no uneasiness till the Thursday morning, when the
Phoenix was in turn for coals, for it was supposed that he
had gone over to Newcastle on a visit to some captains of
his acquaintance, then in that port.
The right side of the frontal bone of the skull, and the
orbit of the right eye, had been driven in upon the brain
by a violent blow, and over the right eye was a deep
horizontal cut, about an inch and a half in length, which
appeared to have been inflicted with some sharp instru-
ment. There was also a smaller cut on the forehead, and
some trifling bruises about the face and the left hand ;
but the surgeon who examined the body, a gentleman
named Dodd, pronounced the injury done to the skull
sufficient to have caused instant death. Round the neck
there was the mark of a cord, by which the body had been
dragged, or rather hoisted, as it seemed likely, from the
cabin or other place where the murder had been com-
mitted.
The superintendent of police, Mr. Brown, when he
went on board the Phoenix, and entered the captain's
cabin, was struck with the circumstance that the bed had
been neatly made up, a cap placed on the pillow, and the
clothes turned down, while the sheet appeared clean and
smooth, as if it had not been slept on. On drawing down
the sheet and turning over the pillow, which was without
its case, he found on the tick a large blood stain, and
about it a roughness and dampness as if a wet sponge had
been employed upon it. The wood-work at the head of
the bed seemed as if a handful of blood had been dashed
against it. The floor, near the bed-head, had been newly
and hastily washed ; but on the skirting-board, as well
as under the bed, were splashes of blood. On making
further search the superintendent found a linen shirt of
the captain's, marked at the bosom " J. B. 5," and on the
upper part of the collar was a large stain of blood. He,
therefore, requested two officers who were with him to
detain the mate in the cabin, and, going on shore,
returned with a sufficient force to apprehend the whole
crew, consisting of the mate, three seamen, and two boys,
all foreigners, who were immediately taken out of the
ship, and locked up in different cells.
The principal facts of the case were soon elucidated.
In the first place, the appearance of the wounds on the
captain's body showed that he had been murdered.
Next, the place in which the body was found, a sand
bank, proved that it had been deposited there by persons
unacquainted with the river. The rope by which the
body had been tied to the stone had evidently been used
on board of a ship, and the knot upon it was such as none
but a sailor would tie; the presumption, therefore, was
that the deed had not been done by a landsman. The
weight of the stone precluded the idea that it could have
drifted to the place, or have been deposited there by one
person. The next inquiry was, were the perpetrators of
the crime Englishmen or foreigners? The make of the
rope was foreign. Captain Berckholtz had been seen to
go on board his vessel on the night of Tuesday, and the
only persons who said they had seen him afterwards were
Jacob Friedrich Ehlert, the mate, a man twenty-nine
years of age, hailing from Bahrt on the Binnensee, in
Pomerania, and Daniel Friedrich Mueller, of Ganserin,
aged eighteen, elder apprentice (German, jung mann) on
board the Phoenix. These two men implicated them-
selves, Ehlert through having, in the hearing of Pust, one
124
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/March
\ 1891.
of tbe seamen, and Eichstaedt, the cook, called up
Mueller at four o'clock on the Wednesday morning to
put the captain on shore; and Mueller through having
declared that he had done so, pointing out the particular
part of the north-shore gangway on which he said the
captain landed — a falsehood on the face of it, for the
gangway at four o'clock was at least seven feet under
water.
On the prisoners being brought before the magistrates,
it was considered desirable, for the purposes of justice,
that Mueller, the apprentice, should be kept from having
the slightest communication with his shipmates. Accord-
ingly, five only were first brought forward, viz. : Ehlert,
the mate ; Eichstaedt, the cook ; Pust and Guenthersohn,
the two seamen ; and Weidemann, the other apprentice.
The gentlemen on the bench were Joseph Simpson, Esq.
(Mayor), John Lotherington, Esq., Joseph Brown, M.D.,
Edward Backhouse, Esq., and Richard White, Esq. The
Prussian vice-consul, Mr. George Booth, was present
during the examination, in his official capacity, to see fair
and equal justice done to the subjects of his Prussian
Majesty. One gentleman, named Bleck, was sworn as
interpretor for the Crown, and another, Wassermann, for
the prisoners, The superintendent of police and others
gave evidence as to the finding of the body and the blood
stains in the captain's cabin. The five men were than
remanded, and Mueller was introduced. The evidence
against him was precisely the same as that against the
others, but he was charged with being a principal, be-
cause he was at watch upon deck the whole of the night,
and he had stated that he put the captain on shore at four
o'clock in the morning.
Shortly after the examination, it was communicated to
tbe magistrates that Weidemann wished to make a state-
ment of all he knew respecting the transaction. Accord-
ingly, he told a straightforward, circumstantial story, to
the effect that the cook having found Mueller in possesion
of six five-franc pieces on the Wednesday, and asked him
where he got the money from, Mueller said the mate had
given it to him ; the mate came and said the boy had
stolen it from his trunk ; the cook told him he was a liar,
for "the money," said he, " belongs to the captain, and I
will keep it till the captain comes on board"; the mate
then said he knew it was the captain's, but he had found
it behind the looking-glass, and was keeping it safe ; the
cook rejoined that he would keep it himself till the
captain came; whereupon Ehlert said, "It seems to me
as if the captain would never come on board again." The
mate, Weidemann likewise said, must have washed the
cabin floor himself, for when in the morning he was re-
quested to clean it he found it all wet.
Very soon after the close of this lad's examination, the
magistrates were again summoned, having been informed
that Mueller, unable to bear the torture of concealed
guilt, had voluntarily offered to make a full disclosure of
all the circumstances attendant on the horrid affair.
When brought into the Mayor's chamber, before Messrs.
White and Backhouse, Mueller told his tale with remark-
able clearness, though, at the same time, says Mr. George
Hardcastle in his report of the case, " his demeanour was
entirely free from anything bordering on the reckless
audacity of a hardened villain." The purport of the
confession was that the mate called him to go down into
the master's cabin to hold a lighted lantern which he gave
him ; that Ehlert struck the captain on the head with a
hammer, three blows, while he was lying asleep ; that he
(Mueller) wanted to run away, but the mate kept hold of
him ; that he put the body into a sailcloth bag, cut a
long cord from the gear, tied it round the body, pulled it
up the skylight, hand-over-hand, then took it up in his
* arms, and threw it into the water, over the vessel's stern.
Then, desiring Mueller to bring round the boat, he went
into it with the end of the line, which he fastened to the
boat ; forced the lad to take an oar and help to row to the
south side of the river, where he went on shore and got a
square stone ; afterwards pulled up the river a good way,
and then told Mueller to lay the oar by ; let the stone
and the body go into the water, where they disappeared ;
returned on board the ship ; instructed Mueller to say he
had been called up to set the captain on shore ; if be
'peached, he would kill him ; if he did not, he would give
him three hundred pounds.
At the inquest Mueller repeated his statement, which
Ehlert said was all a lie. Each then loudly accused the
other of being the murderer, producing a singular scene.
The balance of evidence, however, seemed against the
mate, and so the jury brought in a verdict of wilful
murder against him, and he was committed for trial at
the assizes.
The trial took place at the Durham Assizes in July.
Counsel for the prosecution, Mr. Ingham and Mr.
Granger ; solicitors, Messrs. Kidson and Son. Counsel
for the prisoner, Mr. Knowles; solicitor, Mr. Thomas
Burn. On Mueller being brought forward to be sworn,
the judge warned him that, if he did not speak the truth,
he would be put on trial himself. He made nearly the
same statement as before. When cross-examined, how-
ever, he prevaricated a good deal. The other members
of the crew repeated their former evidence.
The learned judge, in summing up, said it was impos-
sible to regard Mueller in any other light than as a willing
accomplice in the case ; but his statement, he conceived,
was strongly confirmed by the conduct of the prisoner
himself, who had evidently exerted himself most zealously
to conceal the murder. Eight minutes after retiring
the jury came back with a verdict of "Guilty." In
answer to. the usual interrogatory, what he had to say why
sentence of death should not be passed on him, Ehlert
said he was not guilty. Sentence of death was then for-
mally pronounced, and he was removed from the bar pro-
testing his innocence.
After his condemnation, Ehlert evinced much distress
March 1
1891. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
125-
of mind, and shed tears in abundance in his cell. He
continued, moreover, to asseverate that it was Mueller
who committed the murder, and that he concealed it, after
discovery, out of compassion for the lad. When not
engaged in writing, which occupied great part of his time,
he was intent on reading his Prayer-book and Bible, and
was assisted in his devotions by the Rev. Mr. Salvin, of
Gateshead, a clergyman of the Church of England, who
was acquainted with the German language.
We shall not give the disgusting details of the execution,
which took place on the morning of Friday, the 16th of
August, 1839, in presence of a vast crowd of spectators, a
very large portion of whom were women, who did not
seem to mind the rain, though it fell in torrents,
JJAMILIAR in the mouths of many Tynesiders
was the name of "Whisky Jack" some
thirty or forty years ago. It was the name
that was popularly given to John Kane,
an adroit and active smuggler of the time and neighbour-
hood. Although noted for this character, nothing else
to his detriment was ever really known against him.
John Kane was a native of Norfolk, and the son of
a gardener. When he was a boy, a considerable amount
of smuggling was practised on the Norfolk coast
and up the estuary of the Wash. Heavy war duties
were then levied on imports, and smuggling was a
dangerous, but nob altogether an unprofitable business.
Small vessels containing contraband goods were accus-
tomed to run between that part of the coast and
Flushing and other continental ports. Their cargoes were
deposited in some cases in the woods and in others
in the gardens adjacent to the coast. Kane's father,
along with others, was engaged in assisting smugglers in
concealing the goods that they had managed to land. In
time, however, the revenue authorities made it very hot
both for the smugglers and their friends on shore ; and,
shortly afterwards, the passing of Sir Robert Peel's Act
rendered the profits of the business so small as -not to
warrant the risk.
Whether Kane's father was dismissed, or had to escape,
I do not know. But his son certainly left the district,
and for several years found occupation, at one time
as a gardener, and at another time as a farm
hand and forester. In pursuit of his vocation, he
travelled, or rather tramped, all through Lancashire and
the North of England to the extreme North of Scotland.
For some time he lived in Sutherland. Afterwards he
returned to the Borders, where, falling in with some illicit
distilleries, his early interest in smuggling revived, and
he, first an associate with others, subsequently became sole
owner of a still. But the Border districts did not appear
to be favourable for his enterprise, and so he came to
the mining districts of Northumberland and Durham.
For some years he carried on his smuggling in different
localities between the Coquet and the Tees. He found
this neighbourhood favourable to his operations, because
the country afforded abundance of convenient nooks for
placing his stills, and the contiguity of mines and
factories supplied him with a suitable market for his
whisky. Jack led a very adventurous but harmless
life during his residence in the North of England. But
misfortune overtook him in 1855. He had a still at
that time along Derwentside, and not very far from where
it was placed a cruel murder was committed. A young
doctor named Stirling, whilst on his way from the Spen
to Burnopfield, was found shot dead on the roadside.
There was great mystery attendant upon the occurrence.
After some delay, Kane, along with others, was arrested
and tried for the crime, but acquitted.
It would serve no good purpose to recall the painful in-
cidents of the outrage and the trial. Suffice it to say that
great sympathy was aroused for the unfortunate gentle-
man who was murdered, and his relatives. And this,
along with the mystery attaching to the crime, created a
very strong prejudice 'against the persons who were
accused. The fact that Kane was a smuggler was suffi-
cient, it seemed, to justify almost any charge against
him. But his case was put before strangers and
responsible persons, who, upon investigation, found that
both he and his companions had a complete defence.
When the accused were brought to trial, the lawyers
decided that the case against' them was so feeble that
it was not necessary to adduce the evidence on their
behalf which had been prepared and would have been
forthcoming. The prejudice against both men amongst
ignorant people, however, did not readily die out, and
there was an attempt made to hunt Kane from the dis-
trict. Wherever he sought employment, stories to his
detriment were circulated. He was driven from one place
to another, and he found it difficult to get the means of
living. Mr. Joseph Cowen thereupon took him into his
employment, and for thirteen years he was gardener for
that gentleman. During that time, Kane justified to
the fullest extent the confidence that was placed in him.
He was a sober, industrious, honest, and reliable man.
The effects of his roving life, however, began to tell
upon him in course of time. In 1868 he was disabled
by rheumatism, and, believing that a sea voyage
and a trip to a warmer climate would remove it, he went
to Australia. He carried with him letters of intro-
duction to influential people in Melbourne, where he soon
got work. At first the disease from which he suffered
was abated, but ultimately it returned ; and the last of
many letters received from him said that he was extremely
ill. That is some years ago. No «)mmunication has
since been received from him, and the inference is that
"Whisky Jack " died in Australia,
These are the facts so far as the life of John Kane is
126
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I March
\ 1891.
concerned. The idea that he was drunken or cruel, that
he kept a gun near his still and a revolver on his person,
or that he hung about public-houses and led a dissipated
life, is altogether absurd. He probably was not a
teetotaler, but ha was an extremely temperate man.
And when he lived in Blaydon he took an active
part in public matters in the village. Amongst
other things he was an ardent co-operator when
co-operation held a very different position in public
estimation from what it does to-day. He talked often,
many thought wildly and extravagantly, about co-
operators growing their own corn, grinding their own
flour, growing their own tea, owning their own ships,
and in fact advocated the system in much the same
manner that it has developed. He could read and write
and keep accounts fairly well, but his book knowledge
was not extensive. On the other hand, his knowledge of
the habits of birds and animals, agriculture and garden-
ing, was considerable. He had a great penchant, too, for
mechanics and chemistry ; and one of the crazes of his
latter days was that he he had found perpetual motion.
He had had many hair-breadth escapes and peculiar
adventures with the excise officers and police, and, in a
distorted form, some of these escapades have found their
way into novels.
Although not an expert in books, nor much of a
politician, he had a shrewd appreciation of the situation
of the unenfranchised. Once, when brought before the
magistrates and accused of illegal practices, he defended
himself in this wise : — He said it was true that he made
whisky and sold it without paying any duty. He did not
deny that, but held that he bad a right to do so. The still
was his own. He had bought it and paid for it. The
sugar and other material that he used in making the
whisky had been bought and paid for by him. All the
labour that had been given in its production and distilling
he bad given himself. And he held that, this being the
case, no accusation of dishonesty could be levelled against
him. It was true, he said, that he had avoided the excise
law, but then the Government of the country did not re-
cognise him. He was practically an outlaw. He had
not a vote. The doctrine of the English Constitution
was that representation and taxation should go
together. And as he was not represented, he did
not see why he should be taxed. He contended, further,
that there was no greater offence in evading the payment
of duty on the whisky that he made with his own
materials than there was in wealthy merchants, manu-
facturers, and tradesmen returning incorrect statements
of their incomes to the Revenue Office. There was a cer-
tain shrewdness as well as sarcasm in this statement.
But, while it amused the persons to whom it was ad-
dressed, it did not save him from paying the penalty of
infraction of the Excise laws.
It is only necessary to add that the mystery connected
with the murder of which poor Jack was accused has
never been unveiled. J.
STft*
j]OME time ago, a note was contributed to the
Weekly Chronicle on the present custom,
at Sandringham, of weighing visitors at the
hall on their coming and going. The
writer supposed the fashion was introduced by his
present Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales ; but in
this the correspondent errs. In the last century, a
" weighing machine" stood regularly in the hall of Seaton
Delaval, for the purpose of weighing visitors and others ;
and on the hall table, in like manner, as the visitors'
book now lies in most large mansions, there was a book
recording the weights. Whether the custom originated
with the Delavals, or when they first adopted it, does not
appear certain ; but it is more than likely that the gay Sir
Francis introduced the fashion, although the earliest date
recorded in the existing book, which I have had the privi-
lege of seeing, is seven years after his death. Here are
some of the weights :—
1778. Aug. 13. Sir J. H. Delaval, Bart., 14s: 21bs.
Lady Delaval, 15s: 4|lbs.
„ Sep: 20. Lord Algernon Percy [1st Earl of
Beverley] 8s: 81bs.
Lady Algernon, 8s: 91bs.
1779. Feb: 17. Mrs. Shaw [housekeeper] 19s: 91bs.
„ Nov. 14. Mr. Blake [a child, afterwards^rd Bart,
of Twizell], 2s: 9ilb.
1780. Feb: 2. Miss Kitty Dace, a dwarf [where of ?]
4s: 71bs.
Mr. Oxley [agent for Delaval estates]
12s:5ilbs.
.. July 29. Earl of Tyrconnel, 13s: 4ilbs.
Lady Tyroonnel, 8s: lib. [Sarah Hussey
Delaval was married to the Earl of
Tyrconnel the 3rd of same month].
Mr. Jadis, 9st. 3ilbs.
Master Henry [Jadisl 2s: 3£lbs.
Mrs. Jadis [Sophia Delaval] 10s: 3ilbs.
Lady Audley, 7s: 31bs.
Lord Audley 9s: ?ilbs. [Elizabeth Delaval
was married to Lord Audley, 19 May
previously. J
Captain Stanhope with Boots and Spurs,
9s: lllbs.
Master Charles Saville, 4s. lib. ; Hon:
H. Saville, lls. Oilbs. [brothers of the
Earl of Mexborough].
Countess of Mexborough [sister of Lord
Delaval] 8s: lOilbs.
Rev. Mr. Hardcastle [her second hus-
band] 12s: 31bs.
Lord Mexborough [her son] 12s: D^lbs.
Mr. Farrer I of London firm of family
lawyers] 12s: lljlbs.
Mrs. Cawthorne [Frances Delaval, wife
of J. F. Cawthorne, M.P.] 10s: 41bs.
Lord Percy [2nd Duke of Northumber-
landl 10s: lOilbs.
Lady Percy, 7st: llilbs.
Captain Delaral [son of Sir F. B. Delaval
by Mrs. Roche] 14st: 61bs.
Mrs. Delaval [Mary E. Carpenter, his
wife] lOst. 21bs. "
1781. July 23.
„ 27
, Aug. 17
1782. Sep: 26
1784. Octr. 7.
/March
I 1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
127
1784. Octr. 7. Mra. Huthwaite [Frances, daughterof Sir
F. B. Delaval, by Mis. Lydia Davison]
14st: 21bs.
1785. Sep: 28, Mrs. Hicks [mistress of Lord Delaval,
whose portrait, painted about this
time, by Reynolds, hung for 25 years
in her dressing room at Seaton] 10s
121bs.
Mr. [Samuel] Huthwaite [husband of
Frances Delaval above] 14st: 91bs.
„ Deer. 4. Mr. Hay [16th Earl of Errol] 10st:l|lbs.
1786. Aug. 8. Charlotte Knight [then domestic, after-
wards mistress and eventually wife of
Lord Delaval] 9st: 21bs.
„ Octr. 13. Mr. Coulthurst [of London firm of
family lawyers] lOst: Oilbs.
1788. Octr. 29 Miss [sic] Hicks [as above] in habit,
12st: Olbs.
1789. Novr. 7. Miss Touchett [daughter of Lord Audley]
3 st: 13ilbs
Lady Susan Carpenter [Marchioness of
Waterford] 2st: 13ilbs
N.Y. Sep: 8. Miss H. Huthwaite, 3s: Eilbs.
1790. May 30. Mr. Williams, in shoes, and after dinner
and five weeks' gay life at Seaton [an
amateur actor] 13s: 91bs.
1790. Octr. 21. Miss Warkman, 8s: 81bs ; Mr. Wark-
man [vicar of Earden and rector of
Ford] in boots, 13s: 71bs.
R. W. Spearman 18s: lib.
Big Ben [a noted prize fighter] 15s: Olbs.
Miss M. Warkman, 6s: 3^1bs.
., Novr. 28. Miss E. Warkman, 8s: 31bs.
1791. Octr. 17 Miss A. M. Hussey Delaval, 4st: lib.
Captain Delaval [again; her father] 15s:
31bs.
Although it does not appear in this book, it is elsewhere
recorded, and may be worth noting here, that Sir F. B.
Delaval was not only the heaviest member of his family,
but turned the scale at 20 stones. It is very probable
that in Lord Delaval's later years, so far as Seaton
Delaval isconcerned, thecustora fell into abeyance, for when
an inventory of the goods there was taken after his death
1808, the only reference to the machine appeared in an
item of the contents of a lumber room — " 1 Fir case sup-
posed for weighing machine." The machine itself had
evidently been removed or got rid of.
CUTHBERT HOME TRASLAW.
all the villages of Northumberland Ford is
probably the most sweet and comely. It
stands on a steep hill which rises from the
Till. But no good picture of it can be
made, because the trees amidst which it is hidden com-
pletely prevent any general view from being obtained.
It is a village to be seen, not depicted or described.
And, once seen, it is not likely to be soon forgotten.
The inhabitants owe much of the comfort and beauty
which characterise their homes to the fostering care of
successive occupants of Ford Castle, of whom none has
taken greater interest in the welfare of the villagers
than the present Marchioness of Waterford. For the
younger generation her ladyship hung in the school-room
a number of pictures, the product of her own artistic
conception and workmanship, while the elder generation
have a lasting memorial of her thoughtfulness in the
cosy reading-room she has provided for them.
Ford is one of the somewhat numerous prohibition
estates in Northumberland. There is, however, a little
cottage where modest refreshment of a non-alcoholic
nature may be purchased. The principal apartment in
the cottage has been furnished by Lady Waterford with
128
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/March
I 1891.
a beautiful collection of china. This ware, much of
which is old and valuable, is arranged all round the
room, while screens and other articles of furniture go
to give it a most unique appearance for a house of that
description in a little country village.
Ford Forge, as will be seen from our illustration, is an
ideal country smithy. The entrance, constructed of
stone- work," represents a gigantic horse-shoe. The forge
is situated about a mile and a half from the village.
Built in 1769, it was once celebrated for the manufacture
of spades.
The bridge over the Till is, in the Summer, with all
the green foliage about it, a pretty sight, and from it may
be had, as seen in the accompanying picture, a good view
of the Cheviots in the distance to the west, with Flodden
about a mile and a half away.
For an account and illustration of Ford Castle, around
which the modern village has been reared, see the
Monthly Chronicle for 1887, p. 455.
j|NE of the most famous of those terrible
Danish sea-kings, who, in the eighth, ninth,
and tenth centuries, ravaged the coasts of
Britain, and particularly that of North-
umberland, was Regner Lodbrog, whose proper name
was Regner Sigurdson. Regner's real history is over-
laden with manifest fables ; but enough is certain, or at
least credible, after these latter have been brushed away,
to justify the narrative here.
Regner annexed Jutland to his kingdom of Scania and
Zealand ; overran Sweden, Norway, Esthonia, Livonia,
Finland, and Northern Russia; and harried the best
parts of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Flanders. He
had the hardihood to sail up the Seine as far as Paris,
plundering, slaughtering, and burning all the way.
He even ventured through the Straits of Gibraltar into
the Mediterranean, plundered Africa, Sicily, and the
Isles ot Greece, and landed on the shores of the Helles-
pont, whence he brought away a rich spoil. But, on his
return from the expedition, the fifth which he had made
into the West Sea, he found that he had to cope with a
formidable insurrection of his Danish subjects, raised by
a competitor to the crown, supported by the Emperor
Louis the Pious. This rival bad adopted the Christian
faith, which he had promised to introduce into Denmark.
Regner, on the contrary, was an obstinate heathen,
and upheld the worship of Odin, Thor, and Freya
as stoutly as he did the invincible raven banner. He
forbade the Christian converts to meet for public worship,
and drove the German missionaries out of the land, on
the ground that they were spies of the Emperor.
Ella, son of Hama, King of Britain (so designated in
the Danish sagas), had dared to raise his head again in
Northumberland, after his father's submission to Regner's
arms; and the irate sea-king accordingly set sail for
England to chastise the rebellious prince. Despising hi»
March 1
1891. J
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
129
insolent Anglian viee-gerent, or rather vassal, Regner
hastened off with only five hundred men, on board of
two ships. His wife Aslog, who was a wise woman,
deeply skilled in the runes, warned him against venturing
into a hostile country with so small a force, especially
since he might have a whole fleet of long ships to accotn
pany him ; but he answered that the fewer ships and
men he had the greater would be the glory he should
gain.
Regner's ships were separated and driven ashore during
a dreadful storm on the Northumbrian coast ; neverthe-
less, he got safe to land with a handful of people some-
where near the reouth of the Tyne or Wear. Ella had
collected a large army against him, so that Regner found
himself caught in a trap. Narrowly hemmed in, with no
means of retreat by land or sea, he made a desperate
stand on what proved to be his last field. Overwhelmed,
with his little band, he was taken into the presence
of Ella, but refused to tell who he was. He was
accordingly thrown into a dungeon infested with venom-
ous snakes; but so much afraid was Ella of bringing
down upon himself the vengeance of Regner's sons, whose
fame for martial exploits already rivalled their father's,
that he gave the guard orders to set the prisoner free
at once, if he should turn out to be Regner.
None of the snakes, if we may believe the saga, would
fasten on the king so long as the enchanted helmet re-
mained on his head ; but when that was pulled off, they
fixed themselves instantly upon him on all sides. Dread-
ful was tbe agony Regner suffered, but no exclamations.
groans, or sighs escaped from his lips, and he still reso-
lutely suppressed his name. It was only when a snake
forced its fangs into his left side, close to his heart, that
he cried with a loud voice: "Grind your tusks, ye wild
pigs ! The old boar is done for !" Then the men recog-
nised who their 'logged prisoner was, and they would
. fain have delivered him from the snakes, but it was too
late. Regner was already on his way home to the Hall
of Odin, to sit there enthroned among kindred heroes.
Local tradition has it that the scene of the conflict in
which Regner fell was Tunstall Hope, about a mile and a
half from Sunderlancl. There is a farm nftar the head of
the valley, called Ella's Hope, shortened into Elstob, and
it is supposed to have taken its name from the North-
umbrian king.
We have said that Regner is to a great extent a mythi-
cal character. Antiquaries have been very much puzzled
to reconcile the legends regarding him with the facts of
history. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Ella
usurped the throne of Northumberland in the year 862,
whereas Regner's death is placed by Suhm in 794, and by
other writers at a still earlier date. Indeed, some split
up Reifner into three distinct persons, and manufacture
two successive Ellas to kill three successive Lodbrogs.
There are thus difficulties on every side, which will per-
haps never be solved.
Volumes have been filled with Regner's adventures,
and with disquisitions thereon. He was not only a great
here, but a famous poet, bard, or skjald. Many of his
poems were long preserved in the North, and several may
jtfS f
130
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/March
\ 1891.
be found inserted in the Danish accounts of his life.
Olaus Wormius, in his book on Runic literature, gives
what purports to be his funeral song, in a Latin transla-
tion from the Norse original, which has since been printed
several times with more or less careful editorial super-
vision.
The poem, entitled the " Lodbrokarquida et K.ra-
kemal," that is to say, "Lodbrog's Torment," is under-
stood to be the composition of a skjald of the ninth
century, probably a contemporary of the hero of it, or at
least belonging to the next generation after him. In the
first strophe, Regner is made to relate how he won his
first wife, Thora Borgehjort (Hart Castle) on the shores
of Gothland. She was the daughter of the king of that
country, whose name was Herod, and she was held in
captivity, in a high tower, by a pair of monstrous
dragons, heath serpents, or ling eels, as they are called in
the original. The poisonous breath of these horrid
creatures infected the whole neighbourhood with the
plague ; and the old king, with a view to getting rid of
them and freeing his hapless daughter, promised the
princess's hand to the daring champion, whoever he
might be, that should slay the monsters. Regner under-
took the task, and in order to protect himself from the
serpents' teeth, he got a pelisse or cloak made of un-
dressed lamb skins, and a pair of breeches of peculiarly
shaggy material, of which the dragons could not get a
fast 'hold, and in which he could easily turn himself.
The weather was freezing cold, and on his way to the
place of conflict he dived under the water, and saturated
bis shaggy dress so that he was all bristling with sharp
icicles. The saga tells us, in a quiet vein of humour, how
the king and his courtiers ensconced themselves as safely
as possible in the innermost recesses of the court, or on
the highest pinnacles of the palace. But Regner de-
fended himself from the teeth of the dragons with his
shield, while his frozen coat protected him from their
venom; and, watching the first opportunity, he transfixed
both of the monsters with his spear at one blow. They
tried to envelope him with their tails and crush him to
death, but his shaggy breeches saved him, and he came
off conqueror unwounded, like More of More Hall, who
slew the dragon of Wantley ; the heir of Lambton, who
cut the worm in pieces ; the Daft Laird of Larriston, who
killed the worm of Ormiston ; and their still more famous
classic prototype, Perseus, who freed Andromeda from
the sea monster on the coast of Palestine. Ever after
this exploit, for which he was rewarded with the Princess
Thora's-hand, Reener was known by the cognomen of
Lodbrog, that is, Shaggy Breeches.
Dreadful was the retribution that followed Regner's
death. When his three or four surviving sons — Iver or
Ingoar, the Legless Boar, so called from some congenital
deformity ; Sigurd Snake-eye, otherwise called Ubbe ;
Bjorn, the iron-ribbed; and some add Halfden the
Terrible — heard of their father's fate, they at once deter-
mined on wreaking the most speedy, summary, and signal
vengeance on his murderers. They soon collected what
old historians have termed "a mighty torrent of vin-
dictive fury," composed of Danes, Jutes, Swedes, Nor-
wegians, Frisians, and other nations — in short, all the
strength and valour of the teeming North. The avengers
of their father's blood, accompanied by four or five other
kings and twenty earls, sailing out of the Baltic, arrived
safe on the East Anglian coast, among their countrymen
settled there, with whom they stayed over the winter.
Next spring they borrowed horses from the East
Anglians, and marched across Mercia into Northumber-
land. The misfortune of England at that time was that
every one of its petty kingdoms was splft up into factions
destitute of public spirit. In Northumberland, as one
party after another prevailed, the kings, who were, in
truth, only the puppets of these parties, were expelled or
restored, hailed as monarchs, or slain as traitors and
usurpers ; and the greater part of these shadowy poten-
tates had no title or claim to authority but what their
courage or their cunning gave them. Had the Northum-
brians and the Mercians cordially joined at this crisis
with the first Saxons, whose leader was nominally king of
all England, their united forces would have sufficed to re-
pel the invaders. But even the imminent danger to which
they were exposed failed to produce any great degree of
union. The Northumbrians, as usual, were employed in
contending amongst themselves, the kingdom being
divided between Osbert, who seems to have been the
legitimate king, and Ella, the prime object of the wrath
of the brothers, who was styled a usurper. These two
saw plainly, it is true, that their situation was desperate
if they did not join their forces. They accordingly sus-
pended their rivalry and marched against the Danes,
who, after ravaging Lindsey, near Lincolnshire, had
taken possession ot York.
Accounts differ as to the particulars of the campaign,
but the result was speedily fatal to both the Northum-
brian kings. The Danes had fortified themselves in
York, and made themselves masters of the surrounding
country. Osbert and Ella challenged them to come out,
and the challenge was accepted. Upon the ample folds
of the standard which floated at the head of the Pagan
host was depicted the raven, the bird of Odin. This
magic banner had been woven and worked by the
daughters of Regner Lodbrog in the course of a single
day, and the Danes believed that it was endowed with
prophetic power, imparted to it by Queen Aslog, who was
the daughter of Sigurd Fafnisbana, a famous mythical
hero. If victory was to follow, the raven stood erect .and
soaring before the warriors ; but if a defeat was impend-
ing, he hung his head and drooped his wings. On this
occasion we may infer that the omen was favourable, for
victory at length declared for the Danes.
This battle was fought under the walls of York on the
21st of March, 867. The brave Osbert was slain on the
March!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
131
•field, while Ella, more unfortunate, was taken prisoner.
The victors treated him with an amount of barbarity
uncommon even among savages. They cut the figure of
an eagle on his back, threw salt on the lacerated flesh,
and divided his ribs to tear out his lungs.
Simeon of Durham, in his Chronicles of the Angles,
tells us that Ella and Osbert brought this terrible judg-
ment on themselves, wholly irrespective of the death of
Regner. They had both, it seems, been guilty of sacri-
lege, having deprived St. Cuthbert of a good part of his
patrimony, viz., Warkworth, Tilmouth, Billingham,
Aycliffe, and Wycliffe.
According to some accounts Iver or Ingoar, accom-
panied by Hubba, landed at Berwick, and marched south
instead of marching north from East Anglia with the
rest, as others state. Halfden seems likewise to have
landed at the mouth of the Tweed, and to have ravaged
the rich country adjacent. Tynemouth monastery was
utterly destroyed by these fierce marauders.
After this melancholy epoch, Northumberland appears
no more in history as an Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Iver
assumed the title of king, not of it only, but of all
England ; and as soon as he found himself firm in the
saddle in these northern parts, he and Sigurd first overran
Mercia (A.D. 868), then Lindsey (869), and, finally, East
Anglia (870). The Danes thus became sole rulers over
the north-eastern half of England, bounded by the Wat-
ling Street, and reaching as far north as Edinburgh.
Bjorn, the Iron-ribbed Bear, returned to Norway, and
ruled for some years over that kingdom, with the govern-
ment of which he had been entrusted during his father's
life ; and Sigurd Snake-eye was chosen King of Denmark
by the unanimous vote of the Landsting or National
Assembly. Thus all Regner's sons attained the rank of
kings, including Halfden, who was the most illustrious of
sea kings, though he had no distinct kingdom on land.
||HERE are few places so full of interest as a
second-hand book shop, especially when it
happens to be owned by an enthusiastic
collector. I am acquainted with a model store of
these literary curiosities, and with a man who seems to
have been made for their efficient control. Both are to be
found in Great Queen Street, London — standing cheek
by jowl with the Freemasons' Tavern— and it is difficult
to say whether the establishment, or its proprietor, can
be regarded as the greatest attraction. Such hesitancy,
however, applies only to casual visitors. Those from
Tyne or Wearside can have no reasonable doubt on the
subject, seeing that Mr. John Wheldon,* the founder of
* The portrait of Mr. Wheldon is copied from a photograph by
T. 0. Turner and Co., 17, Upper Street, Islington, London.
the show, is a native of Newcastle ; that he is over 80
years of age ; and that the valuable treasures around him
have sprung from the smallest of small beginnings. Look-
ing at his premises now, the idea of a modest start seems
almost incredible. The building is so full of stock that it
is barely possible to secure travelling way from one room
to another. Long stretches of shelving are crowded with
double layers of books, while heaps of papers and
periodicals strew the floors and tables. In a similar
fashion, the entrance hall is reduced to half its natural
width ; the staircase is lined with towering piles of
prints ; and the cellars and garrets, as well as the small
sanctum of the chief, are inconveniently packed also.
Like many other North-Countrymen, the proprietor of
this old book shop has been thepioneer of his own fortunes.
He sprang from humble parents, had no influential friends
to help him, and was left, when quite a young man, to
'12.-
map out a career for himself. The method, at the outset,
did not seem particularly promising. It was something
like this : — Young Wheldon would walk into an old book
shop, inquire what volume or set of volumes the collector
most particularly desired to possess, and, on receipt of the
information, at once commenced a search for the missing
works. For every successful quest he was paid liberally ;
while for some lucky hits the honorarium might be
described as munificent. While thus earning his
livelihood, he was steadily adding to his knowledge of
books, and soon began to accumulate a stock of his own.
Slowly, but very surely, his position improved. In
course of time the diligent searcher was transformed
into a sagacious master-man, who gave his attention
principally, though not exclusively, to historic and scientific
works. Mr. Wbeldon now enjoys an almost unique posi-
132
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{March
1891.
tion in these branches of literature. His stock, as I have
shown, is enormous ; it is insured for many thousands of
pounds ; and its actual selling value can hardly be esti-
mated. Years hence, perhaps, when his present lease
expires, it may be necessary to sort and catalogue all the
treasures that the place contains. This prospect — strange
as the confession may seem — is one of the venerable gentle-
mnn's greatest troubles. "I only possess this place for
nine years more," he says, " and I am afraid the landlord
may then want to disturb me." As this is along look
ahead— especially for a veteran of 84 — it is sincerely to be
hoped tbat some satisfactory solution of the difficulty may
be discovered.
Though a Newcastle man by birth — having been born
in Pilgrim Street on the 9th of April, 1807— Mr. Wheldon
has spent the bulk of his time in London. He was
taken there when quite an infant, and, except in his
early years, baa adhered faithfully to the metropolis. It
is concerning a northern visit, made during his boyhood,
tbat the old bookseller retains his most pleasurable
reminiscences. When 18 years of age he accompanied his
father to the Fame Islands in order to assist in fixing the
lantern for the Longstone Lighthouse. He was nine
weeks engaged on this duty, and afterwards spent a
couple on the Brownsman, where William Darling and his
daughter Grace were then residing.
It was here that the young visitor made friends with
the girl, and became deeply impressed by her character.
After twelve or thirteen years had passed away, there
came news concerning the wreck of the Forfarshire,
coupled with that " deed of daring " which has made the
name of Grace Darling famous for all time. The enthu-
siasm of the capital found an echo in every quarter of the
civilised globe ; but in no bosom did it arouse a feeling of
greater pride than in that of Mr. Wheldon. He had
known the brave lassie ; he gloried in her achievement ;
and, what is more important, he still continues to sing
her praises as loyally as he did half a century ago. It is
his belief, to-day, that there is no person now living who
shared his labours at the Longstone light. He feels
absolutely certain that he must be the only human being
who can boast of an acquaintance with the girl before her
memorable exploit.
There is something very touching about Mr. Wheldon's
fidelity to his sea-girt friends. Their acquaintance seems
to have formed one of the most pleasurable incidents of
his youth, and he looks back upon it as only kindly
bachelors can. This accounts for many of bis subsequent
inquiries. He was aware, of course, that Grace died four
years after her memorable achievement; but, notwith-
standing this fact, he was always anxious to renew his
acquaintance with her family. It was not until 1864 that
this desire could be gratified. By that time he had be-
come thoroughly established in business. He was, in
fact, a man of financial substance— well able to extend
the scope of his operations— and he accordingly attached
himself to the Naturalist Field Clubs of Berwick and
Newcastle. Being in the North on the eve of
one of their excursions, he indulged himself with a
run to Bamborough. As William Darling was then a
resident in the village, Mr. Wheldon availed himself of
the opportunity for a friendly call Though the two men
had not seen each other for forty years, a few questions
were quite sufficient to revive their earlier intercourse.
The ex-lighthouse-keeper remembered the London work-
man very well, and had a cordial greeting for the warm-
hearted boy who accompanied him — the "friend of little
Grace." As the youth of 18 had developed, during the
interval, into a man of 58, there were many questions to
ask as well as much to tell on both sides. At the close
of an edifying interview, Mr. Darling produced a small
book, in which he asked his guest to place his autograph.
The request was cheerfully complied with, and, under the
date of August 25th, 1864, Mr. Wheldon wrote his name,
occupation, and place of business.
The whereabouts of this " visitors' list " has latterly
been the subject of many inquiries ; but its history could
not be traced. By the merest accident, however, I am
able to add a few words concerning it. During the
rambles of Mr. W. H. Atkinson, a gentleman residing at
Starbeck, near Harrogate, it was lately discovered in the
possession of Grace Darling's niece. It is to the courtesy
of Mr. Atkinsen that I am now indebted for a few
memoranda from the interesting little volume. The title,
which is in the handwriting of the old lighthouse-
keeper himself, appears to have been drawn up on the
2nd of August, 1861, after he came to reside at " Wynd-
ing House, Balmburgh." The first signature, inserted
eleven days afterwards, was that of Dr. John Strutbers,
of Edinburgh. Amongst those who succeeded him were
the Venerable Archdeacon Bland, in 1863 ; David Dunbar,
the Dumfries sculptor, in 1864 ; Sir Walter James and
Lord Hardinge, in 1865 ; Captain and Mrs. Stafford
Northcote, in 1866 ; and Mr. Tom Taylor, in 1868. Some
of these visits were subsequeut to the death of Mr.
Darling, which took place in 1865; but they were
prompted, no doubt, by a .desire to see his home, his
journal of experiences on the Fame Islands, and the many
similarly interesting records of a long and valuable life.
But the entry of greatest note is undoubtedly that of Mr.
Wheldon, for it is followed by a postscript which says —
" He was one of the workpeople sent from London to the
erection of the Longstone Lighthouse in the years 1825
and 1826."
March 1
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
133
Cite Castle &$tctvt \ a:
at
its parts.
j]T would be too much to expect that a tale
handed down by oral tradition, through at
least ten or twelve generations, and pro-
bably far more, should be consistent in all
The innumerable legends connected with old
castles, abbeys, and hermitages in Durham and North-
umberland, as in most other parts of Britain, would be
placed by critical writers of local history in the same
category with the lives and adventures of King Arthur
and the Knights of the Round Table. Still, they are
interesting and worthy of preservation, bringing before us,
as they do, obsolete manners and customs, and ideas,
beliefs, and superstitions once prevalent among the
common people, but now in great part abandoned and
forgotten. The castle spectre is one of the commonest
of those imaginary beings whose appearance from time to
time frightened the inmates of old fortalices in different
parts of the world, from the hill forts of India to the
strongholds of Scandinavia ; and it may safely be asserted
that there is not a single building with any pretensions to
remote antiquity that has not been honoured in time
past by the possession of its peculiar goblin, whether
akin to the German " hoffgespenst " or the Irish "ban-
shee."
Haughton Castle, situated on the North Tyne, is re-
puted to have once had a spectre of its own, said to have
been the ghost of one of those daring mosstroopers who
made life and property on the Borders unsafe, both before
and subsequent to the Union of North and South Britain.
The story goes that in the reign of Henry VIII., when
Lord Dacre of Gilsland was Warden of the Middle
Marches, a loud complaint arose in the Northern Counties
against his lordship's administration, on account of his
being more than suspected of taking bribes, directly or
indirectly, from the more influential of those freebooters,
such as the chiefs of the clans Armstrong, Elliot, Scott,
Kerr, and Graeme. The fact was, that during a great
part of his wardenship, the mosstroopers, especially
those of the Scottish side and the Debatable Land, were
more troublesome than they had ever been before. No
man's horses or cattle were safe unless he submitted to
the ignominy of paying " blackmail " to some notable
hard-riding chieftain, thus purchasing exemption from
the operations of professional and skilled "lifters"— that
is, horse, cattle, and sheep-stealers, true " minions of the
moon " like Johnnie o' Gilnockie, Wat o' Harden, or
Kinmont Willie. It was first whispered, then loudly
proclaimed, and by-and-by universally believed on both
sides of the Border, that Lord Dacre knowingly and
willingly connived at the robberies committed by these
masterful rough-riders, several of whom, it was known,
had been allowed to escape when the warden had them in
his power. In more than one instance, it was alleged
that Lord Dacre 's retainers had interfered actively to
effect the rescue ot mosstroopers, when captured by some
of the plundered people. This might or might not have
been true, but it was unhesitatingly asserted, and never
positively denied ; and it was remarked that of all the
miscreants who profited by the Lord Warden's tolerance,
the Armstrongs seemed the most favoured. This was
accounted for by Lord Dacre's being deep in love with
Helen Armstrong, the sister of the chief of her clan.
Dark-eyed Nelly, as she was commonly called, is said to
have been a charming woman. No sooner had Lord
Dacre beheld her, during a time of truce, then he fell a
victim to her fascinations. The discontent of the honest
gentlemen and yeo men, whose effects were thus at the
mercy of the unscrupulous raiders, ere long rose to such
a pitch that an association was formed amongst them
for the double purpose of protecting themselves against
the mosstroopers and of exposing the guilty connivance
of Lord Dacre to the king.
The Lord of Haughton Castle, Sir John de Widdring-
ton (in some versions of the story it is said to have
been Sir Thomas Swinburne, but the Swinburnes had
ceased to have any connection with Haughton long be-
fore the date specified) was one of the most energetic
men in this movement for the redress of grievances. He
is reported to have been a learned and clerkly man,
though as gallant a knight as any in the whole North
Country ; and it was accordingly he who was entrusted
by the gentlemen of the district to draw up the
memorial stating their case for presentation to
the king or his chief minister — his Eminence the
Lord Cardinal Wolsey, who was Chancellor and
Legate a Latere, as well as Bishop of Durham and Arch-
bishop of York. This distinguished prelate being then on
a visit to York, it was judged to be a favourable
opportunity for laying the memorial before him, and so
the Lord of Haughton Castle and two or three other
gentlemen proceeded to that city for the express purpose.
It happened, however, that on the eve of their setting out
the Lord of Haughton's people had managed to capture
the leader of a gang of mosstroopers — no less a personage
than the chief of the Armstrongs, and the brother of
Lord Dacre's fair Helen. The prisoner was brought in
triumph to Haughton, and safely lodged in the deep, dark,
underground dungeon of the castle. Then, after two
days' hard riding, the deputation duly arrived at
York, where they were to be presented to the Cardinal
on the second day afterwards. On that morning,
they were on their way to the Archiepiscopal Palace,
when it all at once flashed across the Lord of
Haughton's mind that he had quite forgotten, before
leaving home, to give his servants any instructions
as to how they should treat his prisoner, and he found
likewise, to his utter consternation, that he had brought
away with him the key of the dungeon, which he usually
134
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/March
I 1881.
carried attached to his girdle. Being a truly humane
man, as well as a firm supporter of law and order, he was
horror-struck at the possible consequences of his neglect ;
for it was now the fourth day of Armstrong's confinement,
and during the whole of that time he could not have
received either meat or drink.
Without waiting to see the Cardinal, he turned that
instant the face of his horse northwards, and galloped
away as hard as he could — so hard that before he reached
Durham, sixty-seven miles off, his horse dropped dead
under him. To borrow another steed was the work of a
few minutes ; and this horse he urged to its utmost speed,
so that by the middle of the night of the day on which he
left York, he was thundering at the outer portal of his
own castle. Soiled and stained with the mire of the
roads he had traversed, his face flushed with a fearful ex-
citement, and his voice nearly gone, he could only ejacu-
late, on the gate being opened, in a hoarse, harsh, raucous
tone, "The prisoner ! " The domestic could only answer
that they had heard nothing of him for the last four-and-
twenty hours, though before that he had been very noisy.
"Bring me a torch !" was his master's instant exclama-
tion. The light was at once brought, the key was turned
in the lock, the door was thrown open, grating on its rusty
hinges, and Armstrong was found lying on the steps
leading down into the gloomy vault, stark dead, either
starved to death or suffocated by foul air. In his mortal
agony, he had gnawed the flesh from one of his arms, and
his features were contorted in such horrid fashion as to
strike terror into those who looked on him.
How his mortal remains were disposed ef we are not
told, nor has tradition preserved the issue in the case of
the delinquent Lord Warden ; but, as in all such mediaeval
tragedies, even when the death of the victim was unpre-
meditated, the voice of his blood, like that of Abel, cried
unto the Lord from the ground. In other words, as a
matter of course, the spectre of the unhappy man haunted
the castle. In the dead of night, shrieks of the most
agonising kind were heard issuing from the dungeon, and
piercing and resounding through every room in the place.
The consequence was that no servant would stay within
its precincts, and the family were at their wits' end how
to get peace and rest o' nights. At length the Rector of
Simonburn exorcised the ghost, by means, it is said, of a
black -lettered Bible, whether of Coverdale, Matthew, or
Cramner's editien we cannot take it upon us to say. And
so long as the sacred volume remained in the castle, the
ghost continued quiet; but on one occasion, during the
reitm of the graceless Charles II., the Bible having been
taken away to London for re-binding, or some other un-
defined purpose, the ghost took advantage of the sacred
talisman's absence to return and avenge itself for its long
enforced silence.
So one night in the winter of 1681, when the menials of
the castle were assembled in the servants' hall after the
day's work was done, the conversation somehow fell on
the subject of the reappearance of departed' spirits. While-
some expressed their belief in the doctrine and others
their disbelief, all at once, when the conversation had
slackened, a horrifying shriek rose, as [it were, out of the
earth, pierced through the brains and hearts of those who
heard it, and pealed and reverberated through every
room in the castle, after which it gradually sank into
an agonising moan, and finally died away in a wail of
inexpressible anguish. Fear, or rather horror, petrified
the company. No one of them, we are told, could cry
out. That there was some dreadful supernatural presence
in the room even the most sceptical could scarce doubt, at
least for the time being ; but one or two of them by next
day had managed to get rid of their fears, and professed
to believe that the sounds they had heard were nothing
more nor less than the howling of one of the watch dogs
baying the moon.
However this may have been, no time was lost in
getting the black-lettered Bible restored, so as to pacify
the servants ; and never since that time — that is, for more
than two hundred years past— has the ghost of the
famished freebooter troubled the inmates of Haughton-
Castle.
ikrcrcrtt.
EACON HILL is an eminence about a mile
and a half to the north-east of the town of
Penrith. Here a square stone building,
erected in 1719, occupies the site of the beacon fires that
were lighted on the approach of an enemy in the times of
Border feuds. Penrith Beacon was one of a fiery line of
communications extending from Lancashire to Edin-
March!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
135
burgh. Sir Walter Scott refers to the blazing beacons in
his " Lay of the Last Minstrel" in the following terms : —
A score of fires
From height, and hill, and cliff were seen,
Each with warlike tidings fraught.
Each from each the signal caught ;
Each after each they glanced to sight
As stars arise upon the night.
Standing some 1,020 feet above the level of the sea, the
Beacon commands extensive views of the surrounding
country. On the west are Blencathra and Skiddaw ; on
the south Shap Fells ; on the east Crossfell and the
Yorkshire hills ; and on the north Carlisle and the
distant Scottish mountains.
aittr
£>h0r untltrr
OSEPH BLACKETT was born in 1786, at
Tunstill, a village not far from Richmond,
in Yorkshire. He was the son of a day
labourer, and the youngest but one of twelve children.
He received such elementary education as was open to
the poor a century ago ; but in 1797 his schooldays were
terminated, and he went to London ("in ten days on a
waggon ") as apprentice to his brother, who was a ladies'
shoemaker there. He gratified his taste for reading by
the perusal of works like Eusebius's "Ecclesiastical
History," and Foxe's "Book of Martyrs." The year
1804 was marked by two important events. He was
led to the study of Shakspeare by seeing Kemble in
"Richard III.," and he also married a wife, who, how-
ever, died of consumption in 1807.
Blackett came under the notice of the printer Mar-
chand, who thought so well of his poems that he
gratified the author by setting them up in type for
nothing, and did him an even more substantial service
by introducing him to the publisher Pratt. "The
Maecenas of shoemakers and preface-writer-general to
distressed versemen ; a kind of gratis accoucheur to
those who wish to be delivered of rhyme, but do not
know how to bring forth," — this was Byron's charac-
teristic description of Capel Lofft, who had introduced
Robert Bloomfield to the public. Pratt thought
Blackett deserving of a similar service, and brought
his protegi before the public in a detailed comparison
of the relative merits of his own poet and Lofft's. This
was in 1808, and Byron, who published his "English
Bards and Scotch Reviewers " in the early spring of the
following year, belaboured both patrons and both pro-
tegts with all the characteristic vigour of a satire which
is far more suitably typified by the bludgeon than the
rapier. He attacks the glorification of poetasters as fol-
lows : —
When some brisk youth, the tenant of a stall,
Employi a pen more pointed than his awl,
Leaves his snug shop, forsakes his store of shoes,
St. Crispin quits, and cobbles for the muse.
Heavens I how the vulgar stare I how crowds applaud,
How ladies read, and literati laud !
Poor Blackett's fame was only a November sun — he
still felt the shivers while he stood in the shine. He
does not appear to have unduly neglected his trade, but
he never emerged from a poverty which was soon aggra-
vated by chronic ill-health.
Pratt and other friends found him the means necessary
for a sea voyage, which was recommended for the benefit
of his health. He accordingly set sail in 1809 for Seaham,
where his brother-in-law was then gamekeeper to Sir
Ralph Milbanke. • Here he found abundant encourage-
ment, not only from Sir Ralph and Lady Milbanke and
their daughter, the future Lady Byron, but also from the
Duchess of Leeds, who exerted herself to procure support
for his "Selections from the Poetry of Joseph Blackett."
These kindly attentions may have soothed the end of
poor Blackett, but they could not retard it, for he died
on August 23rd, 1810. He was buried in Seaham Church-
yard, and his tomb is inscribed with the concluding lines
of his "Reflections at Midnight " : —
Shut from the light, 'mid awful gloom,
Let clay-cold honour rest in state,
And from the decorated tomb
Receive the tribute of the great.
Let me, when bade with life to part,
And in my narrow mansion sleep,
Receive a tribute from the heart.
Nor bribe the sordid eye to weep.
Byron, who was at Malta when he heard the news of
the death of "Cobbler Joe," wrote the following satirical
epitaph : —
Stranger ! behold, interred together,
The souls of learning and of leather.
Poor Joe has gone, but left his all :
You'll find his relics in a stall.
His works were neat, and often found
Well stitched, and with morocco bound.
Tread lightly — where the bard is laid
He cannot mend the shoe he made ;
Vet is he happy in his hole,
With verse immortal as his sole.
But still to business he held fast,
And stuck to Phrebus to the last.
Then who shall say so good a fellow
Was only " leather and prunella "?
For character — he did not lack it ;
And if he did, 'twere shame to "Black-it."
The references to Blackett in Byron's letters are rather
heartless; but they are worth quoting as excellent
examples of his trenchant and vivacious epistolary style.
In a letter written to Dallas on board the Volgate frigate
at sea in June, 1811, he says: "I see that yours and
Pratt's protegi, Blackett the cobbler, is dead in spite of
his rhymes, and is probably one of the instances where
death has saved a man from damnation. You were the
ruin of that poor fellow amongst you. Had it not been
for his patrons, he might now have been in very good
plight, shoe (not verse) making, but you have made him
immortal with a vengeance. Who would think that
136
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
r March
1 1891.
anybody could be such a blockhead as to sin against an
express proverb — ' Ne sutor ultra erepidam ' ?
But spare him, ye critics, his follies are past.
For the cobbler is come, as he ought, to his last."
Pratt, however, was still faithful to his fa-otegi, and
made the deceased poet tell to the world the story of his
life in two volumes of letters, which also included his
poetical remains. The publication of these volumes in
1811 provoked from Byron another fierce and pungent
diatribe :— " This well-meaning gentleman (Capel Lofft)
baa spoiled some excellent shoemakers and been accessory
to the political undoing of many of the industrious poor.
Nathaniel Bloom6eld and his brother Bobby have set all
Somersetshire singing ; nor has the malady confined
itself to one county. Pratt, too (who once was wiser),
has caught the contagion of patronage, and decoyed a
poor fellow named Blackest into poetry ; but he died
during the operation, leaving one child and two volumes
of remains utterly destitute. The girl, if she don't take a
poetical twist, and come forth as a shoemaking Sappho,
may do well ; but the tragedies are as rickety as if they
had been the offspring of an earl or a Seatonian prize
poet. . . . Certes, these rakers of ' Remains ' come
under the statute against ' resurrection men.' What does
it signify whether a poor, dear, dead dunce is te be stuck
up in Surgeons' or in Stationers' Hall ? Is it not better
to gibbet his body upon a heath than his soul in an
octavo ? ' We know what we are, but we know not what
we may be,' and it is to be hoped we never shall know, if
a man who has passed through life with a sort of eclat is
to find himself a mountebank on the other side of Styx,
and made, like poor Joe Blackett, the laughing stock of
purgatory."
If we can imagine the gentle spirit of the unfortunate
shoemaker poet meeting the grim shade of the Chelsea
philosopher in those dim regions, poor Joe may be
comforted, for Carlyle thought very little more of Byron
than Byron did of Blackett. J. L. GAEVIN.
ILLIAM DAVISON, otherwise known in
Gateshead as "Billy Fine-day," died at
Gateshead Workhouse on the 27th of January,
1891. "Billy," who had been for 38 years an inmate of
the Workhouse, was a character in the borough, and
there were few men, women, or children in Gateshead
who were not familiar with his appearance. He was
originally a miner at Wrekenton and Sheriff Hill, and
was the only survivor of an explosion which took place
at the King Pit, on April 5th, 184-3. A Dissenter in his
youth, Billy could often be found in recent years preach-
ing and singing to a group of urchins. It often happened
that he found, when he had finished, that his barrow had
disappeared. While in search of it, he would say to
everyone he met. " Gie us a bit weed. Hes thoo an aad
knife te gie Billy ?" One of his peculiarities was, what-
ever the state of the weather, to accost his friends thus —
" It's a fine day ; he' ye onny weed ? " If anyone asked a
loan from him, he would say in reply, " Oh, aye, it's a
fine day. De as aa de : get aall ye can, and luik for
mair." Mr. and Mrs. Penrose, the master and matron of
the Workhouse, were extremely kind to the poor fellow.
If Billy's stock of tobacco became exhausted, he would
say — " Aa knaa the maister will giv us sum ; if he disn't,
the wife will." The well-known local song, "Billy Fine-
day, "written and sung by Rowland Harrison, will keep
alive his memory for at least a little while.
|]T was announced last month that Mr. Henry
Tennant had resigned the office, which he had
held for many years, of general manager of
the North-Eastern Railway Company. The directors
appointed as his successor Mr. George S. Gibb, who had
been solicitor to the company since 1882. At the half-
yearly meeting of. the company at York, on the 6th of
February, the retiring manager was awarded a gratuity
of £10,000. Mr. Tennant is a native of Wensleydale.
Educated at Ackworth, he came early in life to New-
castle, and entered the service of the old firm of Messrs.
Bragg and Co., drapers, Pilgrim Street. On leaving that
March!
1S91. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
137
employment he entered the railway service, joining the
staff of the Brandling Junction Railway about 1845. A
little later he removed from Tyneside, but returned to
MB, HENRY TENNANT.
Newcastle as accountant to the North-Eastern Company,
removing to York on his promotion to the office of general
manager in 1871.
airly C0tmni>ntaru0.
LADY PEAT'S PROPERTY.
Lady Peat, whose strange, eventful history is recorded
in the Monthly Chronicle, 1887, p. 149, died on the 26th
of November, 1842, at Villiers Street, Sunderland,
leaving much landed property and personal estate.
The latter, being valued at something over £250,000,
was divided between her solicitor (Mr. Gregson)
and the authorities at Ushaw College. The landed
property was divided between Edward Taylor, of Sunni-
side Park, near Tow Law, butcher and farmer, son
of Edward Taylor and his wife, a cousin of Lady Peat's,
and Edward Leadbitter, wine and spirit merchant (?),
Gateshead, and another distant relative of the eccentric
lady, to both of whom she acted as godmother. The
former received the farms of Stobbilee, near Satley, the
residence of Lady Peat, when in this neighbourhood, and
her supposed birthplace. Her ladyship's home, an old
black thatched building, long used as a byre, was pulled
down in 1885. Hole House— the residence of Lady Peat's
steward, John Flounders— Throstle Nest, Colpike Mill,
all in the Browney valley ; Iveston Farm, at Iveston ;
High and Low West Houses, and High, Middle, and Low
Hedleyhopes, in the valley of the Deerness, were included
in the estate. Mr. Leadbitter received Flass Hall and
Hall Farm, High Wooley, Cock House, all between Esh
and Crook, and the estate of Osmondcroft, near Newsham,
Staindrop. On acquiring possession of the estates, both
Mr. Taylor and Mr. Leadbitter assumed by Royal license
the additional name of Smith.
J. W. FAWCETT, The Grange, Satley.
A PECULIAR PARISH.
The following is copied from the Universal Magazine
for November, 1782 :—
One of the Kings of England, being in the North, was
entertained by the Bishop of Durham, at his palace there.
Among many of the clergy at that time with the bishop
there was the then Rector of Elwick Hall, near Hartlepool.
His Majesty was very particular in inquiring about the
North, and asked the Rector of Elwick Hall if there was
anything remarkable in his parish. The rector replied
there was, for in his parish there was not either town,
village, surgeon, apothecary, midwife, schoolmaster,
schoolmistress, blacksmith, shoemaker, cartwright, joiner,
house carpenter, chandler, grocer, mason, bricklayer,
public-house, tailor, weaver, barber, baker, butcher, or
brewer; nay, scarce one day labourer, and frequently
neither a funeral nor a marriage for twelve months. His
Majesty listened to all this with great attention, and
laughed heartily when the rector had finished his long
string of names. What is extraordinary is, that the
parish at this day (1782) is nearly in the same state. The
living, which is worth £400 per annum, is now vacant.
The whole parish contains about seventeen or eighteen
farmhouses, situated in various parts of the parish,
and the former rectors have often entertained all the
parishioners at their tables. NIGEL, York.
THE FOUNDER OF THE SALVATION ARMY.
I am indebted to an old and worthy Newcastle man
for the following particulars concerning "General"
Booth:—
According to the Nottingham Evening News, William
Booth was born in Booth Street, Nottingham, April 10,
1829, the street taking its name from his father, who held
most of it, and being until quite lately owned by a mem-
ber of the family. He commenced his career in a pawn-
broker's shop, and .his first religious associations were
with Wesley Chapel, Broad Street, Nottingham. He
was a member of the Wesleyan body until the
agitation arose with respect to Everitt, Dunn, and
Griffith, who were ultimately expelled from the con-
nexion ; and although it could hardly be said that
the "General " was similarly treated, yet it is a fact that
he was "dropped" also by th* Wesleyans about this
period. He laboured with the above-named seceders for
about twelve months, after which he joined the New
Connexion. He remained a little while under the late
Dr. Cooke, was recommended by the London circuit
to Conference for travelling preacher, and entered on
his probation at the New Connexion Conference in 1854.
Mr. Booth was subsequently appointed to the London
first circuit, and during the next two years he held special
revival services at various places. At the end of his third
year he married. His first appointment after he was mar-
ried was at Halifax. He became the superintendent
minister of the Gateshead New Connexion Circuit in
1858. He travelled the circuit three years (the full term
at th» time), and was very popular throughout the whole
district, especially for the vigorous manner in which he
encouraged open-air services. It was in Bethesda Chapel,
Melbourne Street, Gateshead, that he ministered when
not on circuit.
At the conference in 1861, he requested to be made a
New Connexional evangelist, but the Conference did not
see its way to give him such a position at that time ;
and he was appointed superintendent of the Newcastle-
on-Tyne Circuit instead. He moved "over th« water"
from Gateshead, and resided in Richmond Street, New-
castle ; but he shortly afterwards resigned, and com-
138
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/March
t 1891.
menced as an evangelist on his own behalf. He visited
Cornwall atfter leaving Newcastle, and in 1865 went to
London, where he was induced to start the "Christian
Mission " in the East End, from which, as all the world
knows, came the present huge organization known as the
Salvation Army.
According to the Nottingham journal above named, Mr.
Booth is not to be credited with originating the idea of
the Salvation Army, that being an adaptation of the
Hallelujah Band, which Mr. James Dupe, a Nottingham
evangelist, who is still living, started in what is now
known as St. James's Church, Nottingham, and in which
Mr. Dawe had the assistance of the notorious Bendigo,
the prize-fighter. FULHAM.
GEORGE WATSON, MATHEMATICIAN.
George Watson, formerly a well-known mathematician
of Chester-le-Street, was born in the city of Durham in
1796, and was the son of humble parents, his father being
a shoemaker. When nine years of age, he was sent to
school, but only for a short time. He was apprenticed to
a shoemaker of the name of Pickering at Chester-le-
Street. Of studious habits, he spent most of his spare
time in self-tuition, and frequently, whilst at work, had
an open book by his side, to which every now and then he
gave » glance, committing something to memory.
Before he was out of his apprenticeship the press gang
got hold of him, and compelled him to be a sailor. How-
ever, in 1815, when only nineteen years of age, he was
again on land, and in that year became a married man ;
but the day after his marriage he resumed his seafaring
life. Some time afterwards he returned home and
settled down at Chester-le-Street, where he eventually
opened a private school, teaching, besides "the three
R's," mathematics and navigation. He died in 1857, and
is buried in Chester-le-Street Churchyard, where a monu-
ment stands erected to his memory by one of his pupils,
the present Sir George Elliot.
As an expounder of mathematics and navigation, Mr.
Watson occupied a high position, and corresponded largely
with men of like abilities. He was also a sound educa-
tionist, a staunch Churchman, and a person of great in-
genuity.
J. W. FAWCETT, Satley.
MOUNTAINEERING FEAT IN ENGLISH
LAKELAND.
Perhaps the following record of a mountaineering feat
in the English Lake District, culled from the West
Cumberland Times, may prove interesting to the readers
of the Monthly Chronicle : —
About twelve years ago there appeared in the Man-
chester and Liverpool papers a brief account of a walk
that had been accomplished by four gentlemen living in
the Lake District, who climbed four of the highest
mountains in England, namely, Bowfell, Scawfell, Skid-
daw, and Helvellyn, in one day. It was regarded at the
time as a wonderful instance of pluck and endurance, the
temperance organs being particularly enthusiastic on the
subject, as the walk was achieved entirely on non-alcoholic
drinks.
Although it is somewhat late in the day to do so, I am
in a position to be able to give a more accurate and
detailed account than has yet appeared of a performance
that has seldom if ever been beaten.
Prior to the year 1878 there had been much talk in the
Lake District, around Grasmere and Ambleside, of a feat
accomplished by a gentleman, a well-known Alpine
climber, who, accompanied by the equally well-known
guide, Mackeretb, of Dungeon Ghyll, had ascended the
four mountains already referred to within twenty-five
hours. In the neighbourhood this was looked upon as an
unparalleled performance, and the feat was established as
a record.
In June, 1878, four brothers named Tucker, living in
Westmorland, all of them painters— for Alfred Robert
Tucker, now the Bishop of Eastern Equatorial Africa,
had not then taken holy orders — determined to beat the
record established by the gentleman before mentioned,
and announced their intention to ascend the four moun-
tains within twenty-four hours, and without a guide.
It is needless to say that their determination to eclipse
what was looked upon as such a wonderful achievement
was received on all sides with, at any rate, mild derision
and scepticism. People who had spent all their lives in
the land that Wordsworth loved so well, declared that
the thing was next to impossible, and the attempt folly.
Nothing daunted by the adverse comments freely ex-
pressed on every hand, the four young men proceeded to
carry out their intention.
At four o'clock a.m., one bright June morning, after
partaking of a substantial breakfast, the brothers started
from their home at Elterwater, some five miles west of
Ambleside — (those readers who know the Lake District
will be able to follow the excursion point by point)
— making their way through the beautiful and
picturesque valley of Langdale towards Bowfell (2,960
feet), the first and least important of the mountains
they intended to conquer. This point was reached at
about eight o'clock, and from thence, without resting, the
next point, the summit of Scawfell (3,208 feet), was made
for. Between these two summits the route, although not
precipitous, necessitates incessant and most fatiguing
climbing, not ten consecutive yards along the ridge that
joins them being on the level. Nevertheless they stood on
the tops of Scawfell shortly after nine o'clock, gazing over
the intervening country into the sea, where in the remote
distance, like a speck upon the horizon, lay the Isle of
Man.
They had now achieved what to the majority of British
mountaineers would have been considered a very fair
day's work, but which was merely a preliminary canter
compared with what was to come.
The next point to be made for was Skiddaw, twenty
miles away. By this time the sun had commenced to
beat down fiercely, and the heat was oppressive. They
carried nothing with them but a small quantity of beef
tea, and when that was gone contented themselves with a
drink from the brooks they passed on the way. No time
was to be lost. Straight, or, at least, as straight as the
circuitous paths would permit, through Rosthwaite, down
along the valley of Borrowdale, where Grange nestles, a
poetic picture painted by Nature. Still farther on to
where "the waters come down at Lodore," skirting
Derwentwater, on to Keswick. Thence a long, mono-
tonous toil to the top of Skiddaw (over 5,000 feet), which
was reached shortly after one. Twenty miles in a little
over four hours ! The journey is now nearly half over,
and, to celebrate the event, sixteen bottles of ginger beer
are consumed.
The return journey is commenced. Once more passing
through Keswick, the Vale of St. John is traversed, and
on arriving at the King's Head Inn the first halt is called.
Tired feet are plunged into water as hot as can be borne,
and the inner man is refreshed with bowls of bread and
milk. The last effort is about to be essayed, and ten
minutes are spent in the preparation. Helvellyn still
remains, and a start is made. Again a long gradual
ascent js battled with and conquered, and as the sun is
beginning to set the self-imposed task is practically
finished. The four mountains have been climbed in lesa
than fifteen hours, and a proposition is made to add yet
another mountain, viz., 1'airfield, to the list ; but wiser
counsels prevail, and, acting on the principle that
"enough is as good as a feast," the descent to Grasmere
is made.
March)
1891. )
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
139
From Grasmere to Elterwater is slightly over four
miles ; but, as one of the Tuckers lived at Ambleside, his
three brothers determined to see him home, thus doing
nine miles instead of four.
The clock is striking eleven as they reach their house
at Elterwater, having walked, as nearly as can possibly
be gauged, seventy miles and climbed over 12,000 feet in
nineteen hours, beating the previous record by six hours,
and at least an extra ten miles.
I cannot tell whether this achievement has ever been
beaten; but it lives in the memory of many "Lakers"
as a truly wonderful walk. J. C., Carlisle.
AN INVITATION TO MARRIAGE.
The following curious advertisement was published in
the Cumberland Packet, 1811 : —
May no miscarriage prevent my marriage ! Matthew
Dowson, in Bothel, Cumberland, intends to be married
at Holm Church on Thursday before Michaelmas Day,
when that may happen, and return to Bothel to dine.
Mr. Reed gives" a goose to be Roasted ; W. Elliot gives a
hen to be Roasted ; Jos. Gibson gives a Pig to be Roasted;
W. Hodson gives a Calf to be Roasted ; and in order that
the Roast meat should be well Basted, do you see, Mary
Pearson, Betty Hodson, Mary Bushby, Matty Fisher,
Mary Bride, and Betty Porthouse, to each give a pound
of Butter. The advertiser will provide everything else
suitable to so very festive an occasion, and hereby gives
notice to all young women desirous of changing their con-
dition that he is at Present Disengaged, and he advises
them to consider that tho' there may be Luck in Leisure,
yet in this case Delays are Dangerous, for with him he is
Determined First Come First Served.
So come along Lasses, who wish to be Married.
Matt Dowson is vexd that so long he has Tarryd.
FORD POTTERY, Newcastle.
THE TELEGRAM.
A few years ago a pitman received a telegram from an
official whom he knew to be a very bad caligraphist.
"Begox," he exclaimed as he opened the missive, " that
can nivvor be his writing ; he must ha' got a secretorry !"
A PLEASANT HOUSE.
"De ye like yor new boose?" asked a woman of her
friend who had lately changed her place of residence.
" Weel, it's not se pleasant as the other," was the reply,
" 'caas aa could stand at the door and watch aall the
funerals gan along the chorchyaird !"
THE TAP.
A man was trying hard in a house at one of the
Northern collieries to get a leather washer on to a tap.
"Hang it aall," he exclaimed, "aa wonder if a drop
whisky wad myek hor slip?" "Varry likely it wad,"
rejoined his wife, "it myeks lots of ye foaks slip at times,
onnyway 1"
VULTURES.
A party of Blyth men, including a philosopher from
that quarter, were recently on a visit to North Sunder-
land, when a flock of birds flew overhead. "Bless me,
what's them bords?" cried one of the excursionists.
"Thor vultures," said a native. "Vultures," exclaimed
the Blyth philosopher, "they^ee beor.de they? Wey,
they waak iboot wor plyace !"
OLD AND YOUNG.
A steamer was tugging a sculler boat under the Swing
Bridge, when an applewoman, observing them, exclaimed
— "Begox, isn't that like natur? Even the varry steam-
boats hes little uns ?"
A REMARKABLE BOAT RACE.
A short time ago a crowd gathered on the Tyne Bridge,
and for some moments attention was directed to certain
moving objects in the river. A woman approached
"Tommy on the Bridge, "a well known local character,
and asked: "What's up, thor. Tommy?" "Oh," was
the reply, "it's oney a boat race wi' twe dogs !"
FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS.
Not long ago, during stormy weather, a man and his
wife went down to Tynemouth. They were watching the
waves beat upon the shore, and the good man seemed to
be impressed with the angry character of the scene. He
was about to give vent to his feelings, when his wife, her
eyes fixed on the sea, quietly remarked: — "O Geordy !
isn't it like soapsuds ?"
THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL.
A certain pitman having entered a barber's shop to get
shaved, the barber, knowing Geordy to be a tippler, com-
menced to admonish him, and to give him some sound
advice upon temperance, when the pitman exclaimed,
" Aa'll tell ye what it is, friend ; drink's the ruin of all
evil, but a small whisky and a lemon dash, she's grand
when yor dry !"
A TEXT.
Two miners went into the waiting-room at Castle Eden
Station, when something caught the eye of one of them.
Some texts of Scripture were hanging against the wall—
"God so loveth the world," &c. After endeavouring to
make out the words, he turned to his companion and
asked, " Hi, Geordie man, whaat 's this aboot ? Is't a
dog race?"
EGG-HATCHING.
Some pitmen, who were passing a shop in Newcastle,
stopped to look at an egg-hatching machine exhibited in
the window. This novelty so astonished one of the party
that he exclaimed, " By gox ! what 'styordinary things
they de get up nooadays ! Thor'll be ne cayshin noo for
folks te keep hens or cocks owthor. Aa'll they'll want '11
be yen o' them clockin' thingamies ! "
NOTHING IMPOSSIBLE.
This was the subject of a discourse at a revivalist meet-
ing in Gateshead one Sunday night, at which two pitmen,
uncle and nephew, were present. The following morning
the uncle observed to his nephew : " Aye, Josh, aa agree
wi' the preacher chep ; thor's nowt impossible." "Aa
think thoo's wrang," said the other ; " aa could hev tell't
him something that was impossible." "Wey, Josh,
thoo'll sartinleesbe a clivvorer chep then aa tyuk thoo for,
140
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
(March
\ 1891.
ifthoooan de that. Wey, what is't ?" " Aa wad hev
axed him to inyek wor clock strike less nor yen !"
Mr. William Stainsby, post-master of West Hurtlepool,
succumbed to an acute attack of paralysis, on the llth of
January. He was about 55 years of age.
On the 13th of January, the death was announced, as
having taken place at Buninyong, Victoria, Australia,
of Mr. Claude Thomas Stanger, only surviving son of the
late Mr. John Stanger, for many years publisher of the
Newcastle Chronicle,
Mr. Edward Sword, stationmaster at High Shields in
the days of Gearge Hudson, the "Railway King, "and
subsequently stationmaster at Wetheral, died on the 14-th
of January, at the age of 82.
Mr. Peter Borrie Blair, connected with a marine en-
gineering firm at Stockton, died on the 15th of January.
The death took place on the same day of Mr. Robert
Burnside, a member of the Darlington Town Council.
Mr. W. J. Capper, a gentleman well known to the
older generation of commercial travellers, died suddenly,
on the 15th of January, at Hexham, with the religious
and philanthropic institutions of which he had for many
years been intimately identified.
Police-Constable Charles Keene, one of the firemen
who was injured in the disaster at Messrs. Mawson and
Swan's, Mosley Street, Newcastle, died on the 17th of
January, at the Police Barracks, Pilgrim Street, aged 27,
his death being the fourth in connection with that calamity.
(See Monthly Chronicle, 1890, p. 525.)
On the 18th of January, Mrs. Fenwick, widow of Mr.
Henry Fenwick, who sat in the House of Commons as
one of the members for Sunderland from 185+ to 1866,
died at Grasse, Alpes Maritimes. She was a daughter of
Mr. Cookson, of Meldon Park. Mr. Fenwick died on the
25th of April, 1868.
The Rev. T. A. C. Armbrister, late Rector of St.
Thomas's Parish, Middle Island, St. Kitts, West Indies,
and formerly curate at New Seaham, died in Newcastle,
whither he had returned in a state of bad health, on the
19th of January.
On the 22nd of January, the Rev. William Gorst
Harrison, Rector of Easington, died after only a few
days' illness. He was in his 85th year, and was a justice
of the peace for the county of Durham.
On the 23rd of January, the death was announced of
Miss Elizabeth Darling Thompson, of Berwick-on-Tweed.
She was a descendant of an ancient family of Berwick
freemen, and was in the 98th year of her age.
Mr. Thomas White, who formerly carried on an exten-
sive grocery business in Durham under the style of White
Brothers, and who was an ex-Mayor of that city, died
very suddenly on the 24th January, aged 70.
Mr. John James Kayll, J.P., Mayor of Sunderland in
1866, died at Staines, Middlesex, on the 25th January, at
the age of 70.
Mrs. Moses, who for many years had resided in Bridge
Street, Tow Law, and who was stated to have reached the
age of 103 years, died on the 25th of January.
Mr. John Ward, veterinary surgeon, and one of the
oldest standards of Hexham, died there on the 28th of
January, at the age of 68 years.
MB. JOHN DIXON, C.E.
On the 28th of January, Mr. John Dixon, a well-
known engineer, and* a
native of Newcastle,
died at East Croydon,
near London. The de-
ceased gentleman was
the engineer who super-
intended the opera-
tions connected with
the transport of Cleo-
patra's Needle from
Alexandria to London.
He was also prominent-
ly identified with the
construction of the first
railway in China — the
line from Shanghai to
Woosung. Mr. Dixon,
who was 56 years of
age, was related to
Jeremiah Dixon, who
surveyed Mason and
Dixon's Line. (See Monthly Chronicle, 1898, page 245.)
On the 30th of January, Mrs. Macpherson, late of
Ryton, was interred in Elswick Cemetery, Newcastle.
Mrs. Macpherson, who was 88 years old, was a relative of
the famous Dr. Brydon, one of the few survivors of the
crushing disaster which nearly half a century ago felt on
the British army in Afghanistan.
On the 31st of January, Mr. James Crosby Wilson,
who had been in business as a draper in Sunderland for
nearly half a century, and who was a leading Wesleyan
Methodist in that town, died at the age of 69 years.
On the same day died, at the age of 60, Mr. Joseph
Paxton, roper, an "old standard " of Hexham.
Mr. Joseph Temperley, a well-known and highly
respected corn merchant in Newcastle, died at Corbridge,
on the 1st of February, in the 76th year of his age.
On the 2nd of February, Mr. R. T. Wilkinson, one of
the oldest solicitors in Sunderland, died at his residence,
Rose Dene, near the Cedars. In addition to his profes-
sion as a lawyer, he carried on an extensive pottery
business at Southwick, under the title of Messrs. F.
Moore and Co., and he had also held several public
appointments in the district.
Mr. William Thompson, a native of Newcastle, who for
upwards of twenty years acted as Teesside representative
of the Newcastle Chronicle at Middlesbrough, died at
Clifton, York, on the 3rd of February, aged 48.
The death was announced, on the 4th of February, of
Mr. George Barker, of Manor House, Whitwell, near
Darlington. The deceased, who had attained the age of
93 years, was born in the house in which he breathed
his last.
On the 4th of February took place the death of Mr.
Henry Maddison, of Darlington, of the firm of Ord and
Maddison, who was the descendant of an old Weardale
family.
On the 5th of February, the death was reported of the
Rev. £. Wildon Carr, in early years assistant to the Rev.
C. H. Spurgeon, of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, London,
and the pastor, about a quarter of a century ago, of Ryehill
Baptist Chapel, Newcastle.
On the 7th of February, it was stated that there had
just died at Long Lee Farm, near Alnwick, Mr. John
Craven, farmer, at the age of 82 years. The deceased
/March
\ 1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
141
was widely known in agricultural circles, and had, in his
day, performed some marvellous walking feats.
Mr. Joseph Bell Browell, farmer, and a successful
stock-breeder, died at Coldcoats Moor, Ponteland, on the
6th of February.
On the 7th of February, the death was announced of
Mr. Jonathan Wardle, who for the last thirty years had
been a Methodist local preacher throughout the Northern
Counties.
On the 6th of February, the Rev. W. A. Hunter,
second son of Mr. J. G. Hunter, of The Grange, Whick-
ham, died suddenly in London. The deceased, who held
the curacies, successively, of Sedgefield and Chester-le-
Street, was only 29 years of age.
The Rev. J. P. De Pledge, vicar of Satley, in the
diocese of Durham, and chairman of the justices for Lan-
chester and Consett Petty Sessional Divisions, died on
the 9th of February. He was 64 years of age.
at
©crarretuesf.
JANUARY.
11.— The passenger steamship Britannia, trading be-
tween Leith and Newcastle, and the steamer Bear, of
Middlesbrough, were sunk in collision in the Firth of
Forth. Twelve out of a crew of fourteen belonging to
the latter vessel, and the chief engineer of the former,
were drowned.
—In the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, Mr. Robert
McMillan, honorary secretary of the Liverpool Sunday
Society, lectured under the auspices of the Tyneside
Sunday Lecture Society, on '' Morocco and the Moors."
— It was officially announced that the Queen had been
pleased to approve the nomination of the Right Rev.
William Connor Magee, D.D., Bishop of Peterborough,
to the Archbishopric of York. Dr. Magee was born at
Cork, in 1821, his father being the Rev. John Magee.
12. — The river Tyne at Newcastle presented a singular
appearance, the entire surface being covered with large
blocks of ice, which had broken away from the upper
reaches in consequence of the thaw which set in on the
previous day. Traffic on the river was greatly impeded.
— Mr. Edward Browne, son of Sir B. C. Browne,
delivered a lecture on "Persia and the Persians," in the
lecture room of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical
Society, in connection with the Tyneside Geographical
Society.
13.— The body of Mr. George Broderick Corner, ship-
owner, was found drowned on the sands at Seaton
Carew.
—The Right Hon. John Morley, M.P., and Mr. James
Craig, M.P., addressed a meeting of their constituents in
the Town Hall, Newcastle, and received a vote of con-
fidence.
14. — A complimentary dinner was given by his political
friends, in the Grand Assembly Rooms, Barras Bridge,
Newcastle, to Mr. James Joicey, M.P.. the chair being
occupied by Mr. Merley, M.P.
— Between 600 and 700 of the aged poor of Gates-
head were entertained to tea in the Town Hall of that
borough.
— The steamer Carrie, of West Hartlepool, went ashore
at the mouth of the Tees, but the crew were saved.
15. — A memorial tablet, erected by the parishioners to
the past vicars of the parish, from A.D. 1190 to A.D. 1884
(700 years), was dedicated in Newburn Parish Church.
16, — There was a large and fashionable gathering in
the Banqueting Hall, Jesmond Dene, Newcastle, on the
occasion of an entertainment given by several well known
local ladies and gentlemen, in aid of the Diocesan Lodge
and School of Cookery.
17. — A report appeared of the celebration of the goldeu
wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Dickenson, of the
Almshouses, Haydon Bridge.
— The foundation stones of a New Primitive Methodist
Chapel were laid at Throckley.
— On this and the following day the frost and cold were
excessively severe throughout all parts of the North of
England. At the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical
Institution, the lowest reading of the thermometer be-
tween the two evenings showed 14 degrees (Fahr.) The
river Wear at Durham was frozen over for the third time
this winter.
18.— In the absence of Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, M.P.,
who, owing to indisposition, was unable to fulfil his en-
gagement, Dr. Andrew Wilson officiated as Sunday
lecturer at the Tyne Theatre, bis subject being "Germs :
What they do and what they are."
— A demonstration of trades unionists was held in the
Haymarket, Newcastle, to sympathise with the railway
men on strike in Scotland. Mr. T. Burt, M.P., presided,
and among the speakers was Mr. Charles Fenwick, M.P.
19. — An inquest was held at Jarrow touching the death
of Margaret Bell, 59 years ot age, the finding of the jury,
based on the medical evidence, being to the effect that
death was caused by exposure to the cold and want of
nourishment. On the same day a man named John
Samu»l Burlinson, 33 years of age, died from cold at
Sunderland.
— An announcement appeared of the appointment of
Mr. C. C. Moody, of the " Old Guard :> Opera Company,
as manager of the Blyth Theatre, in succession to Mr. R.
Fynes, resigned.
20. — A verdict of manslaughter was returned by a
coroner's jury at Thornley, against Robert Spence, in
connection with the death of his wife, Jane Spence.
— At a meeting of the Gateshead Children's Relief
Committee, it was decided, owing to the prevalence of
suffering through the frost, to supply dinners to dis-
tressed children for a week, the estimated number being
5,500.
— No arrangement having been effected in reference to
the demand by the Cleveland mine owners of a reduction
of 12^ per cent, in wages, the masters decided to serve
notices on the men to terminate their engagements. The
notices were subsequently served accordingly ; but an
amicable settlement was ultimately effected by the ac-
ceptance of a reduction of 5 per cent, for the months of
February and March.
21.— The polling for the election of a member of Parlia-
ment for the Hartlepools, in the room of the late Mr.
T. Richardson (Liberal Unionist), took place. Sir
William Gray, shipbuilder and engineer, was the Liberal
Unionist candidate, while Mr. Christopher Furness, ship-
owner and shipbuilder, came forward as champion of the
Gladstonian Liberals. The poll was declared at 11-40
p.m. by the Mayor, amid a blinding snowstorm, the
142
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/March
\ 1891.
numbers being— for Mr. Furness, 4,603 ; for Sir William
Gray, 4,305. Mr. Furness was accordingly declared duly
elected.
—Madame Trebelli, the famous contralto, sang at a
concert in the Town Hall, Newcastle.
22.— At the annual meeting of the Institute of British
Manufacturers in London, Mr. John Philipson, J.P., was
presented with an illuminated address, to mark the suc-
cess of that gentleman's labours for the modification of
the carriage- tax.
23.— Mr. J. Rose Troup, late of the Emin Pasha Expe-
dition, delivered a lecture in the Town Hall, Newcastle,
under the auspices of the Tyneside Geographical Society,
his subject being " Stanley's Rear Column."
—Mary Turnbull, aged 12; Matthew Turnbull, 9
(brother and sister) ; and Thomas Simpson, 12 years,
were drowned by the giving way of the ice, on which they
were sliding, in a disused quarry 'at Tughall Lodge,
Belford.
24. — The sawmill connected with the premises of
Messrs. Sopwith and Co., cabinet makers, upholsterers,
and mahogany merchants, Sandyford Road, Newcastle,
was destroyed by fire.
— Mr. William Cowell, ironmonger, was elected as
member for Jesmond Ward, in the Newcastle City
Council, in the room of Mr. R. H. Holmes, promoted to
the position of Alderman. The unsuccessful candidate
was Mr. C. D. Hill, and the contest was the first in the
ward since its separation from «Byker.
25.— An interesting discussion on the question "Why
does the working man not attend church ?" took place,
on the invitation of the Rev. Mr. Walsh, in the Rye Hill
Baptist Church, Newcastle. Several members of the
local Trades Council and certain Nonconformist ministers
took part. On the following Sunday (Feb. 1) the ques-
tion was dealt with from pulpits by several Noncon-
formist ministers.
— Sir James Crichton-Browne M.D., LL.D., F.R.S.,
and formerly physician at Coxlodge Asylum, Newcastle,
delivered a lecture in the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, in
connection with the Sunday Lecture Society. The subject
was " Brain Rust."
26. — The anniversary of the birth of the Scottish poet,
Robert Burns (Jan. 25) having fallen on Sunday, the
event was celebrated to-night, under the auspices of the
Newcastle and Tyneside Burns Club, by a dinner and
varied entertainment in the County Hotel, Newcastle.
The chair was occupied by Dr. Adam Wilson. Dr. J.
W. Smith, Ryton, gave the toast of "The Memory of
Burns," while that of "The Scottish Peasantry" was
proposed by Sir James Crichton-Browne. There were
also commemorative gatherings at Gateshead and in
other parts of the North of England.
— Mr. Valentine Smith commenced a season, extending
over three weeks, of English opera in the Town Hall,
Newcastle.
—At a meeting held in York of the committee
appointed for the purpose of raising a memorial to the
late Archbishop Thomson, it was decided that a monu-
mental effigy of the prelate be placed in York Minster.
—Dr. Walsham How, Bishop of Wakefield, took part
in the proceedings connected with the annual meeting of
the Newcastle Diocesan Society for the Protection of
Women and Children ; and on the following day he also
spoke at the annual meeting of the Newcastle Diocesan
Society. The Bishop of Newcastle presided on both
occasions. On the latter evening, Dr. Walsham How
preached a sermon in St. Nicholas's Cathedral, New-
castle, on behalf of the Diocesan Home for Waifs and
Strays at Netherton.
— A verdict of manslaughter was returned at Sunder-
land against a woman called Mary Ann Quinn, who was
alleged to have caused the death of another woman
named Martha Armstrong.
27. — The result was declared of the election, on the
previous day, of seven members for Wingate School
Board, the poll being headed by Mr. T. Watson, mining
engineer, Trimdon.
— At a Convocation at Durham, the degree of Doctor
of Divinity was conferred upon the Rev. W. E. Nowell,
vicar of St. Onthbert's, Newcastle.
— Herr Bernard Stavenhagen, the German pianist,
gave a recital in the Grand Assembly Rooms, Barras
Bridge, Newcastle.
28.— The Rev. J. P. Glen was ordained to the pastorate
of St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, Westoe Road, South
Shields.
— Mr. J. L. Wharton, M.P., Chairman of Durham
Quarter Sessions, was privately presented with a portrait
of himself by the magistrates and members of the
Durham County Council
—The Rev. Father Magill, head-master of St. Cuth-
bert's Grammar School, Newcastle, was presented, on the
occasion of his leaving the district, with an illuminated
address and a purse of gold.
29. — A new bridge over the river Wear at Pensher was
opened for public use by the Earl of Durham. The
structure cost about £8,000, which was raised partly by
the county and local authorities, and partly by private
subscriptions.
— The nave and transepts of Durham Cathedral were
illuminated, for the first time, with the electric light.
The Cathedral, on the Sunday following (February 1),
was illuminated by the new light.
—About this time a large number of cattle were killed
on farms near Stockton, owing to an outbreak of pleuro-
pneumonia.
— A strike, which had existed for six months, was
brought to an end at Coanwood Colliery by the accept-
ance on the part of the men of the masters' terms.
30. — Mr. W. T. Scarth, of Staindrop, was entertained
to a banquet, in celebration of the jubilee of his official
connection with the estates of the Duke of Cleveland.
31. — A woman named Hetty Howells, aged" 52, was
burned to death by the explosion of a paraffin lamp at
Middlesbrough.
—Mr. Peter Applegarth was returned at the head of
the poll, on the occasion of the triennial election of five
members to serve on the Penshaw and Offerton United
District School Board.
31. — As the outcome of suggestions made in Robin
Goodfellow's gossip in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle the
natives of Tyneside resident in Birmingham, to the
number of 44, held a social dinner at the Swan Hotel,
New Street, in that town. The chair was occupied by
Mr. Walter D. Welford, son of Mr. Richard Welford,
author of " Men of Mark 'Twixt Tyne and Tweed." Mr.
J. H. Elliott (of Tangye's) officiated as vice-chairman.
FEBRUARY.
1. — Miss Menie Muriel Dowie, a grand-daughter of the
March 1
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
143
late Robert Chambers, the well-known Edinburgh pub-
lisher, delivered the weekly Sunday evening lecture at the
Tyne Theatre, her subject being. "All by Myself in
Poland."
2. — At a special meeting of the members of the Tyne-
side Geographical Society, it was unanimously resolved
to purchase Barras Bridge Presbyterian Church, New-
castle, for the purposes of the society, the sum agreed to be
paid being £3,500, with £50 off for repairs and painting.
— It was intimated that Mr. Thomas Burt, M.P., had
been elected an honorary member of the Eighty Club.
3. — A miner named Thomas Watson, 50 years of age,
•was knocked down and killed by a mineral train between
Bishop Auckland and Hunwick. On the previous day,
two men named John Moore and John Stones met their
deaths in a similar manner, on the railway, near to the
same place.
4.— The Rev. W. M. Macdonald was ordained as pastor
of St. Stephen's Pres-
byterian Church, North
Bridge Street, Sunder-
land, in the Presbytery
of Newcastle. Under
the auspices of the same
Presbytery, on the fol-
lowing day, the Rev.
Joseph Eorke, of Ber-
wick-on-Tweed, was in-
ducted to the pastorate
of Heaton Presbyterian
Church, Newcastle.
5. — The annual din.
ner of the Bewick Club
was held in the Exhibi-
tion Rooms, Pilgrim
Street, Newcastle, the
chair being occupied by
BEV. JOSEPH HOEKE. Mr. H. H. Emmerson,
and the vice-chairs by Mr. Ralph Hedley and Mr.
Robert Jobling. On the following evening, in the presence
of a large assemblage, the eighth annual exhibition of
pictures was formally opened by the Earl of Carlisle.
The exhibition was pronounced to be one of the best and
finest held in connection with the club.
—The honorary freedom of the borough of Stockton
was conferred upon Major Robert Ropner, shipowner and
shipbuilder, in recognition of his gift of a site of 36 acres
of land, at a cost to himself of £8,250, for the purposes of
a public park for the borough.
—A conversazione for poor folk, promoted by Mr. T. S.
Alder, took place in the Royal Jubilee Schools, City
Road. Newcastle.
7.— The Rev. A. D. Shafto tendered his resignation as
chairman of the Durham Board of Guardians.
— The first of a series of lectures arranged by the re-
cently formed Newcastle Health Society, was delivered
in the lecture theatre of the Literary and Philosophical
Society, by Dr. William Murray, the subject being
" Eating and Drinking." The chair was occupied by the
ex-Mayor, Mr. Thomas Bell, and there was a crowded
audience. (See vol. 1890, p. 479.)
— The miners of Northumberland, through their official
agents, agreed to accept a reduction of 1| per cent, in
their wages.
8. — Damage to the estimated extent of £2.000 was
done by a fire which broke out in the premises of Mr.
Rees, furniture dealer, Middlegate, Hartlepool.
— At the services held in Bath Lane Church, New-
castle, a letter was read from Mr. Alfred Dennis Jeffrey,
student at Bradford United College, intimating his
acceptance of the call to the pastorate of that church, as
the successor of the late Dr. J. H. Rutherford.
— The subject of the lecture delivered at the Tyne
Theatre, under the auspices of the Tyneside Sunday Lec-
ture Society, was " Pom-
peii, the City of the
Dead," and 'the lecturer
was Mr. Whitworth
Wallis, F.S.A.. F.R.G.S.,
Director of the Birming-
ham Art Gallery and
Museum. The accom-
panying portrait is copied
from a photograph by Mr.
Harold Baker, 58, New
Street, Birmingham.
— A miner named
William Douglas, 28 years
of age, was killed by fall-
ing over the cliffs at Mars-
den.
9. — It was announced
that probate had been
granted of the will of the
late Mr. Robert Spence,
of Rosella Place, North Shields, and of the firm of
Hodgkin, Barnett, Spence and Co., bankers, the personal
estate being valued at £70,232. The personalty under
the will of the late Mr. Christian Rudolph Fernando
Thiedmann, of The Cedars, Low Fell, Durham, was
stated, at the same time, to have been sworn at
£31,612.
ME. WHITWORTH WALLIS.
144
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I March
\ 1891.
— The members of the Northern Amateur Thespian
Society gave a successful performance of Gilbert and
Sullivan's opera, "H.M.S. Pinafore," in the Circus,
Northumberland Road (formerly Bath Road), Newcastle,
on behalf of the Aged Female Society, and an amateur
dramatic performance, repeated on the following evening,
was given in the Banqueting Hall, Jesmond Dene, New-
castle, in aid of the Diocesan Lodge and School of
Cookery, Ridley Place.
—The Rev. R. T. Talbot delivered the last of a series of
six lectures in Newcastle on the English Reformation.
— A reduction of five per cent, was accepted in the
wages of the Weardale quarrymen.
10.— The usual Shrove Tuesday game of football at
Chester-le-Street was brought to an abrupt termination
by the sudden fall of a wooden bridge over the river
Cone, the whole of the people on the structure having
been precipitated into the water, and one of them, a
boy, being severely injured.
<§eiural Occurrences.
JANUARY.
10.— News received of the revolt of the Chilian navy
against the Government. Several towns were bom-
barded.
It. —In the course of a dispute between the Speaker of
the Colorado House of Representatives and certain of the
members, three officials were shot, one fatally.
15. — It was announced that the Indian War in America
had come to an end.
18. — An infuriated cow ran into a schoolyard at Nant-
wich, where a number of children were awaiting the
opening of the doors of the school, and attacked them
ferociously. Some of the children were caught on the
animal's horns and tossed about in all directions, whilst
others were trampled upon. Although forty of the little
ones were severely injured, none was killed.
20. — David Kalakana, first King of Hawaii, died at San
Francisco, where he was temporarily residing for the
benefit of his health, aged 55.
— About this time the cold was very severe in England
and on the Continent. In some places 25 degrees of frost
were registered.
23. — Death of Prince Baldwin, eldest son of the heir-
apparent to the throne of Belgium, aged 22.
— Death of Mr. George Bancroft, American historian.
—Owing to the publicity given by the newspapers to
the fact that the cause of death of the Duke of Bedford
had been withheld from the public, the registrar's cer-
tificate of cause of death was published, showing that his
grace had committed suicide on the 14th whilst suffering
from temporary insanity.
24.— Pierre Vladimiroff, a youthful Russian adventurer,
was convicted at Versailles, France, of the murder of a
well-to-do and beautiful widow. He was sentenced to
twenty years' penal servitude, and ten years' police super-
vision. The trial caused a great sensation.
— A colliery explosion took place in the Hibernia coal
pit, Gelsenkirchen, Westphalia, Prussia, and more than
forty men were killed.
—Death of Mr. John Hampden, a well-known advocate
of the theory that the earth is flat.
27. — Over a hundred miners lost their lives through an
explosion of firedamp at the H. C. Frick Coke Company.'s
works at Mammoth, United States.
— The performance of M. Victorien Sardou's great
play, "Thermidor, I: produced at the Theatre Francais,
Paris, on the 24th, was stopped by order of the French
Government in response to popular clamour.
—A resolution to expunge from the journals of the
House of Commons the resolution of June 22, 1880, that
Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, M.P., be not permitted to take
the oath or make affirmation was accepted by the
Government and unanimously adopted by the House.
Mr. Bradlaugh, who was lying dangerously ill at the
time, never knew what had been done, and died four
days-later.
30. — It was announced that the great strike on the
Scotch railways had collapsed, the men having returned
to work.
— A revolt broke out among the troops of- the garrison
at Oporto, Severe fighting occurred in the streets, and
several people were killed.
— M. Meissonier, the famous painter, died at Paris,
aged 76.
— In consequence of a severe defeat in the Italian
Parliament, Signor Crispi placed his resignation in the
hands of King Humbert.
FEBRUARY.
1. — A mob of miners surrounded a negro cabin at the
Carbon Hill Coal Mines, Alabama, U.S., and shot nine of
the inmates.
2. — It was reported in connection with the revolution
in Chili, that a great battle had been fought, and that
Valparaiso had been captured by the Government
troops.
3, — Eyraud, the murderer of M. Gouffe, was guillotined
at Paris.
— The funeral of Mr. Bradlaugh took place at the
Necropolis, Brookwood, Woking. Three special trains
were run from London to convey the large number of
people who attended. The burial took place without any
c«remony.
7. — A dispute in connection with the shipping industry
was commenced at Hull. The struggle was between the
Shipping Federation and the sailors' unions.
10. — A new Ministry assumed office in Italy under the
Marchese di Rudini.
— A petition respecting the treatment of the Jews in
Russia sent by the Lord Mayor of London to the Czar
was returned without comment.
Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling-on-Tyne.
ZTbe
Chronicle
OF
NORTH<:OUNTRY*LORE*AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 50.
APRIL, 1891.
PRICE 6a
" Ecrltrmt
tlje
HE "BOLDON BUKE" is a Survey of the
possessions of the See of Durham, made in
1183 by order of Hugh Pudsey, the powerful
and magnificent prelate of the time. More
than a quarter of a century ago, it was edited by the E«v.
William Greenwell, M.A., now Canon Greenwell. for the
Surtees Society, and forms the twenty-fifth volume of its
imaluable series of publications.
" Boldon Buke," which (says the editor in his preface)
" may be called the Domesday of the Palatinate," derives
its name from the village of Boldon, near Sunderland, in
the county of Durham. The services and returns of
many of the Bishop's manors were the same; and the
compilers, after enumerating those services and returns
under Boldon, when the same occurred elsewhere during
the progress of the inquisition, were satisfied to describe
them as the same with those of Boldon. The name of
Boldon, therefore, repeatedly occurring, the record itself
became popularly spoken of as the " Buke of Boldon." It
sets forth, in its opening words, that at the feast of St.
Cuthbert in Lent (March 20), 1183, the Lord Bishop of
Durham, in his own presence and that of his Council,
caused to be described all the revenues of his whole
bishopric as they then were, and the assised rents and
customs as they then were, and formerly had been. The
Bishop (or Count Palatine) of Durham sat in his Council
as a King. The crosier fell little short of the sceptre in
this remote diocese; and the Boldon Buke presents us
with a picture of the episcopal dominions north of the
Tees in the early time of the Plantagenets ; although,
10
from the nature of the survey, the free tenants of the
Bishopric come but slightly into view.
Before copying any portion of it, we propose to make
an extract or two from the editor's Glossary, thus pre-
paring the way for a better understanding of the Buke.
Interpreting the word " Villa " of the ancient manu-
script (the original of which is lost, copies only remain-
ing), Canon Greenwell says : — " A vill, village, town, or
hamlet. It appears to have borne much resemblance to
the village of a German tribe. The house of each villan.
cottar, or farmer was situated in a toft, with one or more
crofts adjoining, the houses being in this way separated
from each other. Many of our villages still show the
old form, each cottage standing apart in its garden, and
backed by a small close, the croft. In some villages there
was also the demesne house (aula) of the lord, and the
dwellings of one or more free tenants, perhaps not much
superior in convenience and accommodation to the
cottages of the servile holder. Attached to the village,
with its enclosed parcels of ground, was the common
field, where each tenant had his own portion of acres
of arable land under the name of oxgangs ; and be-
yond that was the pasture, where the cattle fed in
common, under the charge of the village herd. In some
cases there was also the lord's waste or forest, in which
his tenants had various rights of pasturage, swine feeding,
and cutting turf and fire-wood. At the period when
Boldon Buke was compiled, the aspect of the country
must have differed widely from its present one. In the
midst of moorland or extensive woods, there was every
146
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I April
[ 1891.
here and there the large open pasture and cultivated field
of each village, without hedge or any division, save a
strip of grass, called now in East Yorkshire a balk, whicn
bordered each tenant's holding ; and by the side of the
stream, or where the best land lay, snugly ensconced each
in their little fields with their hedgerow trees, rose the
cottages of the humble tillers of the soil, clustering round
and sheltered by the hall of their lord. Each village had
its herd for looking after the stock of whatever kind,
its pounder for taking care of stray cattle, and its smith
and carpenter. All the people were the servants of the
lord ; and in return for the work they rendered him,
they had each his little holding, whinh provided for the
daily wants of the family."
Having copied this pen-and-ink sketch of the old Eng-
lish village, we have only now to quote from the Glossary,
in addition, some portion of the two pages dedicated to
" Villenagium, Villanus" — "probably from villa, the
village in which the villan lived." "The villans formed
that large class, including under this general name cot-
men, bondtenants, and farmers, the members of whichi
though not slaves, and holding under the lord some smal
portion of land, had neither a permanent interest in the
land, nor could be called freemen. They have been
divided into villans regardant, those attached to the land,
and villans in gross, those attached to the lord's person,
and transferable by him to another. No real distinction,
however, seems to have existed ; and this distinction
probably originated from confounding the villan with the
serf, who was a mere personal slave, and had no interest,
even of a temporary nature, in the land. The villan
could not leave his lord's estate, nor, indeed, give up
the land he held under him : he was a servant for life,
receiving as wages enough of land to support himself and
family. If he left his lord, he could be recovered as a
stray, unless he had lived meanwhile for a year and a
day in a privileged town or borough, in which case he
obtained his freedom. He could accumulate no property,
everything he possessed being his lord's. His services
consisted of servile work done by himself and his house-
hold on the lord's demesne land ; such as ploughing,
harrowing, mowing and reaping, carting dung, and all
other agricultural operations. These could be changed
at any time by the lord, though they naturally had a
tendency to become of a permanent and settled character,
and in the end became regular and stated in quantity and
time. We see indications of this in Boldon Buke ; in
fact, every entry there relating to the village shows a
settled system of services, such as we should look for
under the circumstances." We further learn that "the
villan could not marry his daughter without the lord's
leave " ; that the " children of villans inherited their
father's condition " ; that in course of time the villan
" became the copyholder of later days ; so that, as Coke
expresses it, copyhold, though of mean descent, is of a
very ancient house." "The villan, indeed, could acquire
no property in goods or land ; for, being himself the
property of his lord, all that he acquired was the lord's.
But being allowed to hold land, himself and his children,
ior many years without interruption, the common law
gave him the title to hold his land on rendering the accus-
tomed services, or on payment of the money for which
these services had been commuted. This title the villans
possessed only by custom, as shown in the roll of the
lord's court; and from this manner of holding by copy or
court roll, they became ultimately in name and effect
copyholders."
Tilling the grateful soil, these villans of England were
sowing the seeds of freedom of which the laureate sings
in his oft-quoted lines; and to their patient toil and
persevering endeavour — their onward efforts and upward
striving — their descendants are indebted in the present
day. Let us see how many of them were in Boldon,
and how they were employed in 1183, when the Buke
was compiled.
" In Boldon," says the Survey, " are 22 villans, of
whom each one holds two oxgangs of 30 acres, and
renders 2s. 6d. of scatpennies, and half a scatchalder of
oats, and 16d. of averpennies " (a payment by the tenant
in lieu of service by horse or ox, or carriage with either),
" and five cart-loads of woodlades " (wood for fuel), " and
two hens and 10 eggs, and works three days in the week
through the whole year, except the week of Easter and
Pentecost, and the 13 days of the Nativity of our Lord ;
and during his work he makes in autumn four precations "
(boon days of the tenant to his lord) " to reap with all his
house, except the housewife. Moreover, he reaps three
roods of averipe " (oats ready for cutting), " and he
ploughs and harrows three roods of averere " (oat
stubble?) "and, moreover, each plough of the villans
ploughs and harrows two acres ; and then for once they
shall have the corrody " (food, a meal, whence "crowdy ")
"of the Bishop; and then they are quit of the work of
that week. But always when they make the great
precations they have a corrody ; and in their works they
harrow when there shall be need ; and they make cart-
loads ; and when they make them, each has one loaf ; and
they mow one day at Houghton till the evening, and then
they have a corrody; and at the fairs of St. Cuthbert
every two villans make one booth ; and when they make
the lodges and cart woodlades, then they are quit of other
works. Twelve cotmen, of whom each one holds 12
acres, work through the whole year two days a week,
except at the three above-named feasts ; and they render
12 hens and 60 eggs. Robert holds two oxgangs of 37
acres, and renders half a marc. The pounder holds 12
acres, and has from each one plough one thrave of corn ;
and renders 24- hens and 500 eggs. The mill renders five
marcs and a half. The villans ought to make every year
in their work, if there shall be need, one house of the
length of 40 feet, and the width of 15 feet ; and then,
when they make it, each one is quit of 4d. of averpennies.
April \
1:91. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
147
The whole town renders 17s. of cornage" (payment in
•commutation of a return of cattle}, "and one cow in
milk. The demesne is at farm with a stock of four
ploughs and four harrows, and renders for two ploughs 16
chalders of wheat, and 16 chalders of oats, and 8 chalders
of barley ; and for two other ploughs, 10 marcs. John
the baker holds Newton, near Boldon, for 20s. per
annum. In Newton, near Boldon, 12 mailmen" (inferior
tenants as opposed to those who held in free tenure or
drengage) "holds 24 oxgangs, each one of 15 acres ; and
they render, for every two oxgangs, 5s. of farm rent, and
two hens and 20 eggs ; and they plough and harrow at
Boldon each one one acre ; and they make for every two
oxgangs four precations in autumn with two men. The
wife of Henry de Montanis holds 40 acres for 40d."
In this one community, which existed within little
more than a century after the Conquest, we have a
representation pretty nearly of the whole. The view is
not perfect, Select as we may, we cannot make it so.
But a few more extracts will lessen its imperfections; and
-we begin with the Cathedral City. Durham had mills
and a bakehouse. " Reginald the fuller" was among the
holders of the land. "The dies of the mint used to
render 10 marcs ; but the Lord King Henry the Second,
by means of the dies which he placed in Newcastle for
the first time, reduced the rent of 10 marcs to 3, and in
the end took away the dies which had been in use many
years before that time." Currency was coined in the
county. " The son of William the moneyer holds Stella
by the proper boundaries which the Bishop caused to be
ridden for him ; and he renders one marc tor land which
•belonged to Meldred, son of Dolfin."
There was coining of money and winning of coal.
"Coals" repeatedly occur. "In Wearmouth and Tun-
stall are 22 villans. * * The carpenter, who is an old
man, has for his life 12 acres for making ploughs and
harrows. The smith, 12 acres for the iron-work of the
ploughs, and coal which he wins." He must win it for
himself. The coal-trade, if it had begun, was in its
infancy ; and the smith of the Wear must supply his
forge with his own hands. The smith at Sedgfield must
•do the same: he has an oxgang of land "for the iron-
work of the ploughs, which he makes ; and he finds
•coals." In the Auckland district (whose mineral riches
led to the project of a canal in the last century and of a
•railroad in a later day) was "a certain collier" in the
reign of Henry II. He had for neighbours Elzibred, and
Alan Picundrac, and Umfrid the carter ; but, unfor-
tunately, his own name is not given. All we know
of this primitive " carbonarius " is that " he held one toft
and one croft and four acres, and found coal for making
the iron-work of the ploughs of Coundon." A tenant of
Bishop Pudsey in the year 1183, he is the historic father
of the coal trade of South Durham— the earliest coal-
miner of our acquaintance in the district which gave
birth to the passenger railway.
The Survey has mention, also, of the weaver and the
dyer, the architect and the mason. Craftsmen of various
kinds were numerous ; and those of them who were
tenants of the Bishop were not required to render him the
wonted service for their holdings while he employed them
in their several callings. "In South Sherburn, Christian
the mason holds 60 acres, which the Bishop gave him out
of the moor, for 5s., and two oxgangs which were Arkill's
for 14d. ; but he shall be quit of these payments so long as
he is in the Bishop's service for mason-work." In Stan-
hope, " Lambert the marble-cutter" has "30 acres for his
services, so long as he shall be in the Bishop's service; and
when he shall have left the Bishop's service, he renders
two besants, or 4s." This marble mason of the twelfth
century, remarks the editor, doubtless provided the
columns of Frosterley marble with which Pudsey adorned
his chapel of the Galilee at Durham. " Richard the
architect" (ingeniator), who occurs under Newton, near
Durham, " was a man of some note in his profession. He
was employed by the Bishop about the repair of Norham
Castle."
Expert and ingenious were the men of England in the
time of the great-grandson of the Conqueror. The mas-
sive Keep at Newcastle is a proof with what knowledge
and ability they could build. It has kept its ground seven
centuries, and is strong enough to hold it for centuries
more. They could build for successive generations ; and
they could cleverly contrive for the wants of the passing
day. There were valiant trenchermen in the Bishopric,
and skilful workmen to supply them with platters by the
thousands. In Wolsingham, where "Ralph the bee-
keeper" had six acres for his services at the hive, there
were also three turners, holding 17 acres: "and they
rendered 3,100 trenchers, and make four precations and
assist in mowing the meadows and making the hay."
They were handy alike at the scythe, the hayfork, and the
lathe ; and " the monk cook " of North Auckland would
be among their customers for wooden plates.
The "great chase" had. rare attractions for lord and
tenant. It roused the people of the Brishopric to high
excitement. There is constant allusion to it in Pudsey's
record : — "Little Usworth, which William holds, renders
10s., and carts wine with eight oxen, and goes in the great
chase with two greyhounds." "Plausworth, which Simon
Vitulus holds, renders 20s., and carts wine with eight
oxen, and goes in the great chase with two greyhounds."
"Little Burdon, which John de Houghton holds, renders
10s,, and carts wine with four oxen, and goes in the great
chase with two greyhounds." William de Hertburne
"goes in the great chase with two greyhounds." In the
time of the hunt, the Bishop encamps in the forest, a
sylvan Nimrod. His tenants and subjects surround him
with every necessary appliance for the sport. "All the
villans " of Stanhope "made at the great hunts a kitchen
and larder, and a kennel ; and they find a settle in the
hall, and in the chapel and in the chamber, and carry all
148
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
t A'.ril
\ 1891.
the Bishop's corrody from Wolsingham to the lodges."
"All the villans of Aucklandshire to wit, of North
Auckland and West Auckland, and Escomb and New-
ton, find at the great hunts of the Bishop, for each
oxgang, one rope, and make the Bishop's hall in the
forest, of the length of sixty feet, and of a
breadth within the posts of sixteen feet, with a
buttery and hatch, and a chamber, and a privy ; alsu
they make a chapel of the length of 40 feet, and of the
breadth of 15 feet; and they have a charity 2s; and they
make their part of the fence round the lodges ; and they
have on the Bishop's departure a whole ton of beer, or a
half one, if it shall remain ; and they guard the aeries of
hawks which are in the district of Ralph the Crnfty ; and
they make 18 booths at the fair of St. Cuthbert. More-
over, all the villans and farmers attend the roe-hunt at
the summons of the Bishop, and at the mills of Auckland-
shire." The district of Ralph the Crafty, where hawks
were bred and trained for a favourite amusement of the
day, is indicated further on, viz. : — "Ralph the Cratfy
holds Frosterley for half-a-marc."
There was beer in the forest by the ton when the chase
was on foot. It was a drink that contributed to the ex-
chequer. We find it mentioned under "Norton " in asso-
ciation with a milder beverage: — "The toll of beer at
Norton renders 3s. ; and the whole town renders two cows
in milk," Stockton, Preston, and Herteburne each render-
ing one cow in milk. The Stockton tenants comprised
Adam, son of Walter ; William de Tumba ; Elwin, and
Robert, and Goderin, cotmen ; and Suan the smith.
Hertburne had "Alan, son of Osbert." He "holds one
oxgang : and renders and works as one of the 20 farmers
of Norton, as much as pertains to one oxgang." At
Preston were Walter ; Adam, son of Walter de Stockton ;
Orm, son of Tok ; William, son of Utting ; and Richard
Rund. At Carlton, Gerebod and Helias ; Walter the
miller ; Summina, a widow ; and William, son of Orm ;
the mill of Carlton rendering "20 skeps of wheat, after
the measure of Yarm." "The passage over the water''
at Stockton "renders 20d."
The "cotmen" of the Tees, Robert and Elwin and
Goderin, are members of a large class of occupiers. Cot-
men, or cottagers, holding land and making return, are of
common occurrence in Boldon Buke : — " In Newbottle are
16 cotmen, of whom each one holds 12 acres, and works
through the whole year two days in the week, and makes
in his work four precations in autumn with his whole
house, except the housewife, and renders one hen and
five eggs. And three other cotmen, of whom each one
holds six acres, and works from Pentecost to the feast of
St. Martin two days in the week." Other holders of land
in Newbottle are John, son of Heluric ; the bailiff and the
pounder; and the smith, with "12 acres for his service."
" In Houghton are 13 cotmen, who hold, work, and render
as those of Newbottle, and three other half cotmen, who
work as the above-named three of Newbottle." Houghton
has also, besides bailiff, and pounder, and smith, a car-
penter, with "one toft and four acres for his service."
The good feeling of the episcopal landlord is shown in
the case of Elstan the dreng. The " dreng " was a sort of
half-freeman, midway between the free tenant and the
villan, being the lowest holder who had a permanent
interest in the land. The term (as we further learn from
Mr. Greenwell's Glossary) comes from the Anglo-Saxon
"dreogan, to do, work, bear; the root of our English,
word drudge." The "dreng" of West Auckland "held
four oxgangs, and rendered 10s>, and he makes three
precations in autumn with all bis men, except his own
house ; and he has ploughed and harrowed two acres, and
he used to go on the Bishop's errands between Tyne and
Tees at his own cost, and he used to find four oxen to cart
wine, and the land is now in the hands of the Lord
Bishop until the son of Elstan shall be grown up. Of
that land the Lord Bishop has let 12 acres to the wife of
Elstan, free of charge, to maintain her children ; and the
residue of that land renders 13s. of farm rent, and makes
the other services which Elstan used to make." Pudsey
was at once merciful and magnificent ; he was gentle as
well as proud and powerful ; the widow and the fatherless
were considered in the administration of his affairs. Let
his kindness to the family of Elstan be kept in grateful
memory.
The service of many of the tenants of the county pala-
tine extended to the running of their lord's errands.
"Elfer de Burden," holding two oxgangs of land on the
Wear, "renders 8s., and goes on the Bishop's errands."
Easington and Thorp had thirty-one villans ; two of
whom were Galfrid Cokesmahc and Simon, each holding
half a ploughland, and rendering 10s., and going the
Bishop's errands. At Shotton was another of bis lord-
ship's messengers, " William the lorimer " (a smith
forging bits, spurs, and other metal furniture of the-
horse). At Darlington, "Osbert Kate holds two oxgangs,
for which Gilbert used to render 8s. ; and they now
render for the same, with the increase of four acres, 10s.,
and go on errands." " Geoffrey Joie, 20 acres for 40d. ;
and he goes on the Bishop's errands."
The Survey of 1183 conjures up an animated scene of
daily life in the Darlington district. The villans of
Darlington, holding 40 oxgangs, at the rate of 5s. an
oxgang, "ought to mow the whole of the Bishop's
meadows, and make the Bishop's hay, and lead it, and
once to have a corrody ; and to enclose the copse and the
court, and to make the works which they were accus-
tomed to make at the mills ; and for each one bovate "
(oxgang), " one cartload of woodlades ; and to make
cartloads on the Bishop's journeys ; and also three cart-
loads in the year to cart wine, and herrings, and salt.
Four cotmen render 3s., and assist in making the hay-
cocks, and carry fruit, and work at the mill for their
tofts." A smith is named; and also Odo, holding land
"where the beech mast was sown." The pounder holds
Anrill
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
149
nine acres, and has thraves like the others, and renders
100 hens and 500 eggs. The boroughs, dyers, and bake-
houses render 10 marcs. "William holds Oxenhajl," and
has the "horse mill," and "keeps a dog and a horse for
the fourth part of the year, and carts wine with four
oxen, and makes utware when it shall be laid un the
Bishopric." (He makes "utware"; he renders service
"out of or beyond the boundaries of that territory to
which the word haliwere was applied ; in other terms,
beyond the Tyne or Tees." ffaliwerfolc were "the men
of the palatinate of Durham who held their lands by the
service of protecting and defending the body of St.
Cuthbert, and who were not obliged to cross the Tyne or
Tees, in defence of the kingdom at large, against their
will.") "The mill of Burdon, for keeping up the mill-
dam, which is raised on the land of Haughton, 12s."
Adam do Selby, who " holds to farm the demesne " of
Little Haughten, "shall find at Darlington a litter for
the Lord Bishop on his journeys." At Blackwell,
"Robert the Ruddy, for a small parcel of ground near
the Tees," pays 6d. Here we have " Robert the Ruddy "
on the Tees ; "Richard the Ruddy " occurs at Stanhope ;
and "Ralph the Crafty " holds Frosterley.
The miller and the mill, the millstone and the milldam
come repeatedly before us. There is mention of a horse-
mill. Horse-power and water-power are in requisition for
the grinding of corn. Whether or not the wind was
utilized by the millers of the diocese, does not appear. In
reviving the landscape of Pudsey's period with the aid of
his "Buke," we do not see it animated in imagination by
the revolving sail of the mill. But, further on in the
Surtees Society's volume, we come to the "Roll of Bishop
Bee" (1307); and there, at Norton, the windmill appears,
with a Scotch carpenter (Robert de Tevydale) plying his
craft in its moving shadows.
We have only now to pick from the pages, as the leaves
are turned over one by one, a series of cabinet sketches :
— "Chester, with the villans and the demesne without
stock, and with the fisheries, and the mill of the
said town, renders 24 marcs." Urpeth "repairs a
moiety of the milldam and house of the mill of
Chester, with the men of Chester." "Birtley and Trib-
ley render 20s., and attend the great chase with two grey-
hounds." "The villans of South Biddick hold their town
at farm, and render £5, and find 160 men to reap in
autumn, and 36 carts to lead corn at Houghton." " Gatull
the smith holds 16 acres " in North Auckland " for one
pound of pepper ; and his heirs for 2s., or two pigs." At
West Sleekburne, "Patrick renders one pound of pepper. "
" Robert do Yolton holds the land which was the hermit's
on the Derwent, and renders one besaut, or 2s." " Eudo
de Lascelles holds one ploughland of 120 acres in Farnacres
for the tenth part of one knight's fee." " Sunderland is
at farm, and renders 100s. Roger de Audry renders for
the milldam built on the land at Sunderland one marc."
"The dreng" at Button " feeds a dog and a horse, and
carts one ton of wine and a millstone to Durham, and
attends the pleas" (the Bishop's Courts), "and goes on
messages."
Generations have come and gone since the Count
Palatine sat in council at the feast of St. Cuthbert, count-
ing up his revenues, and setting forth the rents and
customs of his Bishopric; he and his colleagues and
tenants have passed away ; but owners and occupiers have
continued to succeed in long procession, and "the earth
abideth for ever."
Clavfce, SCtttftnr 0f
[OLLECTORS of Newcastle literature occa-
sionally come across a volume of 300 pages
containing satirical essays written in the
style of the "Spectator, "and entitled "The
Saunterer, a Periodical Paper. By Hewson Clarke. New-
castle : Printed by K. Anderson for the author, 1805."
Perusal of the book excites interest in the author, and the
question naturally arises, " Who was Hewson Clarke ?"
Resort is made to the usual sources of local biography, but
nothing is found there. Local annalists, chroniclers, and
historians ignore He. vson Clarke — all except Mackenzie,
and he snaps him off in seven lines. To ascertain what
manner of man the author of "The Saunterer" was, we turn
to the files of theTyne Mercury, in which paper the majority
of the essays appeared. There we find a full and minute
biographical sketch of Hewson Clarke, and discover at the
same time that nearly all of it was written by himself.
Below is a copy of the article, with a continuation by Mr.
W. A. Mitchell, the editor of the paper.
RICHARD WELFOBD.
Hewson Clarke was born at Maryport, in Cumberland,
in 1787. His father was an innkeeper in Maryport, who
received a decent competence from the profits of his
trade. In the year 1791, Hewson was sent to the com-
mon day school of the place, where he attained a tolerable
knowledge of his mother tongue and of penmanship.
After various removals of his family and himself, which
prevented the complete gratification of his desire for
reading, they fixed their residence at Workington.
There he pursued a course of reading perhaps unparal-
leled. He rose at 7 in the morning, and after the first
duties of the day were over, secluded himself from the
observation of his friends till the hour of 11 or 12 in the
evening. His eagerness for books was such, that he
could scarcely spare time to attend his meals, but fre-
quently took a potato or a slice of meat into his hand,
which served him as sustenance for the whole of the
day. His reading, however, though extensive, was not
valuable, his only resource being that of a neighbouring
circulating library, which contained little else than
plays, novels, romances, and fairy tales ; of these the far
greater number were insipid and uninteresting. Young
Clarke, however, read them with great avidity, and
during his stay at Workinpton, which lasted for the
space of a year and a quarter, he had read above 600
volumes of different kinds. He was frequently engaged
in the perusal of Peregrine Pickle, or the Arabian Tales,
when he should have been attending to the wants of hia
150
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
< April
1 1891.
father's customers. His parents remonstrated against
his idleness and misapplication of his time, without much
effect. His assistance was not really wanted. There
were four servants in the house, who were more than
sufficient to execute all its duties. Whatever may have
been the motives of his parents, independent ot these
reasons, young Clarke's propensity to reading was suffi-
cient to resist all their efforts ; they therefore, after a
long struggle, left him to his own inclinations.
But this was not of long duration. In the beginning
of the year 1800, his parents found their situation neither
profitable nor convenient ; they therefore departed for
London in the month of March, and early in the ensuing
month they entered into the possession of the Red Lion,
Gray's Inn Lane, Holborn. This was the most miserable
period of Clarke's life. He had no opportunity for
study but what he gained by a concealment of a few
minutes in his father's cellar, or what he caught by
casual glances at a book while sitting in the tap-room,
amidst the noise of porters, grooms, and chairmen. He
was seldom able to retire to bed till 2 o'clock in the
morning, and it was sometimes still later. In the day
time it was impossible to get out, and he therefore lived
in the midst of London, with the most ardent desire
to see its curiosities and its crowds, in total ignorance of
all that surrounded him. In about three months after
his arrival in London, his father's affairs took an un-
fortunate turn, and, through a brewer, it is supposed, to
whom the house belonged, he was reduced tu great dis-
tress. During the intermediate time, between their
departure from the house and their voyage from London,
his time was spent in sauntering through the streets,
standing at the book stalls, and making what observa-
tions his youth and situation would allow on men and
manners. On the 1st of June, 1800, he bade farewell to
London, and arrived on the 21st of the same month, after
a very unpleasant voyage of three weeks, at Newcastle.
His adventures between this period and his coming from
Alnwick to the shop of Mr. Huntley, on the 22nd of August,
1803, are too various to insert in a sketch like this. One
circumstance, however, it is necessary to mention, as it
marks the natural bent of his inclination. In the beginning
of the year 1801, when he had only two hours a day which
he could devote to study, and when he had not quite
attained his fourteenth year, he formed the plan of a
periodical paper which he intended to publish by himself,
and of which he wrote the three first numbers. His
dreams upon this occasion will perhaps excite the smiles
of those who have experienced the scanty rewards of
literary labour. According to his own calculation, his
labours, provided he could procure 500 subscribers,
would produce him 100 guineas a year. He knew,
however, the laughter that such an attempt by a
youth of his age would excite, and he therefore resolved
to conceal his name. He wrote a note to Messrs. Aken-
head, of Newcastle, desiring to know the terms on which
they would engage to print a periodical paper of the
common size and type, and signed it with the fictitious
name of J. Clarke, Whickham. He was himself the
bearer of his letter, and received for answer that it was
impossible to mention the terms till the size of the type,
&c., were more distinctly specified. This was not very
difficult, but a different piece of information induced him
to relinquish his project ; he was informed by a friend
that security for payment would probably be re-
quired. His purpose was therefore postponed till a
more favourable opportunity should occur. On the 23rd of
August, 1803, he engaged with Mr. Huntley, chemist, of
Gateshead. In that situation he had some leisure, but
that leisure, from circumstances which it is unnecessary to
mention, could not be employed. Had not the irasci-
bility and meanness of one woman embittered all his
moments, he might have passed his time very happily
with Mr. H. If he could not read, he could at least
meditate ; his duties were servile and sometimes laborious,
yet they were attended by what seldom accompanies
them, the respect and civility of the inhabitants. In this
place he had very great opportunities of observing man-
kind ; besides the usual frequenters of the shop, he was
enabled to attend the principal societies of the town
These indeed were not very fashionable or sensible, but
they exhibited a sufficient example of the general follies
and virtues of mankind.
The Tyne Mercury had been established a little before
this period. It had frequently attracted the attention of
Clarke, and seemed to offer an easy method of introducing
himself to the world. He thought it necessary, however,
previous to beginning his correspondence, to prepare
a few numbers for the press. With five numbers,
therefore, in his possession, he ventured upon his literary
career on the 7th of August, 1804, when he had attained
the age of seventeen years and nearly five months.
Those who are favoured by leisure in the pursuit of
literature have little idea of the difficulties of him who
composes his work amidst noise and business, interrupted
every moment by the calls of a multitude, his thoughts
bewildered by perpetual tumult, and his words confused
by necessary haste. Clarke, when he composed the
Saunterer, seldom had it in his power to overlook his copy
after it was finished, but was obliged to correct it as he
proceeded, and commit it to the press with all its want of
arrangement and connexion. His papers were more than
once destroyed in the confusion and hurry of business, or
were employed by mistake to wrap up medicines. Some
of these compositions were written during the hours
stolen from sleep, and others upon a counter, amidst
drugs and merchandise.
Under these obstacles, the Saunterer seldom appeared
more frequently than twice in three weeks, and was closed
by the 26th number, on the 13th of June, 1805. It was
published in a volume, with 24- additional numbers, in
November. The publication of the Saunterer was of
great advantage to him ; it introduced him into the
society of the most respectable gentlemen in the town,
and gained him the attention of the late William Burdon,
of Hartford. Under his patronage, and with the profits
of the Saunterer, he was able to enter at Emanuel College,
Cambridge, to which place he repaired on the 21st of
January, 1806.
[Thus far proceeds our unknown biographer. As we
perused the manuscript, we have had frequent suspicions
that that biographer was no other than Mr. Clarke himself.
The following particulars of the remainder of his life we
have reason to believe correct : — ]
At Cambridge, instead of attending his studies, it is
generally understood that he commenced a satirical work,
which rendered him remarkably obnoxious. He went
from college (probably hastened by the enmity produced
by his conduct) to London. There, after making many
vain attempts to procure employment from booksellers,
he at length became connected with a scurrilous publi-
cation called the Scourge. By this connection he
offended his friends in such a manner, that some, after
fruitlessly remonstrating with him on the impropriety of
having his name associated with a work which was syno-
nymous with universal abuse, never after spoke to him.
It is supposed he never took his degree, though amongst
his acquaintance he was always denominated Dr. Clarke.
He became involved in quarrels and disputes, and
finally, from what cause we know not, forfeited the
esteem and patronage of Mr. Burdon, who may be con-
sidered the origin of any literary ability he possessed.
The loss of the friendship of his patron, he himself re-
peatedly declared to us, was not occasioned by any im-
proper conduct on his own part, but solely by a whimsical
disposition he attributed to Mr. Burdon. What was the
truth we cannot now determine ; but it is certain that
the author of the "Materials for Thinking" transferred his
protection to another, who enjoyed it, we believe, to his
lamented decease.
While in London, Clarke maintained himself chiefly by
writing histories of the war, &c., for the booksellers, in
general for that portion of the trade that deals exclusively
in numbers. Besides these, which may be called the
mercenary occupations of literature, he wrote a poem
called, "The Art of Pleasing," which, Lord Byron says,
in his "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," must have
been so called as lucus a non lucendo I The noble lord
also severely lashes him in a note at the end of his last
edition, for having said many ill-natured things of a beat
which his lordship kept at college.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
151
He was always wishing to do something more than ever
the world Rave him ability or his manners and connexions
pave him opportunity to do, and he dragged on to the last
a half-dissipated, half-plodding life, with the expectation
that he was about to become more generally known, and
that time would remunerate him for his youthful
assiduity and bis maturer exertions. But, alas ! the to-mor
row for which he looked never dawned upon his destiny.
He died about the age of thirty, seized with madness.
Lord Byron's "lashing" of Hewson Clarke in the first
edition of "English Bards and Scotch Reviewers," men-
tioned by Mr. Mitchell in the foregoing paragraph, reads
as follows : —
There Clarke, still striving piteously " to please, '
Forgetting doggrel leads not to degrees ;
A would be satirist, a hired buffoon,
A monthly scribbler of some low lampoon ;
Condemn'd to drudge, the meanest of the mean,
And furbish falsehoods for a magazine,
Devotes to scandal his congenial mind ;
Himself a living libel on mankind.
To this satire his lordship adds the following footnote:—
This person, who has lately betrayed the most rapid
symptoms of confirmed authorship, is writer of a poem,
denominated the "Art of Pleasing," as "iucus a non
lucendo," containing little pleasantry and less poetry. He
also acts as monthly stipendiary and collector of calumnies
for the Satirist. If this unfortunate young man would ex-
change the magazines for the mathematics, and endeavour
to take a decent degree in his university, it might eventu-
ally prove more serviceable than his present salary.
In a postscript to the second edition of the same work,
Lord Byron renews the lasning, as described in the
Tyne Mercury : —
There is a youth ycleped Hewson Clarke (subaudi
esquire), a sizer of Emanuel College, and, I believe, a
denizen of Berwick-upon-Tweed, whom I have introduced
in these pages to much better company than he has been
accustomed to meet : he is, notwithstanding, a very sad
dog, and for no reason that I can discover, except a
personal quarrel with a bear, kept by me at Cambridge to
sit for a fellowship, and whom the jealousy of his Trinity
contemporaries prevented from success, has been abusing
me. and, what is worse, the defenceless innocent above
mentioned, in the Satirist, for one year and some
months. I am utterly unconscious of having given him
any provocation ; indeed, I am guiltless of having heard
his name till coupled with the Satirist. He has, there-
fore, no reason to complain, and I dare say that, like Sir
Fretful Plagiary, he is rather pleased than otherwise.
***
The foregoing article by Mr. Welford appeared in the
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle of January 31, 1891. A later
issue of the same paper contained the following letter
from Mr. Edward Pocknell, of London, a well-known
authority on shorthand : —
Mr. Richard Welford's article on Hewson Clarke,
author of "The Saunterer," brought to my mind the
recollection that I had read something about him in con-
nection with shorthand. I have been able to find the
passage in a privately printed work (twenty copies only
having been printed), entitled "The Grand Master:
being Some Extracts from the Shorthand Correspondence
of Robert Cabbell Roffe, (Engraver), with his Much
Valued Friend, Thomas Molmeux, of Macclesfa'eld, edited
by Alfred Roffe " (1860).
In a letter from Roffe to Molineux, dated Aug. 1, 1820,
the former says: — "The MS. papers, as they were all
open, I took the liberty of perusing, as, I presume, you
intended I should. Lewis's 'Historical Account of Short-
hand'is a book that seems to contain a great deal ef re-
search on the subject of shorthand. You wrote to Mr.
Lewis as the author of the work, but I have been credibly
informed that Mr. Hewson (Jlark (sic), who wrote a work
called 'The Saunterer,' is likewise the writer of the His-
torical Account, and of Mr. Lewis's other publications."
Roffe and Molineux were writers of Dr. Byrom's
system (1767), and Byrom was known amongst his
followers as " The Grand Master "—hence the title of the
book now referred to.
j|F a ramble round Richmond be contemplated,
the best plan is to commence at the railway
station. Moving in the direction of the
south bank of the river, \ve soon come
within sight of the cascade ntar the paper mills, which,
THE TERRACE UNDER THE CASTLE WALL, RICHMOND, YORKSHIRE.
152
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f April
1891.
though formal in general outline, was "adapted" by
Turner for a poetical composition, including in its scope
the grand old castle and the predominating Norman keep.
There is no denying that this scene is picturesque, though
the view is more comprehensive from a slight eminence a
few hundred yards further to the left.
Our picture of the castle (page 152), which is seen rising
from the banks of the Swale, was taken from a rustic
stile near a group of trees that partly hide the formal
lines of the paper mill. This is only one of the many
delightful prospects in the neighbourhood, but by no
means the least attractive, the great bulk of the ruins
of the old stronghold being seen to the best advantage.
When the western sun gilds the noble fragments with its
mellow tints, and the brilliant light is reflected in the
tarn-like expanse of water below, it will be admitted that
nowhere in all the North-Country is there a more
entrancing combination of nobility and loveliness.
A drawing of Richmond Castle was discovered amongst
the Harleian manuscripts, and thus conjecture is set at
rest as to the original design of the building. The ex-
ternal wall, which was about 600 yards in length, enclosed
a triangular space of about five acres in extent. Lofty
square towers, affording accommodation for the chief
officers, overhung the southern side, the base of the
triangle, which was the strongest point. Towers also
strengthened the remaining portion of the wall. The
great donjon tower was not built until about seventy-five
years after the foundation of the castle. Ninety-nine feet
in height, it is a noble specimen of a Norman keep.
Even after the wear and tear of centuries, it is still as
firm and true as the solid rock upon which it stands.
Once so menacing and defiant, it now wears the stern
aspect of a worn-out warrior.
The lower storey of the keep is supported by a bulky
octagonal column in the centre, from which springs circu-
lar groined arches. In a cavity of the column is a well of
pure water. A tower 'named after Robin Hood, the
famous outlaw, is in the eastern wall ; but how he came to
be associated with Richmond history doth not disclose.
The lowest chamber was a chapel, but in course of time it
became too small for the gairison, and a more convenient
edifice was built on the opposite side of the castle.
A large window still indicates the site of the later
erection.
On the south-east are the remains of another tower,
called "The Golden Hole," probably from the circum-
stance that a sum of money was discovered there.
Adjoining "The Golden Hole" are the remains of the
Hall of Scolland, Lord of Bedale, one of the feudatories
RICHMOND CASTLE, YORKSHIRE.
Aprill
1891.1
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
153
of the Earls of Richmond. The lowest apartment of a
tower in the south-west corner of the area appears to have
been used as a dungeon. It was probably here that
William the Lion, King of Scotland, was immured after
his capture in 1174 near Alnwick (see Monthly Chronicle,
1890, p. 178) ; for it is asserted in a rhyming chronicle in
old Norman French that the royal prisoner was placed
in a " very narrow prison."
Richmond Castle is the property of the Duke of Rich-
mond and Gordon, who has let it on lease to the North
York Rifles.
A terrace which runs around by the base of the castle
wall is kept in good order by the Corporation of Rich-
mond, which is also to be credited with the pleasant
appearance of the precipitous banks through the planting
thereon of young trees. The sylvan adornments are a
great improvement upon the green slope of old that was
seared with yellow strips of sandy soil. This terrace is a
•favourite promenade of the Richmond people, who appear
to fully appreciate the enterprise of the corporate body.
A local gentleman relates that, on one occasion, as he
was strolling along this elevated terrace, he saw a man
rush in an excited manner towards the base of a part of
the castle walls and hold out his hands. To the astonish-
ment of the beholder, a child, who bad evidently been
observed to be in a critical position by her rescuer, fell
headlong into his arms without sustaining any injury \
That part of Richmond which is known as Old Biggin is
easily reached from the Castle Terrace. Proceeding along
Quaker's Lane (where formerly was a burying place of
the followers of George Fox), we come to West Field,
celebrated for romantic views. Further along is Whit-
cliffe Wood and Whitcliffe Scar, where rueged and
imposing rocks arrest the attention of the stranger. Here
is to be found a spot well known to the inhabitants by
the name of Willance's Leap, from the circumstance that
a hunter named Willance was carried by his horse over
the precipice to the bottom, the rider being little injured.
Three stones with inscriptions indicate the three bounds
that the horse made before it reached the edge of the
precipice. From this point there is a grand prospect of
the bleak moorlands around the head of Swaledale. The
river banks, however, are well-wooded, and afford an
agreeable contrast to the sterner aspect of the adjacent
acclivities.
A short distance further is the Beacon Hill, where in
the troubled days of old a fire was lighted in times
of danger.
There stands in the pleasure grounds near the Swale,
once belonging to the family of York? , a lofty tower that
SWALEDALE FROM WILLANCE's LEA.P, RICHMOND.
154
AIONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/At
U8
was erected to commemorate the battle of Culloden,
built on the site of an old fortalice known as Hudswell
Peel.
In the same locality is the Convent of the Assumption,
founded by the late Duchess of Leeds in 1850 for the
education of young ladies of the Roman Catholic faith.
The number of pupils at the present time is between fifty
and sixty. The building is spacious, the grounds being
extensive, and the scenery around very beautiful. The
centre of the convent and the west wing contain class,
study, music, and recreation rooms, also a large drawing-
class room, three spacious dormitories, infirmaries, bath-
rooms, &c., all for the use of the pupils. "The east wing
is occupied by the sisters. On the same side there is a
chapel in which there is a very beautifully carved altar,
the gift of Mr. W. Foggin, of Newcastle. The cost of the
whole of this pile of buildings was about £8,000. The
mother-house of the Order of Assumption is at Auteuil,
Paris.
There is one other object near Richmond that should
be visited — the Round Howe, an immense amphitheatre,
surrounded by rugged rocks and hanging woods, and
somewhat resembling a volcanic crater. It is conjectured
to have been a temple of the Druids, but there are no
historical records to support the theory, which is wholly
founded on the fact that this part of the district was in
former times a forest of vast extent that might have
afforded shelter for Druidical priests. A large natural
cave near the Round Howe is called Arthur's Owen ; but
tradition is silent as to the connection of this place with
England's mythical king.
All the engravings which accompany this article are
made from photographs by Messrs. Valentine and Suns,
152, Perth Road, Dundee.
fflen af JWarft
fftrtr
i) Jlieljart) Melforb.
William
BARRISTER AND ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIAN.
PON the extension to the provinces of the
London system of bankruptcy procedure,
under the Bankruptcy Law Amendment
Act, 1842, a District Court was established
at Newcastle, and on the 15th November, in that year, in
a suite of rooms forming the eastern end of the Royal
Arcade, the court was formally opened for the transaction
of business. Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst appointed a
member of a well-known local family — Mr. Nathaniel
Ellison, of the Chancery Bar— to be the first Commis-
sioner or Judge of the new court, and under him, as
Registrar, he placed Mr. William Sidney Gibson.
Mr. Gibson, a native of Parson's Green, Fulham, where
he was born in 1814, was studying for the bar when he
came down to Newcastle to discharge the duties of his
office, and shortly afterwards he received his call from the
Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn. Although a
stranger to the district, the reputation of a scholar, de-
voted to antiquarian and historical research, had preceded
him, and he had not been long in the town before he began
to inquire, to investigate, and to write. One of the first
objects to attract his attention was the noble ruin of th»
Conventual Church of Tynemouth, familiarly known as
the Priory, under whose shadow he had fixed his resi-
dence. Disappointed with the meagre details to be found
THE CONVENT, RICHMOND, YORKSHIRE.
Am-ill
1891. I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
155
in local literature, he set himself the task of writing
the history of that magnificent structure, and after three
years' unremitting labour he published in two volumes,
royal quarto —
The History of the Monastery founded at Tynemouth,
in the Diocese of Durham, to the Honour of God, under
the Invocation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and S. Oswin,
King and Martyr. London : William Pickering, 1846
and 1847.
Decorated with illuminated pages, and adorned by
initial letters copied from Mediaeval MSS., resplendent in
hand-applied gold and colours, these sumptuous volumes
were further illustrated by etchings from the studio of the
elder Richardson, by facsimile representations of ancient
deeds and seals, and by wood engravings. No more
superb example of typography and illumination had been
seen in the district, and its illustrations were equalled
only by the thorough and comprehensive character of the
text. Apart from the exceedingly "high" views which
the writer thought fit to express in his preface, and,
indeed, more or less obtruded throughout, the work is
well done. Regarded either as a history or a book of
reference, it leaves nothing to be desired.
Beyond the titles of the books he wrote, and the lec-
tures he delivered, little is known of Mr. Sidney Gibson's
life during the quarter of a century which he passed in
Newcastle. With the exception of the Homoeopathic
Dispensary, in which he acted as a member of the man-
aging committee, he does not appear to have associated
himself with any public institution in the locality, not
even in those non-political and unsectarian organisations
which are devoted to social amelioration and philan-
thropic improvement. He was a model registrar in the
Court of Bankruptcy — courteous, painstaking, methodi-
cal, punctual, and accurate ; but to his duties there, and
occasional lecturing before cultured audiences, his public
work was limited. Absorbed in literary and antiquarian
pursuits, he lived the life of a recluse amidst the bustling
activities of Tyneside.
Mr. Gibson's literary productions show extraordinary
mental activity, and the faculty of wielding a rapid
and fluent pen. Taking in order of publication those
of his books and papers which treat of local history alone,
it is seen that in a little over ten years after he had
put forth his great work on Tynemouth Priory he had
published five others of importance, each of them in-
volving patient research, and displaying minute investi-
gation, viz. : —
Descriptive and Historical Notices of Some Remark-
able Northumbrian Castles, Churches, and Antiquities :
In a Series of Visits to the ruined Priory of Finchale :
the Abbey Church of Hexham ; the Parish Churches of
Hjughton-le-Spring, Morpeth, Bothal, Ovingham, and
Ryton ; the antient Castles of Prudhoe and of Bothal,
the ruined Abbey of Newminster, etc. With Biographi-
cal Notices of Eminent Persons. First Series. Revised
and Reprinted (by request) from the Newcastle Journal.
with numerous additions, and embellished with Views of
Finchale and of the Abbey Church of Hexham. New-
castle : Robert Robinson, Pilgrim Street, 1848. 8vo.
140 pp.
A Descriptive and Historical Guide to Tynemouth :
Comprising a Popular Sketch of the History of the
Monastery, the Church, and the Castle ; with Notices of
North Shields. Seaton Delaval, and Neighbouring Anti-
quities. Embellished with highly-finished Engravings.
North Shields : Philipson and Hare, Tyne Street, 1849.
Sm. 8vo. 161 pp.
Descriptive and Historical Notices of Remarkable
Northumbrian Castles, Churches, and Antiquities.
Second series. Dilston Hall, or Memoirs of the Right
Hon. Jas. Radcliffe, Earl of Derweutwater, a Martyr in
the Rebellion of 1715. To which is added A Visit to
Bamburgh Casf.le ; with an Account of Lord Crewe's
Charities, and a Memoir of the Noble Founder. Em-
bellished with a Portrait of Lord Derwentwater, and
several highly-finished Engravings. Newcastle: Robert
Robinson, Pilgrim Street, 1850. 8vo. 220 pp.
Do. Third Series. Visits to Naworth Castle, Laner-
cost Priory, and Corby Castle, in Cumberland ; the ruined
Monasteries of Brinkburn, J arrow, and Tynemouth;
Bishop Middleham and the Town of Hartlepool ; Nevv-
castle-on-Tyne and Durham Cathedral. Embellished
with Views of Naworth Castle, as Restored, and of Corby
Castle, near Carlisle. Newcastle : Robert Robinson,
Pilgrim Street, 1854. 8vo. 168 pp.
A Memoir on Northumberland. Descriptive of its
Scenery, Monuments and History. Newcastle : F. and
W. Dodsworth and Robert Robinson, 1860. 8vo, 77 pp.
These all relate to local history and topography. But
they by no means indicate the full measure of Mr. Gib-
son's literary activity at the period in which they were
written. For while they were passing through the press,
the author was writing for reviews and magazines, and
issuing treatises on a variety of interesting subjects.
At an earlier period Mr. Gibson had published books
on "The Certainties of Geology," on "Some Antient
Modes of Trial," a " Letter to the Lord Chancellor on the
Amendment of the Law in Bankruptcy," and a Prize
Essay on the "Antiquities of Highgate." In 1858 he
collected together four-and-twenty lectures and essays,
the former delivered at various Church Institutes in the-
156
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/April
\ 1891.
district, the latter contributed to the Quarterly Review,
Colburn's New Monthly, Household Words, Notes and
Queries, the Dublin Review, &c., &c., and published them
under the title of " Lectures and Essays on Various
Subjects, Historical, Topographical, and Artistic."
A few years later (in 1863) another collection of essays,
lectures, and reviews, which Mr. Gibson had contributed
to the Ecelesiologist, Chambers'! Journal, Bentley's Mis-
cellany, Household Words, &c., was published. He
prepared, also, a "Memoir of the Life of Richard de
Bury, Bishop of Durham, and Lord Chancellor of
England, temp. Edw. III." This work, although adver-
tised, does not appear to have been printed.
Mr. Gibson was a Fellow of the London Society of
Antiquaries (F.S.A.); a Fellow of the London Geological
Society (E.G. S.); a member of the Ecclesiological Society;
of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, Copen-
hagen ; the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, and of the
Architectural Societies of Durham and St. Alban's; a
Local Secretary of the [Archaeological Institute ; an
honorary member of the Academic des Sciences et Belles
Lettres de Dijon, &c. In 1857, the degree of M.A. was
conferred upon him by the University of Durham in
recognition of his contributions to the literature and
archaeology of the North. Enjoying these honours, and
the esteem of an ever-widening circle of friends, he
remained in Newcastle till the abolition of the District
Courts of Bankruptcy, in 1870, sent him into retirement.
The Government rewarded his services with a handsome
pension, which, unfortunately, he was not long destined
to receive. Seized by a fatal illness, he died in London
on the 3rd January, 1871, aged 56 years. During his
lifetime he had expressed an ardent desire to be buried in
the grounds of tho old Priory Church at Tynemouth,
about which he had written so copiously and so well, and
shortly before his decease he obtained from the Home
Secretary the necessary permission. His remains were
taken to Tynemouth, and after a solemn service in the
restored Lady Chapel, at the east end of the ruin, were
laid to rest in a vault closely adjoining. A headstone
marks the place of bis interment, and in the chapel itself
a stained glass window perpetuates his memory.
The portrait of Mr. Gibson is from a photograph kindly
lent by H. A. Adamson, Esq., Town Clerk of Tyne-
mouth.
s Gibson,
PHYSICIAN, DIVINE, AND AUTHOR.
Dr. Thomas Gibson, born at Morpeth in the latter part
of the fifteenth century, must have been a remarkable
man, if all that is told of him by his early biographers be
true. Later writers have, however, thrown some doubt
upon the accuracy of the record, suggesting that there
may have been two persons of the same name living at
the same time, the one educated at Cambridge and the
other at Oxford, whose respective achievements have
been, in error, attributed to the Morpeth worthy alone.
The Rev. John Hodgson, in the Morpeth section of his
" History of Northumberland," supports the theory of
separate individualities, chiefly on the ground that a well-
known contemporary writer, and a native of Morpeth
himself, Dr. Turner, makes no reference to Gibson, with
whose life and labours he must have been acquainted.
Mr. Hodgson's account, condensed from Bale, Aiken, and
Watts, is as follows : —
Gybson, or Gibson, Thomas, was not only, like his
townsman and contemporary, Turner, famous for his
knowledge in divinity, physic, and botany, but was one
of the early English printers. Bale mentions him in
terms of high commendation, and says his cures were
almost incredible. He entered zealously into the spirit
of the Reformation, and wrote in its favour ; but during
the Marian persecution, fled to the Continent, from
whence he returned on the accession of Elizabeth, and
settled in London, where he died m 1562. Of the merits
of his works I have not had an opportunity of forming
any judgment, having never seen a volume of them ; and
in turning over such works of Turner as have fallen in my
way, I have thought it remarkable that I never met
with Gibson's name, especially as there were so many
coincidences in their lives, for they were not only towns-
men and contemporaries, but both reformers, divines,
physicians, and naturalists, both banished for the same
cause, and both lived and died in London. All his works
were printed by himself, excepting the last in the list
below ; but it does not appear that he printed for any
other person.
1. The Concordance of the New Testament, most neces-
sary to be in the handes of soche as desire the communica-
cion of any place contayned in the New Testament.
Imprinted by me Thomas Gybson. Cum privilegio
regali. London, 1535. 8vo., with the mark T. G. on the
sides of a cut.
2. A Treatise behooueful, as well to preserue the people
from the pestilence, as to helpe and recouer them that be
infected with the same ; made by a bishop and doctour of
phisick in Denmark ; which medicines haue been proued
in many places in London. London, 1536, 8vo.
3. The Great Herball newly corrected. Then the con-
tents of this book. A table after the Latyn names of all
herbes. A table after the English names of all herbs.
The propertees and qualityes of all things in this booke.
The descryption of vrynes, how a man shall have trewe
knoweledge of all sekenesses. An exposycyon of all the
wordes obscure and not well knowen. A table quyckly
to fynde remedyes for all dyseases. God save the kynge.
Loudini in edibus Thome Gibson, 1536.
4. John Campenses, his Paraphrase on the Psalmes, &c.
No date.
5. A summe of the actes and decrees of the bishops of
Rome. No date.
6. A Breue Cronyele of the Bysshope of Rome's
Blessynge, and of his Prelates beneficiall and charit-
able rewardes from the tyme of Kynge Heralde vnto this
day. Imprinted— by John Daye— in Sepulchre Parishe,
at the signe of the Resurrection, a little above Holbourne
Condiute.
Anthony Wood, in the first volume of his "Athenae
Oxonienses," which is devoted chiefly to a history of
Oxford writers, claims him as a student of the Univer-
sity of Oxford :—
Thomas Gibson, a noted Physician of the Age he lived
in, was born at Morpeth in Northumberland, and for a
year, or years, was, as I conceive, educated here, because
that several of both his Names and Time were conversant
with the Muses in this University ; but whether he took
a Degree, or was licensed to practise Physic it appears
not. Afterwards he being noted for his extraordinary
Success in curing Diseases, was very much resorted to by
great, as well as ordinary People, especially by those of
Avrill
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
157
the reform'd Party, he being one himself, and a great
Enemy to the R. Oath. Bishops; in spite and envy to
whom he wrote —
A History of the Treasons of the Bishops from the
Norman Conquest to his time. Whether this was
printed, I know not, because had it been so, there's no
doubt but inveterate Prynu would have found it, to gain
matter thence, when he cotnpos'd his Book of the same
subject. He also wrote,
An Herbal.
Treatise against unskilful Alchyir.ists.
Treat, of curing common Diseases.
Of the ceremonies used by Popes — besides other things,
and had laid the foundation of a little Book to show the
various States that Britany hath been in, which he
divided into five Parts ; but whether he compleated it,
is uncertain.
The Coopers, on the other hand, in their " Athenae
Cantabrigienses, " claim Gibson for the University of
Cambridge. Thus : —
Thomas Gibson, a native of Morpeth, Northumberland,
was, it is asserted, educated at Oxford. It is certain,
however, that one of the name took the degree of M.B.
in this University, 1511. He was noted for his extra-
ordinary success in curing diseases, as also for his strong
antipathy to the Roman Catholics. He wrote much, and
from 1535 to 1539, or afterwards, carried on the business
of a printer in London. With one exception, all the
known productions of his press were compiled by him-
self. Bishop Latimer, writing to Cromwell, 21st July,
1537, recommends that Gibson, who was the bearer of the
letter, should be employed as the printer of a work then
about to be published. He says, "He ys an honeste
poore man, who will set ytt forth in a eood letter, and
sell ytt (rood chepe, wher as others doo sell too dere, wych
doth lett many to by. Doctor Crom, and other my
frendes obteyned of me, natt with owght sum impor-
tunyte to wrytt unto you for hym. " In the reign of
Mary, he was a fugitive for religion, but returned to
England on the accession of Elizabeth, and in 1559 had
a license from this university to practise physic. His
death occurred in London, 1562.
To the list of his works printed by Hodgson (omitting
"John Campenses his Paraphrase"), the Cambridge
writers add the four extra books named by Anthony
Wood, and another, "De Utroque Homine." They
further state that he and his wife and daughter became
members of the English congregation at Geneva on the
20th November, 1557. And that is all that is known
about him. Whether he was one Gibson, or two Gibsons
rolled into one, is an open question that, in this column
at any rate, need not be debated.
JUu. Sljomajs dilloro,
A POPULAR CATHOLIC PRIEST.
Before the Reformation, the ancient family of Gillow
was remarkable for the number of its members who
entered into holy orders, and assisted to propagate
Christian doctrine among a rude and unlettered people.
Since the Reformation the same tendency has continued
to characterise their race. A " Biographical Dictionary
of the English Catholics," now in course of publication by
Mr. Richard Gillow, contains notices of fifteen persons
bearing the name, and more or less related to each other,
who have been ordained priests in the Catholic Church
since the middle of last century.
Within the scope of this series of biographies only two
of three members of the family become, by reason of
their association with the county of Northumberland,
admissible, namely, the Rev. Thomas Gillow, of North
Shields, Canon Gillow, one of his nephews, and the Rev.
William Gillow, a grand-nephew.
Thomas Gillow, born November 23, 1769, at Singleton,
fourth son of Richard Gillow, of that place, entered
Douay College as a student on the 22nd of May, 1784.
While he was in his pupilaze the French Revolution
broke out, and the college was placed in a position of
danger. Upon one occasion a rnob of insurgents
thundered at the doors for admittance. The authorities
were frightened ; the boys were terrified— all but young
Gillow. It is recorded that he ran courageously down the
stairs, met the assailants at the entrance, and by shouting
"Vive la Republique !" saved the institution. The mob
seized hold of him and carried him about in triumph
through the streets of Douay. In August, 1793, when the
college was broken up and the inmates were ordered
to retire to their country house at Esquerchin,
three miles off, aa prisoners, under surveillance,
young Gillow effected his escape, and through many
perils reached his father's home in Lancashire. After
spending a month with his parents, Mr Gillow went
to the institution at Old Hall Green. There he remained
till December, 1794, when he was sent to Bishop Gibson's
newly-founded college at Crook Hall, and three years
later was ordained priest. Awaiting a vacancy among
the private chaplaincies of the Catholic gentry, he taught
at Crook Hall till the 21st August, 1797, when he entered
upon a ministerial career at Callaly Castle, the seat of the
Claverings. In that somewhat isolated position his
duties were light, and he had much spare time, which
158
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
{April
1891.
he utilised by establishing and superintending a school in
the adjoining village of Whittingham. While thus em-
ployed, in 1817, he was nominated Bishop of the West
Indies, but declining, from motives of health, to wear a
mitre, he was selected to conduct a mission at North
Shields. In June, 1821, after 25 years' service in the
beautiful Vale of Whittingham, he entered upon his
work at the mouth of the Tyne. A church had just been
erected there by his cousin, the Rev. James Worswick, of
Newcastle, and it became, under Mr. Gillow's care, not
merely a place of worship for his co-religionists, but a
centre of active propaganda throughout the distict. To
the church he added a presbytery and schools, providing
the means, for the most part, out of his private fortune,
the residue of which, sunk as a fund for the relief of the
poor, was lost through the failure of the Union Bank in
Newcastle.
In 1842, a nephew, the Rev. Richard Gillow, was sent
to aid him in his arduous labours. Born May 9, 1811,
and ordained at Stonyhurst in 1837, Richard Gillow was
in every sense a fit helpmate to his uncle. He was a
theologian of ability, a musical composer of promise, and
a home missionary of high reputation. After the restora-
tion of the hierarchy in England, and the revival of the
see of He.xham, he was raised to the dignity of a canon.
A most useful career seemed to be opening out before
him. Short, however, was its course. Devotion to his
work among the victims of the cholera visitation of 1853
cost him his life, on the 18th of November in that year, at
the early age of 42.
Thomas Gillow survived his nephew four years.
Although deprived of his eyesight, and, therefore,
dependent upon the help and guidance of others, he was
able to say mass till within a week of his death, which
happened on the 19th March, 1857, in the 88th year of his
age. "The whole town and neighbourhood, regardless of
differences in religious belief, flocked to his funeral, and
even the bells of the Protestant parish church rolled out
a muffled peal in token of the universal respect in which
he was held."
During the last years of Thomas Gillow's life, Dr.
Chadwick, afterwards Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle,
assisted the venerable patriarch in his mission, and he
was followed by his successor in the bishopric, the late
Dr. Bewick. When Dr. Bewick left, in 1869, his place
was filled by a grand-nephew of the old priest, the Rev.
William Gillow. He had been ordained at Ushaw in
1861, and, after officiating for three or four years at
Castle Edon, joined the staff of St. Mary's, Newcastle,
under Monsignor Eyre, now Archbishop of Glasgow.
From St. Mary's he went to Wolsingham, and from
thence proceeded to North Shields, where he remained
till, in 1873, he was removed to Barnard Castle. In 1877.
having taken charge of the mission at Callaly, the old
home of his great-uncle, which was undergoing a change
through the sale of the estate by Sir Henry Bedingfeld
(heir, by marriage, of the Claverings), his health gave
way, and he retired to his brother's house in Lancashire.
The following year he took charge of the mission at
Berwick, where he died, November 30, 1880, aged 45.
The Rev. Thomas Gillow published " A Sermon
preached at the Opening of the Catholic Chapel in the
town of North Shields, on Thursday, the 14th June, 1821.
Newcastle : Preston and Heaton " ; and a pamphlet,
entitled "Catholic Principles of Allegiance Illustrated.
Newcastle : Edward Walker, 1807." His portrait was
painted by Ramsay, G. A. Lutenor, and others. One
of Ramsay's portraits was engraved by C. Turner in
imperial folio; that of Lutenor, from which ours is
copied, was engraved, in quarto, by W. Collard.
Hinjjft'oftn* antr tft* Supper.
j]ELDOM plentiful in any locality in this
country, the kingfisher (Alcedo ispida) is
very generally distributed, its favourite
habitats being the bosky banks of rivers and
sparkling trout streams, where it can procure a sufficiency
of water insects and small fish. As is well known, it is
our most handsoinely-plumaged native bird ; and when
seen in its haunts during summer's prime, darting
athwart some rippling stream, its iridescent plumagu
glancing in the sun, it is a " thing of beauty " which
will be long remembered by the observer. It is partially
migratory in this country, and is the only European
representative of the group, or family, of Alcedines,
which principally frequent warm latitudes, the Australian
representative being the laughing jackass (Docela
gigantea), a bird well-known to the colonists.
Mr. John Hancock tells us that the kingfisher is a
" resident in the district, and is not uncommon." " It is
mentioned," Mr. Hancock adds, "in Mr. SeJby's
catalogue as breeding regularly near Mitford and Anger-
ton, on the Wansbeck. And, according to the same
authority, the nest has been taken on the banks of the
Wear near Chester-le-Street. In 1870, it bred at Stocks-
field and at Winlaton Mill on the Derwent. It also
breeds by the Skerne, near Darlington, and near Bishop
Auckland, and in other localities in the county of Dur-
ham. It visits Jesmond Dene every autumn, and may be
seen on most of the Northumbrian streams." Recent
contributions to the Natural History Department of the
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle have shown that the bird
still frequents Jesmond Dene, notwithstanding the odious
persecution to which it has been subjected.
In some localities, in winter, kingfishers appear in
great numbers, the scarcity of food, no doubt, being the
cause of such migratory movements. In December,
1849, and January, 1850, Morris asserts that great num-
April 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
159
bers of these birds appeared near Newcastle, and
more came into the hands of one game dealer than
he had had during the previous sixteen or eighteen
years.
The note of the bird is harsh and sharp, not unlike that
of the sandpiper, and is often uttered when darting across
a stream, or when disturbed. The flight is rapid, and the
wings, which are short, are quickly moved. It usually
flies in a straight line close to the surface of the water.
The Rev. W. T. Bree, author of the "Birds of Europe,"
has noticed how tenaciously the kingfisher keeps its flight
over water, as if it felt a greater security in so doing,
or in case of necessity, as he suggested, to be able to sub-
merge itself like the wild duck. One, which was alarmed
in his presence, and therefore could not have acted as
it did in search of food, went out of its way to follow
the windings of a series of brick ponds.
Mr. Hancock has lucidly and accurately described the
mode in which the bird secures its finny prey. On one
occasion, he says, "hearing a kingfisher utter a peculiar
cry, and thinking that a nest was not far off, I concealed
myself amidst the foliage. I had not watched long
before I saw the bird, with rapid fluttering wings, poised
in the air, about thirty feet above the water ; the body
was at an angle of about forty-five degrees, the tail down-
wards ; in a few seconds the body became gradually hori-
zontal, and then, as if turning on a pivot, the head was
pointed in the direction of the water, and in an instant
the bird shot down to the surface. It did not, however,
succeed in capturing a fish. It made another unsuccess-
ful attempt, exactly in the same manner, and then disap-
peared behind some bushes, but in the course of a minute
or two returned, carrying a fish, which it bore off to some
roots of an alder tree overhanging the bank, where pro-
bably its nest was concealed."
Mr. H. G. Adams briefly and appreciatively describes
the habits of the kingfisher. "You may see him," he
observes, "in some quiet out-of-the-way place, beneath
the shade of the grey alders, sitting motionless as a statue
upon a branch of an old thorn that projects over the
stream. It may be that a ray of sunshine finds its way
between the shivering branches, and out flash the glorious
tints of its plumage — red, and green, and blue, and all
changeable colours. Truly he is the monarch of fishing
birds, and rightly named kingfisher ! Not handsome in
form, certainly not elegant nor well proportioned — with
his short and squat body and stump of a tail, thick neck,
large head, and immense bill, little feet that seem meant
for a sparrow, and eyes which, although bright and sharp
enough, are much too small for the head. But he is a
swift flier, for all that he looks so awkward ; and, see !
quick as light he darts down upon the heedless fish that
has come near the surface, swallows it at a gulp, and is
ready for another dart before you can look around
you."
The birds pair and commence nidification in May. The
nest is usually placed in holes on the banks of streams,
often in the hole of the water vole, which the birds
enlarge or alter to suit their purpose. Nests have, how-
ever, been found of grass and lined with hair and
feathers. The eggs range from five to seven, are of
globular shape, white, and glossy. Seldom more than
one brood seems to be reared in a season.
The male bird weighs one ounce and a half; length,
seven inches ; bill, blackish brown, reddish at the base ;
from the lower corner of it proceeds a streak of bluish-
green, joining to that colour on the back, also a dusky
streak to the eye ; iris, reddish hazel ; behind each eye is
a patch of light orange brown, succeeded by a white one.
Forehead, on the sides rufous, the commencement of the
same colour behind the eye ; crown, deep olive green, the
forehead tipped with light green ; the neck has a patch of
green down the sides, in front of the patches behind the
eye; nape, as the head; chin and throat, yellowish white;
breast, orange brown, with a sprinkling of green by the
shoulder of the wing ; upper part of the back, green ;
down the back is a list of greenish blue, varying in
different lights; greater and lesser wing coverts, deep
greenish blue, margined with a paler shade, forming
spots ; primaries, brownish black, edged with olive green ;
secondaries, the same ; greater and lesser wing coverts,
pale chestnut; tail, greenish blue, the shafts black or
dusky; underneath, brownish black, edged with olive
green ; under tail coverts, light orange brown ; legs, very
short and pale red, with a tinge of yellowish brown ; toes
and claws the same. The female is less varied in her
colours, and the white on the sides of the neck is also
more subdued.
The dipper or water ousel (the Cinclus aquaticus of
Bewick and Yarrell) is classed by some naturalists with
the thrushes and the starlings. It is the Turdus cinclus
(the tail-moving thrush) of Pennant, and the Slurnus
cinclus (tail-moving starling) of Montagu. The bird
derives its most modern scientific name — cinclus — from
the peculiar manner in which it moves or flirts its tail,
and aquaticus as pertaining to water. Water ousels,
which are met with in nearly all parts of the world, but
more especially in northern countries, have all slender
bodies, which, however, appear stout, owing to the great
thickness of the plumage.
The bird has been, and still is, much persecuted by
gamekeepers and fishermen through the mistaken notion
that it feeds largely on the spawn of fish, particularly
that of trout and salmon. John Hancock, Thomas
Edward, and other observant naturalists have, however,
laudably done their best to explode this cruel fiction.
"This interesting bird," as Mr. Hancock observes, "is a
constant resident [in Northumberland and Durham],
delighting in our rocky burns that abound in little
cascades, and have lively running streams. In such
sequestered situations they are sure to be found nesting,
1GO
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I Auril
I 1891.
but sparingly, never more than a pair being found
together; it is a solitary, retiring species. I found,
many years ago, a nest of a dipper in the roof of a tunnel
at Tanfield Dene; and I have observed it in Jesmond
Dene on one occasion during summer, but it has never
been known to breed there. This harmless frequenter of
our brooks has of late been accused of devouring salmon
spawn, and in some quarters has been doomed to the fate
of all vermin. A few years ago I examined specimens
that were killed because they were feeding on the spawn-
ing ground of the salmon in North Tyne, and found their
crops contained nothing but aquatic insects and their
larvae ; no trace whatever of spawn could be detected. In
fact, the insects upon which our poor doomed friend had
been feeding were much more likely to destroy fish spawn
than it was." Thomas Edward has also clearly shown
that the dipper does not feed on fish spawn. In his list
of the Banffshire birds he observes: — "Every means has
been put into requisition to destroy this little bird. It
was abundant thirty years ago, but m now rarely to be
seen. It was supposed to destroy the young salmon;
hence it was shot down wherever found. But I have
never yet found anything appertaining to fish in its
stomach, and I have dissected about forty — water insects
and their larvae being what I have most frequently ob-
served."
The dipper, \vhile in search of food, such as water
beetles, has the power of walking at the bottom of the
water almost as nimbly as if on terra jirma. In search-
ing for food at the bottom of a brook, it proceeds against
the stream. It can remain for a considerable time and
travel some distance under water. The young are said to
be able to dive before they are fully fledged. The bird
has a rather rapid and strong flight, effected by regular
pulsations of the wings. The song of the dipper, though
short, is lively and melodious. Its period of song is not
confined to any particular season, but it is in finest voice
in warm, sunny weather. The ordinary note of the bird
is a "chit, chit," which it utters when on the wing after
being disturbed, or when perched upon a rock or boulder
in mid-stream.
To the presence of man. Dr. Brehm remarks, the dipper
usually exhibits the utmost repugnance, whether he comes
in the guise of friend or foe, nor is it less fearful of the
attacks of the numerous birds of prey that dwell around
and within its rocky haunts. The birds are rather pug-
nacious and unsocial, and they drive off the birds which
may have taken up their quarters near their nests or
"beats." Even the bellicose robin is occasionally
drubbed, as the following singular incident shows : — "A
gentleman," says a correspondent of the Field, "was
walking along the bank of a little stream in Pembroke-
shire, when he saw a dipper, shooting along with its usual
arrowy flight, divert itself from its course, and, dashing
against a redbreast that was quietly sitting on a twig over-
hanging the stream, knock it fairly into the water. The
savage little bird was not content with this assault, but
continued to attack the poor redbreast as it lay fluttering
on the waves, endeavouring to force it beneath the sur-
face. It twice drove its victim under water, and would
have killed it had it not been scared away by the shouts
and gestures of the witness. The robin at length suc-
ceeded in scrambling to the bank, and got away in
safety."
The domed nest, with a hole in the side, is a large and
compact structure, and almost invariably well concealed.
It is about twelve inches in diameter, and seven to eight
in depth. It is usually built near the water, in the
crevice of a rock, under a ledge of stone overhanging a
brook, under bridges, and sometimes behind waterfalls.
Like the common wren, the dipper not unfrequently
builds near the root of a clump of ferns overhanging a
brook, and the exterior of the nest can scarcely be dis-
cerned from the green-coloured moss surrounding the
roots of the plants. The nest is composed of moss and
grass, and generally lined with dried oak leaves. Two,
and sometimes three, broods of young are reared in the
year. The birds will nest in the same place season after
season, if not disturbed.
The male dipper is from seven to eight inches in
length ; bill bluish black, tinged with brown at the
edges ; iris pale brown, with a ring of black in the
middle ; the margin of the eyelid white ; head, crown,
neck on the back and nape, dark brown ; chin, throat,
and breast on the upper part, clear white, on the lower
part chestnut, blending towards the tail with deep grey ;
on the sides it is a deep grey ; back deep, dark grey ; and
as each feather is deeply margined with black, the back
plumage has a rich and handsome appearance. The
wings, which are about a foot in width, extend one-third
down the tail, and consist of nineteen quill feathers.
Greater and lesser wing coverts brownish black, the tips
of the first lighter greyish black ; primaries, secondaries,
and tertiaries, dark brown, tinged with grey. The tail,
short and slightly rounded, consists of twelve feathers ;
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
161
upper tail coverts, brownish black ; under tail coverts,
deep grey, slightly tipped with pale brown. The legs
and toes are bluish grey, tinged with brown ; claws
dusky. The female in plumage resembles the male, but
is about half an inch shorter.
militant tovtvttan'6
tff tft*
J1ILLIAM BRERETON, of Handford,
Cheshire, was born in 1604, and was created
a baronet at the age of twenty-three. He
married a daughter of Sir George Booth,
"f Dunham Massey, and represented his native county
in the Parliaments of 1627-8 and 1639-40. During
the civil wars of the time of Charles I., he headed the
Parliamentary party of Cheshire. He was, in fact,
appointed commander-in-chief of the Cheshire forces. In
an engagement near Nantwich, on the 28th January,
1643, he defeated the Royalist forces under the command
of Sir Thomas Aston. The explosion of one of the
enemy's cannons greatly aided his victory. He there-
upon occupied Nantwich, which became the head-quarters
of the Parliamentary party, whilst Chester was held by
the Royalists. He was first successful, but afterwards
was worsted at Middlewich, in March of the same year.
In the following summer he successfully captured Staf-
ford, Wolverhampton, and Whitechurch. In 1644 he
laid successful siege to Liverpool and Shrewsbury. In
1645 he captured Beeston Castle in Cheshire, and in
February, 1646, he secured the city of Chester itself. In
March he took Lichfield, and in May Dudley Castle was
surrendered to him. In the same month, near Stow-on-
the- Wold, he dispersed the forces of Lord Ashley, the
last considerable body of Royalists in arms. In reward
for his services various dignities aud lands were granted
to him, amongst other possessions being that of the
archiepiscopal palace at Croydon. In one of the many
curious pamphlets of that period he is described as "a
notable man at a thanksgiving dinner, having terrible
long teeth and a prodigious stomach, to turn the arch-
bishop's chapel at Croydon into a kitchen ; also to
swallow up that palace and lands at a morsel." He died
at Croydon on the 7th of April, 1661. His body was
removed thence to be interred in the Handford chapel in
Cheadle Church ; but there is a tradition that in crossing
a river the coffin was swept away by a flood, and this is
confirmed by the fact that there is no entry of burial, but
only of the death, in the Cheadle register.
Our redoubtable general was a considerable traveller.
One journal of his travels, written in 1634 and 1635, when
he was about thirty years of age, has been printed, and
others are believed to exist. In these journeys he
travelled through Holland, the Netherlands, England,
Scotland, and Ireland. He came into the Northern
Counties, where we meet with him, on Friday, the 19th
day of June, 1635, travelling along the ancient Roman
Watling Street, from Catterick Bridge. He enters the
county ot Durham at Pierce Bridge, and makes his way
to the residence of Henry Blakistone, at Archdeacon
Newton. Here he tells us he was "kindly and neatly
entertained." Blakistone, by marriage, was the travel-
ler's distant relative. He conducts him forward to Bishop
Auckland. Brereton spent the night at Binchester,
at the house of Blakistone's nephew, Wren, "who married
Sir William Blakistone's daughter, a fine gentlewoman,
and of a free carriage," and whom he elsewhere mentions
as "a mighty gallant, a fine dainty gentlewoman, if she
knew but how to value and prize the perfections God
hath given her." Brereton left Binchester the following
day, not, however, without bestowing many words of
commendation on his host's successful farming operations,
and especially on his skilful bee-keeping. A good hive,
he tells us, was worth £1 10s. to £2 a year, and adds—
"here I saw the most and best purest honey that I ever
met withal; one great pot worth £5 or £6; greater
profit herein than in any other commodity, and with
least trouble and charge."
From Binchester the traveller proceeds to Auckland
Castle, and becomes the guest of Bishop Morton, " who
maintains great hospitality in an orderly, well-governed
house." His description of the bishop's residence is
interesting, and in the light of later changes, valuable
also. "This castle, as it is a stately, pleasant seat of
great receipt, so is it of great strength, compassed
with a thick stone-wall, seated upon the side of
an hill, upon a rock, a river running below,
and good store of wood, though little timber,
encompassing above. Here is a very fair, neat hall,
as I have found in any bishop's palace in England.
Two chapels belonging hereunto, the one over the other ;
the higher a most dainty, neat, light, pleasant place, but
the voice is so drowned and swallowed by the echo, as
few words can be understood. . . . Here are three
dining-rooms, a fair matted gallery, wherein there was
placed on both sides these pictures : John Huss, Jerome of
11
162
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/April
U89L
Prague, Luther, Zuinglius, Craumer, Latimer, Whitaker,
Wickli£Ee, Calvin, Beza, Perkins, Bullinger, Jewell,
Pagius, Ridley, Bradford, Zanchius, Bucer, &c. And
none but of this strain. A dainty stately park, wherein I
saw wild bulls and kine, which had two calves runners.
There are about twenty wild beasts, all white ; will not
endure your approach, but if they be enraged or distressed
become] very violent and furious." The time spent with
the bishop was employed in conversation, anecdotal, theo-
logical, and medicinal, much of which the traveller reports.
From Auckland Brereton proceeded to Durham. His
first view of the city impresses him as '' a stately and
delightful prospect, especially the Minster and the
Bishop's Palace, which is built castlewise, and is a place
of great strength, and is in good repair, wherein the
bishop doth winter." The cathedral he found " as neatly
kept as any in England, built like unto Paul's" — meaning
the old cathedral of St. Paul, London. He describes the
" eight great and stately pillars," on each side, " as great
as Paul's." He mentions the font—" the daintiest that I
have seen in England" — "a stately pair of double organs,"
and " a stately altar stone, all of fine marble." He tells
us that when the communion was adn.inistered " a
stately cloth of gold" was laid "upon this altar, or
rather communion table." He mentions the copes, one of
them a " new red embroidered cope, which is wrought full
of stars, like one I have seen worn in St. Dennis in
France." He describes the site of the shrine of St. Cuth-
bert, and alludes to the Chapel of the Nine Altars.
Apparently speaking of one of the windows of the eastern
transept, he says, "there is placed the picture of St.
Cuthbert praying in the holy isle, the water flowing up to
his chin : the picture, also in glass, of a friar correcting a
nun " in a way which need not be described. After
referring to the Galilee and the tomb of Bede, he intro-
duces the following singular legend : — "In the churchyard
is the tomb of him who was the steward, and disbursed
the money when the church was erected ; of whom it is
reported that, all his money being paid over night, his
glove was by a spirit every night filled and supplied, so
as, though it was empty over night, yet was replenished
next morning ; his hand is made holding a glove stuffed
with money, and by this means was the great work built :
the name of the steward of the work was Hubbapella."
From Durham the traveller comes on to Newcastle,
glancing at Lumley Castle on his way, "in reasonable
good repair, though of no great strength." Newcastle, he
declares, "is beyond all compare the fairest and richest
town in England, inferior for wealth and building to no
city save London and Bristol." The old house-and-shop-
girt bridge of Tyne is, he says, "except London Bridge
over Thames, and the bridge at Berwick over Tweed, one
of the finest bridges I have met with in England." The
church of St. Nicholas "is as neat pewed, and formed
ith as much uniformity, as any I have found in England,
and it is as neatly kept and trimmed." He mentions the
market, kept every day, " and in a dainty market place."
"Tuesday and Saturday," he adds, "a mighty market,
and much provision comes out of Northumberland ; infinite
store of poultry." Many of the streets he finds so steep
that " horses cannot stand upon the pavement— therefore
the daintiest flagged channels are in every street that I
have seen : hereupon may horse or man go without danger
of sliding."
Our traveller takes an excursion by river to Tynemoutn
and South Shields. He mentions Tynemouth Castle,
"which," he says, "is a dainty seated castle, almost
compassed with the sea, wherein hath been the fairest
church I have seen in any castle, but now it is out of
repair, and much neglected." At South Shields he only
sees the salt pans, but of these he gives a long and
minute description — much too long to be quoted. He
tells us that here there are more salt works
and more salt made "than in any part of England."
The result, however, was "such a cloud of smoke" that
"you cannot see to walk."
Returning to Newcastle he finds " the fairest quay in
England," stretching "from Tyne Bridge all along the
Town Wall, and almost to the glass-works, where is made
window glass." The Nag's Head Inn, at the foot of
Akenside Hill, is "the fairest built inn in England " that
he had seen. He lodged, however, at the Swan in Bigg
Market, kept by Mr. Swan, the postmaster, " and paid
3d. ordinary, and no great provision." "This town," he
goes on to say, "is also famous for the walls which
compass round the town, about which you may walk, and
which is strengthened with strong towers placed upon the
wall at no great distance."
Brereton devotes a few sentences to the Roman Wall —
" the ancientest monument I have heard of in England."
In some places, towards Carlisle, he was told, it was
" above tsventy yards broad 1" " The people go to market
upon it."
Morpeth is the next stage in the traveller's journey.
Here he sees " a fine little castle, in good repair," and "a
market-town with poor houses." He dined at the post-
master's and paid 12d. ordinary, and 6d. ordinary.
Thence he proceeds to Alnwick, and lodges there at the
post-master's, paying "6d. ordinary, and good victuals
and lodging." Many parts of the Castle he found in
decay, "but my lord is repairing the same by degrees."
Great revenues, he learns, are paid unto the same "my
lord " out of " this country : at least eight horse-load of
money." Brereton spends the night at Alnwick, " 6d.
ordinary supper, and 4d. breakfast; good lodging and
meat."
The traveller goes forward to Belford, and thence to
Holy Island. Between the ruins of the Priory and the
Cathedral of Durham he discovers structural resemblances.
He mentions the "dainty little fort," where resided
Captain Rugg, its governor, "who is as famous for his
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
163
generous and free entertainment of strangers, as for his
great bottle nose, which is the largest I have seen."
From Holy Island Brereton proceeds to Berwick. He
is struck with the "fair, stately bridge over Tweed" of
fifteen arches, built by King James, and costing, he was
told, £17,000 The river he describes as "most in-
finitely stored with salmon, 100 or 200 salmons at one
draught." "But much more," he goes on to say, "was
reported by our host, which is most incredible, that there
were 2,000 salmons taken since Sunday last"; -that is, in
four days, for this was written on Thursday, the 25th of
June. Berwick he describes as a poor town, having no
trade, but many indigent persons and beggars. The
harbour had "only one little pink of about forty tons
. . . and some few fishing boats." His account o!
the fortifications is interesting. " Here were the strongest
fortifications I have met with in England, double-walled,
and outworks of earth, and the outer walls like unto
Chester walls, and without the inner walls a deep and
broad moat well watered ; the inner walls of invincible
strength, stone wall within, and without lined with
earth about twenty yards thick, witn bulwarks con-
veniently placed to guard one another." At Berwick our
traveller lodged at the Crown, where he was well used,
" 8d. ordinary, and 6d. our servants, and great entertain-
ment and good lodging, a respective host and honest
reckoning." Having paid which, he crosses the Border,
and we bid him adieu. J. R. BOYLE, F.S.A.
at tft* Barker*
in.
"THE EARLS OF HELL."
flENTION has already been made of a gipsy
of note, known by the title of " the Earl of
Hell." Several others have born the same
name — perhaps, though we are not sure of
the fact, in hereditary succession. One of these swarthy
noblemen was, about eighty years ago, tried for a theft
of a considerable sum of money at a Dalkeith market.
The proof seemed to the judge fully sufficient, but the
jury returned a verdict of "not proven." On dismissing
the prisoner from the bar, the judge informed him, in
plain braid Scotch, that he had "rubbit shootherswi' the
gallows " that morning, and warned him not again to
appear there with a similar body of proof against him, as
it seemed scarcely possible that another jury would con-
strue it so favourably. The impudent gipsy, however,
replied, "that naebody had onny richt to use niccan
language to him." The last "Earl of Hell" we have
heard of had left off gipsying and betaken himself to
farm work, but be still retained many traits of the old
s'avageism. Once when a young would-be artist was
sketching his profile on the whitened kitchen wall with a
burnt stick, unbeknown, of course, to the earl, his lord-
ship, seeing what the youth was about, clicked him up in
his arms without saying a word, laid him on the fire, and
left him there.
FAIRS.
The Gipsies of the Borders, like their kindred all over
Christendom, have always been great frequenters of
fairs. At the various horse fairs — St. BosweU's, St.
James's, Berwick, Morpeth, Newcastle, Durham, Stag-
shawbank, Whitsunbank, Carlisle, &c. — the gipsies used
to bring out their horses in the afternoon, and trot them
up and down to effect sales, but more commonly ex-
changes. A more grotesque sight could scarcely be wit-
nessed anywhere. Anyone wishful to see what a Turko-
man, Koord, or Arab encampment is like, might have
formed some idea of it from the gipsies on St. BosweU's
Green on the morning after the fair, especially when, as
often happened, it had been accompanied by a St.
Boswell's flood.
HORSE-STEALING.
Down till the end ot last century, and even later, some
of the gipsies carried on a considerable trade in horse-
stealing between England and Scotland. The animals
which were stolen in the South were taken to Scotland,
and sold there ; those stolen in Scotland were, on the
other hand, disposed of in the South. The crime of
horse-stealing brought a great many of these wanderers
to an untimely end.
CHILD-STEALING.
The gipsies, it is said, were long in the habit of stealing
children. A curious case is on record. Adam Smith,
author of the " Wealth of Nations," was actually carried
off by a band of them, when a child three years old, from
his widowed mother's house in Kirkcaldy. Being pur-
sued by his uncle, with such assistance as he could obtain,
the thieves were overtaken in Leslie wood, and the child
was rescued. To this day, in the South of Scotland,
when a child becomas unruly, his father will often say, in
the most serious manner — "Mother, that cannot be oor
bairn ; the tinklers must ha' ta'en oors, an' left theirs.
Gie him back to the gipsies, an' get oor ain." The other
children will look bewildered, while the subject of remark
will instinctively fly to his mother, who as instinctively
clasps him to her bosom, quieting his terror, as only a
mother can, with the lullaby-
Whist nu, whist nu, dinna fret ye ;
The black tinkler winna get ye.
The gipsies, Simson tells us, frighten their children in the
same manner, by saying that they will give them to the
gorgio, that is, being interpreted, " the oppressor," a
term applied to all who are not of gipsy blood.
CHILD-STRIPPING.
It was a common practice, about the middle of last
century, for old female gipsies to strip children of their
wearing apparel when they happened to meet them alone
in sequestered places. Tradition has preserved many
164
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
such incidents, in which the notorious Jean Gordon,
another virago named Esther Grant, and a third, nearer
our own time, named Kachael Mo'gomery, conspicuously
figure. The latter once shockingly mutilated a poor boy
who had done something or other to provoke her. For
this offence she was never tried or punished, but her
name was a terror over the country-side as long as she
lived.
RIVAL SEPTS.
The Faws, or Faas, and the Baliols, Bailyows, or
Baillies, have always been reckoned the aristocracy of the
Scottish gipsy race. The respective heads of these two
families have been contemporary kings and queens to
their countrymen for several hundred years. The district
held to belong to the Faas comprehended Northumber-
land, Berwickshire, Roxburghshire., and East Lothian.
The Baillies roamed and ruled further inland, from Lang-
holm, Longtown, and Lockerby, to Linlithgow and Bath-
gate. The two royal families were always at feud. The
Baillies deemed themselves of quite superior rank to the
Faas, while, on the other hand, the Faas spoke with great
bitterness and contempt of the Baillies. In some old
records the name Faa is written Faley. This guides us
to the etymology of the word, falwe : fallow, sallow, or
tawny yellow, indicating the complexion of the tribe.
The Baillies, like the Blythes, are mostly fair and ruddy,
as of a different stock. Other clans or septs, besides those
already mentioned, are the Stewarts, Cowans, Geddeses,
Greys, Wilkies, Hallidays, Wilsons, Keiths, Robertsons,
&c., numerically less powerful and holding a subordinate
place.
THE ROYAL FAAS.
We have written records and biographies of the Royal
Faas for several generations back, and they can trace
their lineage, we believe, to that "John Faa, Lord and
Earl of Little Egypt," with whom James the Fifth of
Scotland entered into a league and treaty in the year
1540. The last three who bore the kingly title, all named
William, were remarkable men. Auld Wull Faa, the
first of the trio, is said to have done some service in
Mar's Year (1715) to Sir William Benuet, the friend of
the poet Thomson, and laird of Grubbet, in which barony
Kirk Yetholm is situated. For this he got a free house to
live in, and a right of pasturage on the common, while
feus or perpetual leases were granted to members of his
tribe. The second Wull Faa had twenty-four children,
and at each christening he appeared dressed in his original
wedding robes. These christenings were celebrated with
no small parade. Twelve young handmaidens were
always present, as part ef the family retinue, and for the
purpose of waiting on the numerous guests, including
several of the neighbouring lairds and farmers, who as-
sembled to witness the ceremony, and to partake of the
subsequent festivities. His son and successor, Wull the
Third and Last, was a very shrewd as well as active man,
an accomplished athlete, a famous football player, a
daring smuggler who had often braved the gaugers, a
skilful adept in the piicatorial art, a capital hand with
the gun, and a fiddler who might have matched Niel
Gow. He died in 1847, at the age, it was said, of 96
years.
QOSEU ESTHER.
Wull Faa was succeeded by his sister's son, Charlie
Blythe, called by his kindred "Charles I.," a decent,
respectable man, naturally sharp, and by no means ill-
informed: He died in 1861, aged 86, and his son David,
whose right it was to succeed him, waived his claim in
favour of his sister Helen, the youngest princess of the
family. But Esther, vulgarly called Ettie or Eatie, the
eldest, protested against this arrangement. She bore the
royal name of Faa from her mother, and resolved to assert
her right to wear the crown, She accordingly issued a
proclamation, asking for a plebiscite, which was taken on
the 12th day of November, 1861, the result being that she
was unanimously elected to fill the throne. The follow-
ing account of Queen Esther's coronation and subsequent
career was contributed by Thomas Tweed to the Newcastle
Weekly Chronicle shortly after her Majesty's death :—
The coronation was a stately pageant, and is memorable
in gipsy annals. A gaily -arrayed palfrey had been pro-
vided for the Queen, who was attired in a robe of royal
red. Her majesty was attended by a royal brother and
nephew, two princesses of the blood, several grandchildren
of the queen-elect, and a miscellaneous retinue of fol-
lowers. An order of procession having been formed, the
calvacade proceeded to the Cross at Kirk Yetholm, where
the crowner, the village blacksmith, George Gladstone by
name, produced the crown (which had been fabricated by
himself, and polished bright as burnished tin could be
made, with a Scotch thistle forming one of its conspicuous
adornments), and made ready, in virtue of his office, first
exercised by him when he set the crown upon the vener-
l prill
891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
165
able head of Charles Blythe, to consecrate and crown the
new sovereign. First, he made proclamation of his right
to exercise his high office, and, having in the most courtly
fashion, set the glittering emblem of royalty upon her
head, proclaimed the heroine of the day Queen Esther
i"aa Blythe, " Challenge who dare !" Cheers both loud
and long made the welkin ring, and then, when wishes for
long life and a happy reign had been expressed, her
Majesty conveyed in royal terms her thanks to her sub-
jects for their countenance and support, and counselled
them to live quietly and at peace with all men. An
address of congratulation was next presented to her
Majesty in the name of those who were not her subjects,
and the more formal proceedings terminated, the wet and
ungenial character ot the weather helping to end them
prematurely. But the Queen and her subjects were not
easily overcome by the unfavourable weather, and they
did not forego a pre-arranged procession round the village,
with a call at the public places of entertainment in pass-
ing. Subsequently, a levee was held in the "royal
palace, " and afterwards dancing was attempted on the
village green ; but the character of the weather robbed
these proceedings of their life and vigour, and brought
them to an early close. Nevertheless, the formalities,
which attained considerable publicity at the time, were
enough to set Esther firmly on the throne of her father.
The Queen was naturally of a sprightly disposition,
though, when she was angry, as she frequently was, woe
betide the victim of her wrath ! Aged people have been
heard to say that it was not pleasant to remember her
free or fiery language either in hot blood or in lighter
badinage when she gave full scope to her powers of speech.
But like good wine, she improved with age, and she could
chat pleasantly and intelligently with people in any con-
dition of life during all the period of her reign. She
"married beneath her" before she came to the throne,
and she was a widow and mother of twelve children when
that dignity was reached. Her husband, with whom she
made a Coldstream marriage, was neither of her race nor
rank, being a common person of the name of Rutherford,
otherwise " Jethart Jock, " and he long pre-deceased her,
she being left to provide both for herself and those of her
children who were not able to shift for themselves. This
was a task not easily accomplished, and so sadly beaten
did she at one time feel that she made application to the
parish of Jedburgh for a pauper's allowance. When she
mounted the throne she fairly turned the corner on
adversity. Queen Esther had many visitors in "the
palace" at Kirk Yetholm, and none of them ever came
away without something to remember and much to talk
about.
Her Majesty was, like many of her gipsy sex, greatly
addicted to smoking, her favourite kind of pipe being a
short and black clay, always, if possible, lighted by a
brief insertion in the fire. This method of raising a
" reek " has now almost gone out of fashion ; but it
produced an odour and flavour only to be tolerated, not to
say enjoyed, by persons of strong tastes and acquired
habits. She used intoxicants very sparingly, and never
made herself the worse for what she took.
Before the close of her life, her Majesty removed
from the prolonged scene of gipsy royalty at Kirk
Yetholm to Kelso, where, in accordance with " the fitness
of things, "she spent her declining years, and where her
death took place on the 12th July, 1883. Her remains
were, however, interred in the sepulchre of her kin at
Kirk Yetholm. The funeral took place on the 15th of
the month, and, the date being Sunday, it was attended
and witnessed by considerable numbers in Kelso, and by
still larger numbers at Yetholm. The coffin bore a
wreath of white roses sent by Lady John Scott, of
Spottiswood, besides other floral tokens of respect ; but
the royal cloak of the Queen was thrown over all when
the bier was being carried from the gate to the grave in
Yetholm Churchyard.
None of Esther's progeny were deemed fit to fill her
shoes or wear her gipsy honours, and gipsy royalty
among the Border tribes came to an end when she was
laid in the grave. W. B.
j|AMBURGH is a place of such ancient re-
nown, having so many associations, both
legendary and historical, that one is perhaps
just a little disappointed to find it so incon-
siderable (though attractive) a village. A puny offspring
it seems of the far-famed capital of the Anglian kinglets.
To the lover of antiquity there is little to regret in the
fact that Bamburgh has remained but an old-world vil-
lage, instead of becoming, like Newcastle, a city of com-
merce. In this quiet watering-place he may yield himself
unreservedly to the influence of the past, feeling assured
that nothing too aggressively modern will disturb his
meditations. Historically interesting, Bamburgh is also
one of the most picturesque villages on the Northumbrian
coast. From no standpoint is it seen to more advantage
than from the walls of the mighty castle which overlooks
and dwarfs it.
The village lies on the gentle slope of a ridge which in-
166
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/April
1891.
clines to the sea. It consists of a number
of email villas and cottages, arranged, as
it were, along the sides of a triangle, the
apex of which is the castle, and tbe base the
high brick wall of the castle gardens. Of
the space thus enclosed the greater part is
now occupied by a little plantation of
trees — sycamores, oaks, elms, &c., about 70
years old. There is a row of cottages
called the Wyndings between the main
body of the village and the lifeboat
station.
Most of the cottages are low, one-storey
buildmgs, their front walls bedecked with
such flowers and plants as the honeysuckle,
fuchsia, bindweed, rose, canary-creeper,
ivy, and cotoneaster. Behind them are
several small kitchen-gardens, in which one
Jt
may see, above the hedges sur-
rounding them, a few black pop-
lars and laburnums. The oldest
house in the village, so it would
seem, is on the south side.
Carved on its doorhead is the
date 1692. Some of the newer
cottages form a range of build-
ings which, with their mullioned
windows and dripstone mould-
ings, have somewhat of a mon-
astic appearance. One sees every
where pots of musk and migno-
nette, fuchsias and geraniums,
evincing that love of flowers so
characteristic of country people.
At the foot of the village are
several new villas, with a row
of trees in front of them on the
road. Several prettily-designed
ted brick houses with dormer
windows and porches have re-
cently been built on the north
side of the village. The hostelries
of the place — the Lord Crowe's
Anns and the Victoria and the
Castle Inns — are all on the south
side.
The eye lingers with pleasure
on the details of the picture
spread out from the walls of
the castle — the broad street of
the village with the red-tiled
cottages on each side, the clump
of greenery in the middle, the
Anrill
1891. I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
167
oblong garden plots, the pale yellow stacks clustering round
a farmstead, the low modern school-room, the massive
church tower rising above the trees at the head of the
village, the fields and pastures to the south and west,
the heather-covered hills to the north, the long bare
line of sand-hills, and the grand old ocean with its
islets endeared to the memory by stories of piety and
heroism.
Fair is the actual scene, but the fascination it is capable
of exercising is only to be felt by the spectator who can
call up before him a vision of bygone things. "At
Hamburgh above all," to quote Mr. Freeman, "we feel
we are pilgrims come to do our service at one of the great
cradles of our national life." Around Bamburgh there is
also a legendary interest, lor is it not said to have been
the castls of Sir Lancelot du Lac— the Joyeuse Garde of
the Arthurian romances ? Here, as in the
valley of the Tweed, is it true that
The air is full of ballad notes
Borne out of long ago.
History enables us in the first place to
look back to the year A.D. 547. Then Ida
began to reign over the English, and
"timbered Bebbanburh that was erst with
hedge betyned and thereafter with walL"
At this time, and perhaps previously, it
was known to the Celts as " Dinguayrdi "
or "Dinguoaroy." Its present name was
not acquired until the reign of Ida's grand-
son Ethelfrith, who gave the place to his
wife Bebba, and called it after her name.
Bamburgh was twice besieged by Penda,
the Mercian. So strong was the position,
that his assaults were in vain. On the
first occasion, being unable to take it by
force, he attempted to burn down the city
by setting fire to some planks, &c., at the
base of the crag ; but the flames were
dri ven back by the wind into the camp of
the Mercians, in answer, it is alleged, to
the prayers of St. Aidan, who was then on
the Fame.
Bamburgh was attacked and taken by
Athelstau in 926, its defender, King
Aldred, seeking safety in flight. From
being a royal city it became the seat of
several powerful earls. In 995 it was
sacked by the Danes. In 1095, William
Rufus led an army against Bamburgh, to
punish the defection of Robert de Mow-
bray, the third Norman Earl of Northum-
berland. The earl, receiving a secret
message from the wardens of Newcastle,
promising to throw open the gates if he
appeared suddenly before it, made his way
out of his stronghold with thirty followers
and escaped by sea, but was eventually captured at
Tynemouth. His wife, Matilda de Aquila, however,
still holding out, the king, it is said, took the hapless
earl to a spot in front of his caatle, and threatened to
put out his eyes if the stronghold were not immediately
surrendered. A woman's choice between two such alter-
natives may safely be predicted. The countess threw
open the gates, and the garrison capitulated. In the reign
of Stephen, Bamburgh offered a successful resistance to
David of Scotland, who, however, forced the outworks,
and put to the sword a hundred of the defenders.
It would appear, from a passage in Reginald of Dur-
ham, that the greatness of Bamburgh in the 12th century
was declining. "The city," he says, "renowned for-
merly for the magnificent splendour of her high estate, has
in these latter days been burdened with tribute and been
168
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
April
April I
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
169
170
MONTHLY CHRONICLE,
lADril
/189L
reduced to the condition of a handmaiden. She who
was once the mistress of the cities of Britain, has ex-
changed the glories of her ancient sabbaths for shame
and desolation. " When, about 1164, Henry IL repaired the
castle and built the great tower or keep, there was little
fear of Bamburgh losing its fame or importance during the
succeeding centuries of Border warfare. Royal visits were
of frequent occurrence. King John was here in 1201 and
again in 1213, Henry III. in 1221, Philippa of Hainault
in 1333, Edward III. in 1356, Margaret of Anjou in 1462,
and Henry VI. in 1463. During the Wars of the Roses,
Bamburgh was held now by one party, now by the other.
After the battle of Hexham, it was bombarded by the
Earl of Warwick, and very much damaged. With this
event the glory of Bamburgh may be
said to have departed. The castle was
allowed to fall into ruins, and it remained
in this condition until the latter part of
the 18th century, when Dr. Sharp, Arch-
deacon of Northumberland, and one of
the Crewe Trustees, restored it at his own
expense, thus making it available for the
charities he was about to establish in con-
nection with the Crewe Trust. The nature
of these charities has been described in the
Monthly Chionide, vol. ii., p. 510.
Bamburgh is exceptionally rich in
memorials of the past. These are the
castle, the Church of St. Aidan, and the
fragments of the monastery of the "Preach-
ing Friaris."
There is no more imposing mass of
masonry in the North of England than the
castle, and no situation more impressive
than the pile of columnar basalt on which
it is seated. The thick curtain wall with its
towers and bastions runs along the very edge of the crag
and seems to form an integral portion of the rock. Part
of it belongs to the original work. The area of the rocky
Anrill
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
171
platform is about three acres, and is divided into three of the smaller round-headed windows and a mural gallery
wards. The entrance is at the south-east, though running round the upper storey. In a vault on the
originally, it is believed, it was at the north-west corner, ground floor is a remarkable draw well 150 ft. deep, much
by what is now the postern. In the upper or southern °1(Jer than tne castle, for Simeon, of Durham, a monk
ward stands the great rectangular keep 70 ft. high. Its who wrote about A.D. 1129, in describing Hamburgh under
ancient features are the fine base and doorway, some date A.D. 774, says, " There is in the western side and in
K/ffr<4r Ki#&, iz, .i-wo
JWf^ ^>*m
'^•~\^.;'ff"Ws
•«W~^-- '":^-ll/l
172
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{API"
1891.
the highest part of the city a fountain hollowed out
in a marvellous fashion, and the water of which
is sweet to drink and most limpid to the sight."
Along the west side of the ward are the domestic build-
ings—the King's Hall, 65 ft. by 30 ft, the Great Kitchen,
&c., ranged against the wall and overlooking the cliff.
These principally form at present the Girls' School. In
the south-east corner of the ward are the interesting re-
mains of the Norman apaidal chapel of St. Oswald.
Our sketches would be incomplete without a view such
as Scott had in his mind when he wrote of " King Ida's
castle huge and square." Here we see it almost as it
would be presented to the eyes of St. Hilda and her maids
as the bark flew past before the breeze to Lindisfarne.
But Bamburgh needs not the story of Marmion to lend
interest to the grim-looking pile. Turner, it may be
noted, made a drawing of Bamburgh Castle from the Stag
Hocks, near the spot selected by our artist for the picture
on page 169. The effect in the illustration is that of a
lowering day in summer, the clouds gathering thickly
over the Fame Islands, which are shown more distinctly
in two other sketches on pages 171 and 172. In the middle
distance is seen the lifeboat, which has just returned after
taking part in the opening of the harbour works at the
neighbouring port of North Sunderland. Along the
beautiful sands many an interesting ramble may be taken,
and th« castle itself may be visited again and again
without losing its charm.
After the castle, one naturally turns to the large and
beautiful church of St. Aidan. which stands at the head
of the village on a site, there is reason to believe, of
the greatest historic interest. For here, his head resting
against a buttress supporting the west wall of his little
timber church, St. Aidan breathed his last on the 31st
of August, 651. Three periods of architecture are repre-
sented in the present building — the Transitional, c. 1170,
in the nave and transepts, the Early English in the chan-
cel, and the Geometrical Decorated in the
south aisle. The most striking part of the
building is the chancel, which is of unusual
length in proportion to its breadth, viz.,
62 ft. by 21 ft. It is richly arcaded, eight
of the delicate lancet arches on the south
side, four on the north, and three on the
east being pierced as windows. Most of
these are filled with Flemish stained glass.
The old ritual arrangements are very com-
plete, consisting of sedilia, piscinas, and
aumbries. Other features of interest are —
two low-side windows, a finely panelled
hagioscope or squint, a low arched mural
recess, with the effigy of a knight within
it, and the deflexion of the chancel arch to
the sooth supposed to represent the
drooping position of Christ's head on the
cross. Beneath the chancel is an Early
English crypt of two chambers, with groined roof,
probably the abode of a recluse. It is known as the
Forster vaults, for here lie buried several members of
that family, among whom are Ferdinando Forster,
treacherously killed in a duel by Mr. John Fenwick, of
Hock, near the White Cross, Newcastle ; Thomas Forster,
the general of the Jacobite forces in 1715 ; and Dorothea,
his sister, the heroine of one of Mr. Walter Besant's most
fascinating novels. The nave arcades consist of four
arches, supported by circular pillars. The capitals are
plain, with one exception, and this is richly carved.
The Sharp Monument, by Chantrey, in the north
aisle, is a fine example of that eminent sculptor's
work.
In the churchyard lie the remains of Grace Darling.
The effigy on her monument, by Mr. Raymond Smith, was
renewed in 1885, the old one being placed in the north
transept of the church. A little to the east of this ceno-
taph is the grave of Prideaux John Selby, whose magni-
ficent illustrations of British ornithology are well known
to most lovers of nature. The house occupied by the
sexton, opposite to the churchyard — the last house on the
left-hand side of the road leading to Belford — stands on
-•ft^WMSS
U&Qrf$-
#,//./' « LrtJ x^
Atirill
11.1
ISM.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
173
the site of the cottage in which Grace Darling was born,
December 17th, 1815. A little further along the road
near a farm called the " Bamburghfriars" are considerable
remains of the monastery of the "Preaching Friars,"
including the north-west corner of the chancel of the
church and the outline of the cloister garth. Incor-
porated with the farm buildings is also much ancient
work.
A few of the people of Bamburgh still follow the
calling of fishermen. At one time, up to a hundred years
ago, there was a fishing village of some extent, it is said,
between the castle moat and the site of the Lifeboat
House.
Wherever we move at Bamburgh we are haunted by
memories of the past. Even along the sea shore
they throng in upon us. We see in imagina-
tion the wreck of the magnificent barge of the
Bishop of St. Andrew's, the San Salvador, in 1472,
and picture to ourselves the delight of the villagers as
they plundered the cargo — rich merchandise from
Flanders, for they were confirmed " wreckers " at this
time, and even as late as 1559, when they treated other
Scottish vessels in a similar way. We behold the strange
sea-animal which was cast ashore here in 1544, so
terrible to look at that "sundry took great fear and
dreadour for the sicht of it a laug time after. " We are
onlookers as it were at the duel which was fought on the
sands here between the rival candidates, Mr. Latnbtcm
and Colonel Beaumont, in the fierce election contest of
1826, and which happily ended without bloodshed. From
the spell of historic Bamburgh there is no escaping, and
under its influence we gaze at the rock-based castle and
the picturesque seaside village beneath its walls.
W. W. TOMLINSON.
JJENDRAGON CASTLE is the name given in
"Rokeby" to Percymyre Castle (locally pro-
nounced Fassimer, or Passimore), a precipi-
tous rock-face, about 200 feet high, standing out of the
hillside, on the Durham bank of the Tees, about a mile
from Cotherston. By riding over this crag, the last of
the Fitzhughs, Lords of Romaldkirk, tradition says, met
his fate. I subjoin a copy of a ballad on the subject,
written y^ars ago, by whom I know not.
JOHN H. CHIPCHASE, Pontefract,
In Cotherston Castle, acres since,
There lived a gallant knight,
Who, though to peaceful arts inclined,
Was dauntless in the fight
The sun had risen gaily up
One fine September morn,
When he and a goodly company
Rode out, with sounding horn.
To hunt the deer in Marwcod Chase,
They merrily coursed along,
While field and woodland echoed loud
With many a jovial song.
The dewdrops glistened on the grass
In every forest glade ;
The dogs they leapt right joyfully,
The horses pranced and neighed.
Now soon the throng approached the Tees
And spied a cottage lone,
Wherein through many a season's change
Had lived an ancient crone.
Her husband years and years before
Had fallen in the fray,
When fighting: by his chieftain's side,
In Pay nim land away.
And she his widow ever since,
Protected by her lord
(The grandson of her husband's chief),
Had dwelt beside the ford.
Now as the cavalcade swept by,
Beside her door she stood,
And cried unto young Lord Fitzhugh,
" Oh ! pass not yonder flood !
"For oh ! last night I had a dream—
A fearful dream I trow —
I thought you lay beneath yon rock
The death sweat on your brow."
She pointed, as she spoke, across
The rapid, rippling stream
To Percymyre, that awful crag
Unsunned by one bright beam.
For the sun his smiles now brightly threw
On river and on tree,
But on that black and fearful crag
Not a single glance shed be.
"Stay, stay," she cried, " for if thou fall,
Who then will fill thy place?
Forknow'st thou not, my noble lord,
The last thou'rt of thy race ?'
" Nay." laughing said the young man then,
" Wilt tell me, Elspeth, pray,
Are all thy dreams so surely true,
That thou shouldst bid me stay v "
"No, my lord, many dreams I've had
That never yet came true."
" Why, then, farewell ! " he smiling said,
And down the pathway flew.
He crossed the ford, and urged his steed
Quick up the neighb'ring height,
And Joined his friends just as the horn
Announced a deer in sight
Away they bounded, every one —
The game was full in view;
And foremost in that glittering throng
Was seen the Lord Fitzhugh.
They hunted till the evening came
And then they turned back ;
The stag had soon outstripped the dogs
And baffled all the pack.
But Lord Fitzhugh, where was he then ?
He had followed fast the deer,
When all the field except himself
Were left far in the rear.
" Oh ! to Barnard's Castle he's gone,"
Cried one, " to see the Earl,
And ere to-morrow's sun has risen
He'll meet us in the hall."
"Nay. by my faith," another said,
" 'Tis not the Earl to see ;
I'll wager my best hunting horse
"Tig one dearer far than he."
And they, thus jesting, crossed the ford
That morning they had passed,
And lingered not upon the road,
For night was falling fast.
Now, Lord Fitzhugh the deer had chased
Into a lonely vale ;
He bridle drew and looked around,—
He was in Lang ley dale.
He turned his steed and climbed a hill ;
The stag was out of sight,
The sun was sinking in the sky,
And soon it would be night
But far away he could descry
Old Barnard's massy walls,
And, gazing, thought of that dear form
Within its lordly halls.
174
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
April
For ere another summer came —
Her consent he had won —
The Earl's fair daughter, Madeline,
Would reign in Cotherston.
Then as he pensive homeward went.
Near to the ford he drew,
Twas nearly dark— but could it be? —
The deer swift past him flew !
Two faithful hounds, who'd followed well
Their master all the way,
Now bounded OD in hot pursuit,
As though 'twas break of day.
But night had fallen, and nearby
Yawned a chasm, dark and dread :
'Twas to the top of Percymyre
The deer so swiftly sped.
The young lord followed recklessly.
Forgetting danger near;
His every thought was fixed upon
The slaying of the deer.
But now the dogs stopped suddenly—
A flash, as though of lire,
Revealed unto the luckless youth
The drink of Percymyre.
And far below, in that dark dell,
Crept the river on its way,
Like some huge serpent coiling round
Its quiv'ririg, ghastly prey.
Where are thy visions, Lord Fitzhugh*
Of happiness in store ?
Thy fair young bride will weep in vain—-
She'll never see thee more.
The owl will shriek a dismal dirge
Over thy bloody corse ;
The raven light and feed upon
Thee and thy noble horse.
He checked his steed ; but 'twas too late,
The tired beast reeled and fell,
Rolled OD his rider, and they both
Went down that awful delL
And then amid the dark, dim night,
Arose a tearful scream,
And horse and rider mangled lay —
Fulfilled was Elspeth's dream 1
f!0rtft=CatmtrD <8ft0st
[OTWITHSTANDING the manifest growth
of popular enlightenment, there is still a
vast amount of superstition in the North-
Country. Almost every neighbourhood has
its wise woman, to whom credulous fools resort to have
their fortunes told, or for the recovery of lost goods, or to
find out who are their enemies, and learn how to circum-
vent and punish them. The fairy people, it is true, now
only linger in childish tradition ; but ghosts are still not
uncommon, as witness the scare at Chollerford in the
early days of the present year, on account of the alleged
apparition of a murdered pedlar at the house of the
railway station-master.
An old farmer on the Borders, of the name of Bell, said
to have been a monstrous glutton, who required to have a
round of beef set by his bedside every night, used to
come back after death, and ride up and down about his
"onstead," even in daylight, if common report was to be
believed. This was about eighty years ago. We had the
particulars of the case from an honest woman, named
Kirsty Weatherstone, who had been a servant at the
place, and who had seen the apparition many and many a
time, as, indeed, all the people thereabouts had. The
old fellow was as fat and "ugsome," she said, as when
alive, while he sat in what seemed to be his accustomed
gig, drawn by what seemed to be his favourite black
horse ; but never a word did the ghost utter, whatever he
might see — very different from Bell's habit when a
denizen of the earth, for he had been an awfully profane
man. The ghost's visits were so frequent, Kirsty added,
that the people at last got familiarised with them, and
would merely say, when they saw him riding his rounds,
"There's the old thief again !"
Another Border farmer, named Dunlop, having quar-
relled with his wife, kept her for years shut up in a room in
his house, where no one was allowed to have access to her
but a certain comely maid servant, who took in her meals
and otherwise attended to her, and who, after the poor
woman's death, married the widower. Common report
ran to the effect that the unhappy prisoner was starved ;
but, however this may have been, her ghost certainly
came back, unless the most knowing among the neigh-
bours were under a gross delusion. One night a woman
named Katy Winchester, whom we were well acquainted
with in our youth, distinctly saw her standing, stock-
still, at the farm-house end, when she was going home at
a late hour to the village where she lived, she being an
expert and well-employed midwife. Besides, Mr. Dunlop
himself, after death had bereaved him of his second wife,
was haunted by the ghost of his first, whom he used to
see sitting opposite him at the parlour fireside, "mowing"
at him like the foul fiend.
The keeper of a bumble ale-house in a small Border
town gave lodging, on the night before the annual fair of
St. James, sometime in the first decade of the present
century, to a South-Country traveller, who had heavy
saddle-bags. The man was seen to go in, but was never
seen to come out ; and the ale-house keeper, who had
been notoriously poor before, became afterwards "passing
rich." Murder, said the neighbours, must be the ex-
planation of the secret. And when the son of the
alleged guilty publican rose to be a wealthy man, and
lived in good style in a grand house, all the bells in it
were said to begin a-ringing on each anniversary night
of the traveller's mysterious disappearance, though the
ghost never appeared in bodily shape. A clever bell-
hanger suggested that it was the rats which did this
ringing, as they crept through a hole in the wall where
the wires from the different rooms converged ; but if that
were so, the thing was still more wonderful, it being quite
incomprehensible how these nimble rodents should have
known how to play the pranks they did on "the glorious
Fifth of August, " and on no other day of the year.
The author of "Rambles in Northumberland " tells his
readers that, in passing a cottage, in which he remem-
bered that an old woman had dwelt, who was suspected
of having caused the death of one of her children, he in-
quired of a native of the village if he knew anything of
A prill
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
175
the circumstance, and received from him the following
account :—
I knew the woman, who ii now where the Lord pleases,
very well. She was the wife of a " day-tale " man, and
they had more small bairns than they could well provide
for ; and in harvest she used to go out a-shearing. One
year, about the harvest time, she had a young bairn at
the breast, which she thought was one too many; and
that she might not be hindered of the shearing by staying
at home with it, and that she might get rid of it alto-
gether, she smothered it in the cradle. There was no
public inquiry made, nor inquest held, but all her neigh-
bours, especially the women folk, believed that the bairn
was wilfully made away with, for she had the character
of being a cold-hearted mother. She never did well,
though she lived for nearly forty years afterwards, She
fell into a low way, and was, at times, almost clean past
herself. She was always at the worst about the time of
the harvest moon ; and would then often walk about the
house, and sometimes go out and wander about the
common, all night, moaning and greeting in a painful
way. I have many a time seen her holding her head
atween her hands, rocking herself backwards and for-
wards on a low chair, groaning and sighing, and every
now and then giving an awful sort of shriek, which
folken who knew her best said was her way when she
fancied she heard the bairn cry out in the same way as it
did when she was smooring it. About the harvest time,
she often used to see the spirit of the innocent that she
had put to death ; and her neighbours often heard her
talking to it, bidding it to be gone, and not to torment her
longer with its cries. She is now dead, and in her grave,
and has been many years ; and whatever may be her punish-
ment in the next world for taking away the life of a
harmless bairn of her own flesh and blood, she certainly
dreed a heavy penance in this.
The same gentleman relates another story, concerning
a pedlar who, according to popular report, was murdered
in a lone farm-house above Rothbury about eighty years
before he wrote. The pedlar had the character of being
possessed of a large sum of money, which he always
carried about with him. In his regular visits to that
part of the country, he had been accustomed to call at
this house ; and from the hour he was last observed to
enter it he was never seen alive. The farmer's wife was
the only person at home when the pedlar called ; and
tradition ascribed his murder to her. As he was sitting
in the kitchen, with his back to the door, eating some
food which she had set out, she came suddenly behind
him, and felled him to the ground with a blow from a
churn-staff. Then, after taking his purse out of his
pocket, she threw him into a deep well in the yard. On
her husband's return from the field, she informed him of
what she had done ; and the next day, when the servants
were absent, husband and wife drew the body from the
well and buried it. The writer goes on to say that,
though the neighbours noticed that their worldly cir-
cumstances were much improved, and that they had
much more money at command than formerly, yet they
were never " suspected of having murdered the pedlar.
But their ill-got gain, as in all such cases, brought them
no happiness. The husband, a few years afterwards, fell
from his horse and broke his neck ; and at times the
widow was seized with fits of terror which appeared to
deprive her of reason. She survived her husband several
years, and on her death-bed communicated to a person
who attended her the circumstances of the pedlar's mur-
der and the cause of her terror. She confessed that fre-
quently, when she entered the kitchen where the deed
was done, she fancied that she saw the pedlar sitting at
the table ; and after she had removed to another house, he
used sometimes to seat himself opposite to her, with his
hair wet and hanging down over his face, as he appeared
when she and her husband drew him from the well.
It is universally agreed among ghost-seers that, when
the murderer changes his abode, the spectre of his victim
shifts along with him. But when a perturbed spirit,
"revisiting the glimpses of the moon," appears to a third
party, it usually does so at or near the spot where the deed
was committed, which becomes known as a haunted place.
Some half century since, a farmer named Wilson, who
had been attending Stockton market, and left that town
at a late hour, rather the worse for drink, to ride home
to Middlesbrough, lost his way in the dark, and rode
into the Tees, where he was drowned. His body was
recovered soon after, but his hat, as was natural, had
disappeared. His ghost was said to appear, causing
terror to belated travellers. A Methodist local preacher,
named John Orton, who had been at Middlesbrough, con-
ducting divine service, was returning alone one night
to Stockton, when, about the locality where the farmer
was lost, he met a man without any hat, to whom he bade
"Good night, "but received no answer. It being near mid-
night and the place quite solitary, Orton wondered what
the man could be doing at that untimely hour. He
therefore turned round and followed him, to see, if
possible, where he went, for he suspected, from his
appearance, that he was upon no good errand. But after
retracing a few steps, he lost sight of him all of a sudden,
the man disappearing, or rather vanishing, into a bush
on the left-hand side of the road ; and when Orton went
cautiously forward and peered into the bush, there was
no living creature there or near about. When he reached
home, and told his wife what he had seen, she instantly
exclaimed, " Why, man, it's been aad Wilson !"
Orton's son-in-law, who told us this anecdote, gave us
also the following account of a ghost which he himself
once saw : —
One night, a few days after my father died, I was
sitting in the back yard getting my pipe, when, all on a
sudden, a great black dog, as large as an elephant, came
and stood right before me, as motionless as a rock. I was
suffering from the effects of drink at the time, and
terribly out of sorts, with a head ready to split, and some
feeling not unlike the horrors ; but still I was in full pos-
session of all my senses. So I determined to find out
whether what I seemed to see really existed outside of
me, or was within my own brain ; and therefore I sat
watching it for about five minutes. It stood motionless
all the time my eye was steadily fixed on it. But at last,
in order to satisfy myself, I moved my eye sideways, first to
the left and then to the right, and finding that the dog moved
either way, each time I tried the experiment, I was con-
vinced that it existed only in my own disordered brain.
The late Mr. Christie, land surveyor, who was em-
ployed by the Duke of Buccleuch to survey and make
a plan of the country hunted by his grace's foxhounds,
176
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/April
\ 1891.
related to us a tale of a certain Northumbrian gentleman,
who, it seems, had been guilty of a secret murder, and
who was ever after haunted by the ghost of the murdered
man, dressed in the costume he had worn when alive.
This unwelcome visitor was in the habit of coming at
all hours, without any formal announcement, just opening
the room door and walking in. If the gentleman had re-
turned his salute, it might have disclosed his secret, and
BO have led to disagreeable consequences. So, whenever
the door opened, it was his habit to look round and
put his finger to his eye, in such a way as to cause
himself to see double if the entrant was composed of flesh
and blood, while, if it was only his disembodied friend,
materialised for the nonce, the vision remained single,
and he took no notice. W. B.
il YDON CASTLE is situated about a mile and
a half north-east from the town of Cor-
bridge. For the tirst half mile we take the
Matfen road, and then turn into a grassy
high-banked lane on the left. This "lonnin," as it is
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
177
locally styled, presently degenerates into a field path.
Sometimes ascending, sometimes descending, but most
frequently the former, we proceed on our way. And,
truly, it is a pleasant one. If we pause a moment to rest,
and look back, we see an extensive, a varied, and a
picturesque landscape spread out before us. We over-
look one of the most beautiful parts of the valley of the
lower Tyne. The fields on our left as we resume our way
are known as Deadridge, whilst the hill on our right,
crowned by a clump of trees, is called Gallow Hill, and
has, in the past, no doubt, been all that the name sug-
gests. By and by, we reach the brink of a wooded glen
—a happy hunting ground for botanists and entomo-
logists. Beneath us, the Cor, a tiny streamlet, babbles
noisily on its way over its shelving bed of rock. A steep
path leads us down to a pretty wooden bridge, and, after
an equally sharp ascent on tho other side, we are beneath
the walls of Aydon Castle.
This ancient house is in many ways an interesting
structure. It occupies a position, amongst the fortresses
of Northumberland, midway between that of a great
castle, such as Alnwick or Dunstanborough, and a small
12
178
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
{April
1891.
tower or keep of the kind usually styled pelcs. The
former were the residences of the great overlords : the
latter were the homes of petty squires and yeomen. The
castle was planned and arranged, not only for de-
fence, but for the comfort of its occupants, and
even possessed features which provided for their
love of splendour and hospitality, and for such
luxuries as were then known. It had its great
hall, its minstrels' gallery, and its chapel. The pele,
on the other hand, was contrived for defence alone.
Comfort and luxury did not come within the reach of its
proprietor. If provision were made lor his safety, and
for that of his family, his dependants, and his cattle, in a
time of feud or warfare, he was abundantly satisfied.
Aydon ranks, as I have said, between the great castle and
the pele, and in this fact lies one of its great features of
interest. But it has others. It is to a very large extent
entire. Many parts, especially of the outer walls and
subsidiary buildings, are more or less ruinous, but the
house itself is practically perfect, and the plan and
arrangements of every portion are perfectly clear. It is,
also, almost entirely a building of our date. The plan
originally laid down was the plan which was at once
carried out and completed, and it is the plan which we
see to-day.
The position occupied by the castle is a striking and a
strong one. It stands in an angle of the high land
formed by the course of the Cor. On three sides the
ground descends almost precipitously down to the stream.
In this angle the house itself is planted. The level land
on the more accessible side is occupied by the outer
court-yard, which has been strongly protected by en-
circling walls. A two-fold advantage results trom this
arrangement. The house occupies the least accessible
and therefore the safest part of the plateau, and it also
overlooks the charming scenery of the little vale of the
Cor.
The castle may be ascribed to about the middle of the
thirteenth century, or a little earlier. We have no record
of its erection, and are left to determine its date by its
architectural character alone. At the period just named,
and for some time before, the manor of Aydon was in
the possession of a family who took their name from the
place. The castle was unquestionably built by some
member of this family. In the reign of Edward the
First, the heiress of the Aydons, Emma de Aydon,
married Peter de Vallibus, or de Vaux, by whose heirs
the manor and castle were held for several generations.
In the year 1346, King David of Scotland and bis army,
in marching to Corbridge, laid siege to Aydon. The
occupants surrendered, and were " allowed to depart with
their lives." In 1415 the castle was in the hands of
Robert Ramsay and Sir Ralph Grey. The Ramsays and
the Carnabys held it until the time of Charles the First,
Such is a brief outline of the history of Aydon Castle.
Its interest, however, is structural rather than historic.
The plan is a very singular one, and, considering the size
of the house itself, the area enclosed by the outer walls is
very considerable. The whole castle, with its court-yards
and gardens, covers about an acre. The plan has been
compared to the letter H. Of course the letter H has
many varying shapes, but it would be difficult to point
to any one of these which in any degree resembles the
plan of Aydon Castle. The plan is not one which it is
easy to describe. The house itself consists principally of
an oblong block, the length of which lies east and west.
On the north side, at the west end, a long wing runs out.
The angle between the main block and this wing is
enclosed by a wall, and ferms the inner court-yard. Then
at the east end of the main block there is a second wing,
parallel with the first one, but projecting to almost an
equal distance on both the north and south sides. From
this second wing a small third one runs out on the east
side. The only entrance in the outer walls, which is
unmistakably original, is a wide arch on the west side,
leading into the outer court-yard. The wall in which this
gateway exists runs in a direction which is diagonal to
that of the main body of the house. It is also broken by
a turret, about two-thirds of the distance from its south
corner, the corbelled parapet of which still exists. Be-
tween the turret and the gateway there is the shaft of a
garderobe, resting externally on corbels. This garderobe,
as seen from the outer side, is shown in the accompanying
engraving. At the extreme north end the wall ends in
a bastion-like projection, which is the outside of a small
oblong apartment, entered from the court-yard, and having
a barrel vaulted roof.
From this outer court-yard two inner yards are entered,
both nearly square, though one contains nearly three
times the area of the other. The smaller of these yards is
the inner court already mentioned. The other is a large
yard which covers the whole west front of the house. It
April!
1891. J
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
179
has clearly been occupied on its south side by buildings of
some sort which are now destroyed. Their roof line may
be distinctly seen on the west gable of the main block of
the house. They were obviously of later date than the
existing portions of the castle, and have been ascribed to
Peter de Vallibus, the husband of Emma de Aydon.
Their destruction leaves the house in its original pro-
portions.
The wall of the inner court-yard is surmounted by a
bold battlemented parapet, with rampart behind. The
entrance to the rampart, now walled up, may be seen in
the wall of the west wing. This inner court is entered by
a bold, plain arch of excellent character. From this
court- yard a doorway in the wall, on the east side, leads
into yet another enclosure, which is now, and probably
always has been, the garden.
Returning to the inner court-yard, our attention is first
drawn to a broad flight of steps leading to a doorway on
the first floor. This was originally the principal entrance
to the house. The scairway was formerly covered by a
roof of some kind, the water line of which is very obvious
on the wall over the steps and doorway. The landing is
protected by a parapet which rests on corbels. The
doorway is a plain pointed arch of two chamfered orders,
and is covered by a dripstone. It opens into a passage
from which a door on our left leads into what we may
regard with confidence as the great hall. It is not a very
large apartment, measuring only about 30 feet by 24. It
has a window on each side. Each of these consists of two
lancets enclosed by a single arch. A ladder from this
room leads to the roof, from which splendid views of the
valley beneath and of the surrounding country may be
obtained, and an excellent idea may be also formed of the
general plan of the castle and its outworks. From the
passage by which this room is entered two doorways lead
into other and smaller apartments. In one of these we
find one of the original fireplaces, on the stone mantel
tree of which the coat of arms of the Carnabys has been
rudely sculptured. In the same room there is a stone
drain or sink in the wall, the spout of which may be seen
outside. In another of these rooms we notice three
lockers in the wall, whilst in the third we find the
passage from which the ramparts of the court-yard wall
were reached. These rooms were doubtless the kitchens
and pantry.
The interior arrangements of the eastern part of the
castle, which is now used as a residence, are complicated,
and, partly at least, are modern also. Here, however,
we find two of the original fireplaces. Of one of these the
mantel tree is surmounted by a kind of hood, over which
is a shelf, and beneath this a series of carved corbels,
consisting of six heads, with a very large dog-tooth
ornament in the centre.
Through a doorway close to the foot of the external
stairs an apartment is entered in which we find another
fireplace, the jambs of which are moulded shafts of ex-
cellent character. But the most noticeable feature about
this fireplace is its chimney, which constitutes one of the
most striking and singular features of the south front of
the castle. It has, for about half its height, the ordinary
buttress-like appearance of a projecting chimney. At
about the level of the first floor, however, it assumes a
semi-circular section, and so continues till it reaches the
parapet, against which itjterminates in a conical cap.
Beneath the cap and between two moulded string courses
are two elits, one on each side, for the escape of the
smoke.
A door on the west side of the inner court leads into
the stables, which are situated in the basement of the west
wing. They are worthy of examination. Their roofs
are of stone and are vaulted, and the mangers are also
constructed of stone.
A most interesting feature of Aydon Castle is its series
of two light windows. Though varying in detail, one
general character distinguishes the whole of them. In
each case two lancet lights are enclosed within a single
B11H5J
arch. In every instance in which the interior arrange-
ments can be examined we find 'the holes in which iron
stanchions were fixed and the rebates into which the
shutters fitted. Then there are side seats, of the usual
type, in the recesses. The central shaft which divides
the lights is more or less decorated, and has moulded
capital and base. In no case is the spandril space over
the lights pierced, but in one instance it is ornamented
with a sunk quatrefoil, and in another (shown in en-
graving) a quatrefoil within a circle is filled by a carved
human head with beard.
A bold battlemented parapet runs round the whole
180
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/April
\ 1891.
of the house, except the west wing. The water is carried
from the gutters by a series of projecting stone spouta or
gargoyles.
One of our illustrations is a view of part of the south
front looking westward. A massive buttress, supporting
the angle of the eastern wing, is seen in the foreground,
whilst beyond we see the singular chimney shaft pre-
viously described, and beyond this again the spout of
the kitchen sink. Our second large illustration shows
part of the inner court-yard, with the stairway and
entrance to the great hall, and on the right the door
leading to the stables. This is sketched from a photo-
graph by Mr. J. P. Gibson, of Hexham.
JACOB BEE.
Saint
tfu fJcrrtft.
HE Apostle and Founder of Methodism
achieved his first great ministerial success
among the colliers of Kingswood, near
Bristol, and the remembrance of that re-
markable "time of refreshing" begot in him a fervent
desire to publish the glad tidings to the pitmen in the
North. This desire was framed into a purpose at the
instance of the Countess of Huntingdon. There had
been a semi-methodistic movement, probably a sort of
Moravianism, in Newcastle before Mr. Wesley set foot
in the place or even turned his thoughts and projects
towards the district at all. A man named John Hall
appears to have been the agent of this little religious
revival, and doubtless his followers were the persons
who gave Mr. Wesley the hearty welcome he speaks
of in his journal.
Night was falling as John Wesley first set foot in
Newcastle. He had taken a lodging at an inn close to
the Gateshead end of the Tyne Bridge. He was inexpres-
sibly pained by the sights he saw and the sounds he heard
as he wearily paced the lower streets of the town. " S.>
much drunkenness, "he says, " such cursing and swearing
— even from the mouths of little children — do I never
remember to have seen and heard before in so small a
compass of time. Surely this place is ripe for Him who
came to call sinners to repentance." On Sunday morn-
ing, 30th May, 1742, he betook himself to Sandgate,
intending to preach. He was accompanied by John
Taylor, at that time his travelling companion. Taking
up as suitable a position as he could find, he with good
John's help sang out lustily the well-known 100th Psalm.
Then, as now, the locality so far resembled the agora, of
Athens that the men and women resorting there were
prone to the indulgence of curiosity, especially at an idle
time like Sunday morning. Three or four people stopped
in their stroll and sidled to the spot where the two
strange beings were holding church out of doors. As the
singing went on, the number of listeners increased, until
some four or five hundred might have been counted
within sight and hearing. Mr. Wesley took for his text,
" He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised
for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was
upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed." When he
had finished his discourse, the people, who by that time
numbered about fifteen hundred, stared at him as though
they thought him mad, or were on the point of going mad
themselves. The preacher, taking encouragement from
their rapt demeanour, said, " If you desire to know who I
am, my name is John Wesley. At five in the evening,
with God's help, I design to preach here again."
Long before the appointed hour a vast multitude had
gathered to hear what "this babbler " would say. Mr.
Wesley's own account of his Sunday afternoon on the
Sandhill is as follows : — " I never saw so large a number
of people together, either at Moorfields or at Kenningtou
Common. I knew it was not possible for the one half to
hear, although my voice was then strong and clear, and
though I stood so as to have them all in view as they
were ranged on the side of the hill." After preaching,
the poor people were ready to tread him und«r foot out of
pure love and kindness. He reached his inn by a back
way ; the folks, however, were there before him, aud
begged him not to leave them.
It was on one of these occasions that the incident re-
corded by the Rev. Dr. Bruce is supposed to have taken
place. Mr. Wesley spoke from one of the landings of an
external staircase leading to the main floor of the Guild-
hall, Sandhill. "The preacher, " say s Dr. Bruce in his
"Old Newcastle," "was assaulted by some riotous per-
sons, when a fisherwoman, of the name of Bailes, rushed
to his assistance. Putting one hand round his waist, she
extended the other with clenched fist towards his assail-
ants, and exclaimed, ' Now touch the little man if you
dare.' Her appeal was irresistible, and the preacher pro-
ceeded in peace."
John Wesley stayed but a short while on his first visit ;
but his brother Charles came and organised "the wild,
stariug, loving " converts into a proper Methodist society.
Charles puts on record that he had never more success
than he had at Newcastle, and yet it was here notably
that he began to exercise great caution and strict discip-
line, "distinguishing between merely animal emotions and
the true work of God in the heart, and leading all to try
themselves by the only infallible rule, their conformity to
the Word of God." Mr. Wesley came again on the 13th
November, 1742. On the 14-th he preached at five in the
morning, an arrangement which created quite a sensation
in those days. Then he went to All Saints' Church (not
the present building, but a very ancient one on the same
site) at ten, where he was delighted to find a much
greater number of communicants than he remembered
seeing at any church except in London and Bristol. His
A Drill
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
181
chief preaching place in Newcastle was the Keelmen's
Hospital Square; later on he preached at the Castle Garth.
The earliest meeting place for the society was in Lisle
Street.
In November, 1742, Mr. Wesley commenced negotia-
tions for a site in the northern part of Newcastle on
which to erect a chapel, that should also serve as an
orphan house, somewhat like the Georgian orphanages
of Whitfield, or the Halle orphanage of Francke. " We
could get no ground," he says, "for love or money. I
like this well. It is a good sign. If the devil can hinder
us, he shall." At length he got a piece of ground, or
thought he had got it. In fact he got two pieces, one
from Mr. Stephenson and one from Mr. Riddel. Mr.
Stephenson, however, demurred and delayed until Mr.
Wesley brought to bear upon the matter some of that
straightforwardness which played so large a figure in his
successful career. He gave the hesitating seller a piece of
his mind as follows :—
Sir, — I am surprised. You give it under your hand,
that you will put me in possession of a piece of ground
specified in an article between us in fifteen days' time.
Three months are passed and that article is not fulfilled.
And now, you say, you cannot conceive what I mean by
troubling you. I mean to have that article fulfilled. I
think my meaning is very plain. I am, sir, your humble
servant, JOHN WESLEY.
The project was received with various feelings by the
public and even by the members in society — doubt as
to its feasibleness predominating in most minds except
Mr. Wesley's. It was to cost close upon £700 ! On the
occasion of laying the foundation stone, 20th December,
Mr. Welsey himself presided at the ceremony and
preached in the evening of the same day. "Many," he
writes, "were gathered from all parts so see it ; but none
scoffed or interrupted while we praised God and prayed
that He would prosper the work of our hands upon us.
Three or four times in the evening I was forced to break
off preaching that we might pray and give thanks to
God."
Here, at the Orphan House in Northumberland Street,
the society had its head quarters for nearly 80 years,
Brunswick Chapel not being erected till 1821. This
Orphan House was the second place of worship built for
the United Society, and the third used — the foundry in
Moor Fields having been purchased, not specially built,
for Wesley. The lower part was the chapel, over
which were a band room and class room. On the next
story were "prophet's lodgings" for ministers, while
perched on the roof was the wooden fabric now in the
gardens of Cleveland House, North Shields, and long
known as "Mr. Wesley's study." The original design,
indicated by the name of the house, was never carried out.
Grace Murray, the first matron-evangelist of the Orphan
House, was a few years after her appointment the object
of a curious attachment on the part of Mr. Wesley. (See
Monthly Chronicle, 1888, page 503.)
One of the places early visited by Mr. Wesley, and still
earlier by his brother Charles, was Tanfield Lea. He
was well received indeed, but appeared to make no im-
pression on the hearts of his hearers. '• So dead, sense-
less, and unaffected a congregation, " be writes, "I have
scarce ever seen, except at Whickham. Whether Gospel
or law, or English or Greek, seemed all one to them."
He left the gaping villagers, as he says, "very well
satisfied with the preacher and with themselves "; but it
rejoiced his heart to hear a few days later that the seed
that had fallen into the heart of one John Brown was
springing up in wild luxuriousness as a plant of grace.
But John became crazy with his new-born religious
ecstacy, and very speedily made his appearance in New-
castle on horseback, " hallooing and shouting, and driving
all the people before him, saying God had told him he
should be a king, and should tread all his enemies under
his feet." Mr. Wesley dealt wisely and kindly with this
crazy "captive to his bow and spear," sending him home
to his work and bidding him pray for a lowly heart :
which advice honest John laid to heart, and the conse-
quence was that he became a noted lay preacher. He
subsequently removed to the Lower Spen, and there by
his "rough and strong, but artless words, " many of his
neighbours were convinced, so that when, in the following
year, Mr. Wesley paid them a visit, he found the "field
white unto the harvest."
It was in company with John Brown and Christopher
Hopper that Wesley visited Prudhoe. Here he preached
in 1757 at the side of Mr. Anthony Humble's house at five
in the morning, breakfasting afterwards at Thomas New-
ton's, in what is still known as Prudhoe Hall Farm. It
was on a piece of land given by Humble that the first
chapel was built, Wesley himself staking out the
ground, and Whitfield preaching the opening sermon.
Amongst other places in which traditions of Wesley's
visits survive may be mentioned Ryton, where he
preached at the Cross in 1742 ; and Greenside, where in
1751 he had the largest congregation he ever saw in the
North.
Charles Wesley visited Hexham at the instance of Air.
Wardroper, a Dissenting minister. Of this visit he
I walked directly to the Market Place, and called
sinners to repentance. A multitude of them stood staring
at me, but all quiet. The Lord opened my mouth, and
they drew nearer and nearer, stole off their hats, and
listened; none offered to interrupt but one unfortunate
squire, and he could get no one to second him. His
servants and the constables hid themselves. One, at
length, he found, whom he bid to go and take me down.
The poor constable simply answered, " Sir, I cannot have
the face to do it ; for what harm does he do ?" Several
Papists attended ; also the Church minister, who had
refused me his pulpit with indignation. However, he
came to hear with his own ears. I wish all who hang us
first would, like him, try us afterwards. I walked back
to Mr. Ord's through the people, who acknowledged "it
is the truth, and none can speak asrainst it." A constable
followed, and told me "Sir Edward Blackett orders you
to disperse the town, and not raise a disturbance here."
I sent my respects to Sir Edward, and said if he would
182
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/April
\ 1891.
give me leave I would wait upon him and satisfy him.
He soon returned with an answer that Sir Edward
would have nothing to say to me, but if
preached again, and raised a disturbance, he would
put the law in execution against me. I answered that
I was not conscious ot breaking any law of God or man,
but if I did I was ready to suffer the penalty; that
as I had not given notice of preaching again at the
Market Cross, I would not preach again at that place, nor
cause a disturbance anywhere. I charged the constable,
a trembling submissive soul, to assure his worship that I
reverenced him for his office's sake. The only place I
could get to preach in was a cock-pit, and I expected
Satan would come and fight me on his own ground.
Squire Roberts, the justice's son. laboured hard to raise a
mob, for which I was to be answerable, but the very boys
ran away from him when the poor Squire was urging
them to go down to the cock-pit and cry " fire." I called
in words then first heard in that place, "Repent and be
converted, that your sins may be blotted out." Gjd
struck, the hard rock, and the waters gushed out. Never
have i seen people more desirous of knowing the truth at
the first hearing.
A fortnight after, Charles is again at Hexham, preach-
ing in the Market Place at the Cross. At four in the
afternoon he attempts to preach in the cock-pit, but the
territory of the enemy is claimed by his own servants.
The butlers of Sir Edward Blackett, and of the magis-
trate, bring their cocks, and "set them a-fighting." "I
gave them the ground," says Mr. Wesley, "and walked
straight to the Cross, where we had four times as many as
the other place could hold. Our enemies followed, and
strove all the ways permitted them to annoy us. Neither
their fire-works nor their water works could stop the
progress of the Gospel. I lifted up my voice like a
trumpet, and many had ears to hear."
Several of Charles Wesley's most spirited hymns are
supposed to have been written during this sojourn in the
North. That, for instance, numbered 40 in the Wesleyan
Hymn Book, in which the triumphant progress of the
Gospel is noted in glowing verse, he himself states to have
been penned " after preaching to the Newcastle colliers.'
The hymn was in all likelihood written on the occasion
thus referred to in his journal : — " Sunday, November 30.
I went into the streets of Newcastle, and called the poor,
the lame, the halt, the blind, with that precious promise,
'Him that cometh unto Me I will in no way cast out. '
They had no feeling of the sharp frost, while the love of
Jesus warmed their hearts."
That John Wesley could sometimes relinquish the
meekness of non-resistance, and like a wounded stag
turn at bay against hia enemies, is apparent from his
method of dealing with one who constantly persecuted
his followers in Newcastle and personally insulted him-
self. To this ill-behaved man he sent the following
laconic epistle : —
Robert Young,
I expect to see you between this and Friday, and to
hear from you that you are sensible of your fault. Other-
wise, in pity to your soul, I shall be obliged to inform the
magistrates of your assaulting me in the street. — I am
your real friend, JOHN WESLEY.
"Within two or three hours," says the reprover, "Robert
Young came and promised a quite different behaviour.
So did this gentle reproof, if not save a soul from death,
yet prevent a multitude of sins."
A remarkable story about Newcastle is told by Mr.
Wesley in his diary towards the close of 1743. When
he arrived there on Nov. 2, he found the town placarded
with this announcement :— " For the benefit of Mr. Este.
—By the Edinburgh Company of Comedians, on Friday,
November 4, will be acted a Comedy, called 'The Con-
scious Lovers,' to which will be added a Farce, called
'Trick upon Trick, or Methodism Displayed.'" Here is
Wesley's account of what happened : —
On Friday a vast multitude of spectators were
assembled in the Moot Hall to see this. It was be-
lieved there could not be less than fifteen hundred people,
some hundreds of whom sat on rows of seats built upon
the stage. Soon after the comedians had begun the first
act of the play, on a sudden all those seats fell down at
once, the supporters of them breaking like a rotten stick.
The people were thrown one upon another, about five foot
forward, but not one of them hurt. After a short time,
the rest of the spectators were quiet, and the actors went
on. In the middle of the second act, all the shilling seats
gave a crack, and sunk several inches down. A great
noise and shrieking followed : and as many as could
readily get to the door went out, and returned no more.
Notwithstanding this, when the noise was over, the actors
went on with the play. In the beginning of the third act
the entire stage suddenly sunk about six inches : the
players retired with great precipitation ; yet in a while
they began again. At the latter end of the third act. all
the sixpenny seats, without any kind of notice, fell to. the
ground. There was now a cry on every side, it being
supposed that many were crushed in pieces ; but, upon
inquiry, not a single person (such was the mercy of God !)
was either killed or dangerously hurt. Two or three
hundred remaining still in the hall, Mr. Este (who was
to act the Methodist) came upon the stage and told them,
for all this he was resolved the farce should be acted.
While he was speaking, the stage sunk six inches more ;
on which he ran back in the utmost confusion, and the
people as fast as they could out of the door, none staying
to look behind him. Which is most surprising — that
those players acted this farce the next week, or that
some hundreds of people came again to see it?
Mr. Wesley visited the town twice, if not three times,
in the year 1745. When news came that the Pretender
was at Holyrood Castle, he hastened to Newcastle, and
endeavoured to improve the popular commotion to the ad-
vancement of spiritual work. He offered to preach to the
troops, but this apparently was not accepted. He did the
next best thing he could by preaching as near the camp
as he could get, and as often as he could. His own
account of the state of matters is as follows : —
Wed., Sep. 18. — About five we came to Newcastle, in
an acceptable time. We found the generality of the in-
habitants in the utmost consternation, news being just
arrived that, the morning before, at two o'clock, the Pre-
tender had entered Edinburgh. A great concourse of
people were with us in the evening, to whom I expounded
the third cnapter of Jonah, insisting particularly on that
verse, " Who can tell, if God will return, and repent, and
turn away from his fierce anger, and we perish not?"
Thur., 19.— The Mayor (Mr. Ridley) summoned all the
householders of the town to meet him at the Town Hall,
and desired as many of them as were willing to set their
hands to a paper, importing that they would, at the
hazard of their goods and lives, defend the town against
the common enemy. Fear and darkness were now on
every side, but not on those who had seen the light of
God's countenance. We rejoiced together in the evening
with solemn joy, while God applied those words to many
Anrill
1891. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
183
hearts, "Fear not ye; for I know that ye seek Jesus
which was crucified."
Fri., 20. — The Mayor ordered the townsmen to be under
arms, and to mount guard in their turns, over and above
the guard of soldiers, a few companies of whom had been
drawn into the town on the first alarm. Now, also,
Pilgrim Street Gate was ordered to be walled up. Many
began to be much concerned for us, because our house
stood without the walls. Nay, but the Lord is a wall of
tire unto all that trust in him. I had desired all our
brethren to join us on this day in seeking God by fasting
and prayer. About one, we met and poured out our souls
before Him ; and we believed He would send an answer
of peace.
Sat., 21. — The same day the action was came the news
of General Cope's defeat. Orders were now given for the
doubling of the guard, and for walling up Pandon and
Sallyport Gates.
Sun., 22. — The walls were mounted with cannon, and all
things prepared for sustaining an assault. Meantime, our
poor neighbours, on either hand, were busy in removing
their goods. And most of the best houses in our street
were left without either furniture or inhabitants. Those
within the walls were almost equally busy in carrying
away their money and goods ; and more and more of the
gentry every hour rode southward as fast as they could.
At eight I preached at Gateshead, in a broad part of the
street, near the Popish chapel, on the wisdom of God in
governing the world. How do all things tend to the
turtberance of the Gospel ! I never saw before so well-
behaved a congregation in any church at Newcastle, as
was that at St. Andrew's this morning. The place
appeared as indeed the house of God ; and the sermon
Mr. Ellison preached was strong and weighty, which he
could scarce conclude for tears.
All this week the alarms from the North continued, and
the storm seemed nearer every day. Many wondered we
would still stay without the walls ; others told us we must
remove quickly ; for if the cannon began to play from the
top of the gates, they would beat all the house about our
ears. This made me look how the cannons on the gates
were planted ; and I could not but adore the providence
of God, for it was obvious, 1. They were all planted in
such a manner, that no shot could touch our house.
2. The cannon on New Gate so secured us on one side,
and those upon Pilgrim Street Gate on the other, that
none could come near our house, either way, without
being torn in pieces.
On Friday and Saturday many messengers of lies
terrified the poor people of the town, as if the rebels were
just coming to swallow them up. Upon this the guards
were increased, and abundance of country gentlemen
came in, with their servants, horses, and arms. Among
those who came from the North was one whom the Mayor
ordered to be apprehended, on suspicion of his being a
spy. As soon as he was left alone he cut his own throat ;
but a surgeon, coming quickly, sewed up the wound, so
that he lived to discover certain designs of the rebels,
which were thereby effectually prevented.
Sun., 29. — Advice came that they were in full march
southward, so that it was supposed they would reach
Newcastle by Monday evening. At eight I called on a
multitude of sinners in Gateshead, to seek the Lord while
he might be found. Mr. Ellison preached another earnest
sermon, and all the people seemed to bend before the
Lord. In the afternoon I expounded part of the lesson
for the day — Jacob wrestling with the angel. The con-
gregation was so moved, that I began again and again,
and knew not how to conclude. And we cried mightily
to God to send his Majesty King George help from his
holy place, and to spare a sinful land yet a little longer, if
haply they might know the day of their visitation.
On Monday and Tuesday I visited some of the societies
in the country, and on Wednesday, October 2, returned
to Newcastle, where they were just informed that the
rebels had left Edinburgh on Monday, and were swiftly
marching toward them. But it appeared soon that this
also was a false alarm, it being only a party which had
moved southward, the main body still remaining in their
camp, a mile or two from Edinburgh.
On Thursday and Friday I visited the rest of the coun-
try societies. On Saturday, a party of the rebels — about
a thousand men — came within seventeen miles of New-
castle. This occasioned a fresh alarm in the town, and
orders were given by the General that the soldiers should
march against them on Monday morning. But these
orders were countermanded.
Mr. Nixon (the gentleman who had, some days since,
upon being apprehended, cut his own throat), being still
unable to speak, wrote as well as he could, that the design
of the Prince (as they called him) waa to seize on Tyne-
mputh Castle, which he knew was well provided both
with cannon and ammunition, and thence to march to
the hill on the east side of Newcastle, which entirely
commands the town. And if this had been done he would
have carried his point, and gained the town without a
blow. The Mayor immediately sent to Tynemouth
Castle, and lodged the cannon and ammunition in a safer
place.
Wed. Oct. 9. — It being supposed that the danger was
over for the present, I preached at four in Gateshead, at
John Lyddel's, on " Stand fast in the faith, quit you like
men, be strong."
There can be no doubt that Mr. Wesley conceived to
the last a specially warm interest in the people of the
North. He soon gathered a society of 800 members at
Newcastle, and had planted settlements of the faith in
many of the neighbouring villages. He seemed greatly
taken with Pelton, and still more with Chowdene.
Referring to his first visit to the latter place, he records in
his journal, " I found we were got into the very Kings-
wood of the North. Twenty or thirty wild children ran
round us as soon as we came, staring as in amaze. They
could not properly be said to be either clothed or naked.
One of the largest (a girl of about fifteen) had a piece of
a ragged dirty blanket some way hanging about her, and
a kind of cap on her head of the same cloth and colour. "
Again, on Good Friday, 1743, he has this entry in his
journal : —
I had a great desire to visit a little village called
Placy (Plessey), about ten measured miles north of New-
castle. It is inhabited by colliers only, and such as had
been always in the first rank for savage ignorance and
wickedness of every kind. Their grand assembly used to
be on the Lord's day, on which men, women, and children
met together to dance, fight, curse and swear, and play
at chuck-ball, span-farthing, or whatever came next to
hand. I felt great compassion for these poor creatures,
from the time I heard of them first ; and the more, be-
cause all men seemed to despair of them. Between seven
and eight I set out with John Heally, my guide. The
north wind, being unusually high, drove the sleet in our
face, which froze as it fell, and cased us over presently.
When we came to Placy we could hardly stand. As soon
as we were a little recovered, I went into the square, and
declared Him who "was wounded for our transgressions "
and "bruised for our iniquities." The poor sinners were
quickly gathered together, and gave earnest heed to the
things'which were spoken. And so they did in the after-
noon again, in spite of the wind and snow, when I be-
sought them to receive Him for their King, to "repent
and believe the Gospel."
In 1746 he was back again, preaching at his old spots in
Newcastle, and also at the Spen, Biddick, Burnopfield,
and hard-hearted Whickham, as well as gracious Plessey,
"a pattern to all the societies in England." "No person,"
he says in his journal, "ever misses his classes. They
have no jars among them, but with one mind and one
heart provoke one another to love and good works."
Sunderland was getting on too, and had a chapel. But
184
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
unfortunately for a season there was grief upon grief
because the Sunderland boys could not be brought to see
the sin of smuggling. Upon the whole, after a searching
investigation into the real progress of the little societies
round about in 1747, the oldest of them only five years
old, he bad every reason, he said, to rejoice over them. '
When at length compelled to tear himself away, he jots
down in his diary, " I could gladly have spent six weeks
more in these parts." One of his farewell sermons in
Newcastle was attended by many of the most respectable
people in the town, which led him to make the following
entry in his journal :— " Surely God is working a new
thing in the earth. Even to the rich is the Gospel
preached."
In 1748, he spent several weeks at Morpeth, Alnwick,
Berwick, Allandale Town, and other places round about.
One Saturday he preached at Newlands at noon, at Tan-
field Cross at 3 p.m., and at Newcastle in the evening.
On another day, after he had preached three times at or
near Stockton, and ridden fifty miles, some people from
Yarm begged so hard for a sermon that he went there
and preached for them, and then went on to Osmotherley,
and preached there. "Whitfield preached at Newcastle
with great power in 1749, and Wesley generously
acknowledged the value of his services. For many
years — nine in succession — he visited Alnmouth, but
was never sufficiently successful to form a society
in that place. But his heart was refreshed by
the signs of progress almost everywhere else. Even
poor godless Whickham showed some fruits. Bid-
dick, Plessey, and Sunderland were bright spots in 1752.
In 1757, even Swalwell came in for a few drops of "the
shower of blessing." Wesley spent part of June, 1759,
in Newcastle, and what sort of a place it was in those
days may be gathered from this entry in his journal,
under date of Monday, 4th :— " Certainly, if I did not
believe there was another world, I would spend all
my summers here, as I know no place in Great
Britain comparable to it for pleasantness. But I
seek another country, and therefore am content to be
a wanderer on earth."
The last time Mr. Wesley visited his flock in the
North— he is reported to have paid no fewer than
twenty-six visits— was in 1790. With intense and
genuine affection he records in his diary : — " Here
and at Kingswood, were I to do my own will, I
would choose to spend the remainder of my days.
But it cannot be. This is not my rest." He came
by way of Hexham from Carlisle, "down the side
of a fruitful mountain shaded with trees, and sloping
down to a clear river, which ran between this one and
another fruitful mountain well wooded and improved."
Hexham had a newly-built chapel and " a lovinir
people." He was asked to preach in Lamesley Church ;
but at the last moment the clergyman changed his
mind. The service was held in the little Methodist
Meeting-house. It was as hot as a stove, but neither
high nor low seemed to mind it, for "God was there."
Among the audience was Sir Henry Liddell, with his wife
and numerous setvants. "Having (on Wednesday, 9th
June) despatched all the business I had to do hero
(Newcastle), in the evening I took a solemn leave of this
lovely people, perhaps never to see them more in this life."
The anticipation was verified. The venerable father of
Methodism died in the year following his last visit to
Newcastle— March 2, 1791.
at
j]R, MANDELL CREIGHTON, who has been
appointed Bishop of Peterborough in succes-
sion to Dr. Magee, promoted to the Arch-
bishopric of York, is a North -Countryman in every
respect — by birth, by education, and by long residence.
Dr. Creighton was born at Carlisle in 1843, was then
educated at Durham Grammar School, and was after-
wards appointed to the living of Embleton, in Northum-
berland. It was while residing there that he made much
of the literary reputation he has acquired. Six or seven
years ago, however, he accepted the professorship of
DB. UANDELL OBEIOHTO.f.
(From photo by RiuiM and Sons, Baker Street, London.)
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
185
Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge. And now he has
been promoted to the episcopal bench.
Although Dr. Creighton took high honours at Oxford
in the classical school, he has devoted his inaturer studies
to the domain of history. The lectures he delivered on
his favourite subject enjoyed a high reputation at Oxford
when he was Fellow and Tutor of Merton twenty years
ago, and his well-known " History of the Papacy during
the period of the Keformation" is described as the best
modern treatise on that fascinating time which English-
men possess. The impartiality of judgment and breadth
of view which mark this work earned for its author the
compliment of a highly appreciative notice from Cardinal
Manning. In 1884, two years after the appearance of its
earlier volumes, Dr. Creighton was chosen to be the first
Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the Univer-
sity of Cambridge. Subsequently he rendered most
substantial service to the study of history in this country
by promoting the English Historical Review, which he has
edited during the five years of its existence. Glasgow
conferred upon him his first honorary degree in 1883,
when he was made an LL.D. Two years later he received
the degree of D.C.L. at Durham, and in 1886 he became
an honorary LL.D. of Harvard.
Essentially a scholar, the new Bishop has nevertheless
had considerable experience of the practical side of
clerical life. Ordained deacon in 1870 and priest in 1873,
he left Oxford in 1875 for Embleton. The late Dr.
Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham, appointed him Rural Dean
of Alnwick in 1879, and three years later he was named
an honorary canon of the new diocese of Newcastle, and
examining chaplain to Bishop Wilberforce. In 1885 he
was preferred by the Crown to a canon's stall at Wor-
cester, and was transferred to the Windsor Chapter only a
few weeks before his appointment to the Bishopric of
Peterborough.
STft*
REMARKABLE character in his day and
generation was the so-called Poet Close ; but
he would, probably, never have had more
than a local reputation had it not been for
the successful efforts of certain persons in Westmoreland
to obtain for him a pension from the Civil List.
Born at Gunnerside, Swaledale, Yorkshire, in 1816,
John Close, at an early age, removed with his parents to
Kirkby Stephen. Here he was brought up to the
butchering business, but he aspired to something greater.
At the age of fifteen he conceived the idea that nature
had destined him to be a poet, and he forthwith set
about, as best he could, to remedy his defective educa-
tion. Had he, at this time, been encouraged in his
praiseworthy endeavours, he might have developed into
something more than a writer of rhyming advertisements.
Fate, however, decreed otherwise. Close's besetting sin
was vanity. Such stray bits of wisdom as he could pick
up in a casual way seem to have constituted his literary
stock in-trade.
In 1846 he established himself as a printer at Kirkby
Stephen, and sent forth to his little world several volumes
of verse and prose.
Inasmuch as the
contents of one of
these was not a little
scurrilous, he was in-
volved in an action
for libel, which, on
being tried at Liver-
pool, resulted in a
verdict against him
for £300. This un-
fortunate affair did
not, however, damp
his ardour. In 1860
he published a
series of biographi- POET CLOSE.
cal sketches under
the title of " Great Men of Westmoreland. " Then came
the great disappointment of his life. After the publica-
tion of "Memorials of the Dead," a number of his friends
got up the following petition to Lord Palmerston, and
some five hundred signatures were appended to it : —
We the undersigned noblemen, magistrates, and clergy,
yeomen and others, of the several counties of Westmor-
land, Cumberland, Durham, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire,
Bedfordshire, and in London, in consideration of the
Literary Talents and Genius of Mr. John Close, a Self-
taught Poet, commonly called the Kirkby Stephen and
Westmoreland Poet; a, Public Writer for the last thirty
years, now near fifty years of ape ; author of "The Book
of Chronicles " (Legends a nd A ntiquitiesoj Westmoreland);
also "Memorials of the Dead," and divers other valuable
and meritorious works; and now being very poor, through
certain misfortunes and no extravagance of his own; with
a wife and five small children ; of good character, an
honest, hard-working, sober man : of sound religious
principles, and OBTHODOX IN HIS WHITINGS ; warmly and
humbly recommend the said Mr. John Close to the
gracious NOTICE OP THE CKOWN, that the name of said
Mr. John Close (now dwelling in the town of Kirkby
Stephen aforesaid, and County of Westmoreland) be
placed on the Civil List for the next vacancy, for such a
pension as it may please HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY to
determine.
Owing to the exertions of Lord Lonsdale, a Civil List
pension of £50 was granted to Close. The announce-
ment fairly took the literary world by surprise, for
nobody outside Westmoreland had heard of the poet or
seen his poetry. The truth soon oozed out. There was
no hiding the circumstance that Close was the author of
the veriest doggerel. Some of his effusions were printed
in the London papers ; Punch especially made great fun
of the business ; and unsparing denunciations were
directed against the Minister who had perpetrated the
strange blunder. Lord Palmerston soon saw the mistake
he had made. Indeed, he never attempted to defend the
186
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/April
\ 189L
proceeding in the House of Commons, where the subject
was brought forward by Mr. Sterling, afterwards Sir
William Sterling Maxwell. The ultimate result was that
the pension was withdrawn, though the unfortunate poet
was consoled with a gratuity of £100 out of the Royal
Bounty.
A " brother poet " in Sunderland wrote to congratulate
the Westmoreland bard on the receipt of £100 from the
Queen : whereupon Close sent the following characteristic
reply :—
I have certainly got £100 from the Queen — a mere sop
to keep me quiet — a mere flea-bite to me when I had fairly
and honestly won the pension. You little know all 1
have suffered by all this Political trickery. Bradbury, a
Poet of whom the world has heard nothing, — he got £50
in 1858; and now, forsooth, he must have £20 more,
because he is in favour with Lord Carlisle, and not a word
is said ; but I, who have fought a thousand Battles, must
be coolly kicked aside, with a £100 to make up for near
£600 I have lost by my Pen. Lord Palmerston nearly
killed my wife by his weather-cock changes ; but I — oh !
I wish I could stand before the House of Commons, I'd
tell them my mind; "Kill me," — no, I scorn them all,
and will not die broken-hearted to please the Court of
Queen Victoria.
Furthermore, he lampooned his enemies, as he was
pleased to call them, in a marvellous work entitled — " A
Grand Pindaric Poem ! London Critics, Penny-a-Liners,
Scotch Curs, and English Asses : a Quid Pro Quo, in
which Poet Close flogs the Floggers, pays his Debts, and
shakes hands with all Good Men."
From this tim« until his death the poor poet posed as
an injured man. He was generally to be found during
the tourist season at Bowness, on Lake Windermere,
where he fixed up & stall and vended his own books and
pamphlets. The nobility and gentry of the district, out
of compassion for his weaknesses, purchased his wares,
and tourists were frequently induced to invest a few
shillings in some of his productions, to be kept as literary
curiosities. Thus he contrived to pick up a pleasant
living in summer, while in winter he went back to Kirkby
Stephen to follow his calling as a printer and bookseller.
Close, of course, had no claim whatever to the title of
poet. He was not even a respectable versifier, and his
prose was worse than his verses. Until a few weeks
before he closed the 75 years of his life, he continued to
write and print all kinds of sad rubbish. Death overtook
him, after an illness of very short duration, at Kirkby
Stephen, on February 15, 1891.
For nearly thirty years Mr. Close issued an annual
Christmas Book. That for 1874 is before us. The first
part is devoted to his own biography, and the remainder
to doggerel and sketches. As a specimen of his muse, the
following lines on the death of a local gentleman may be
of interest : —
•Another of the fine brave sons
Of Westmoreland is gone ;
A true and noble-hearted man,
If ever there was one. .
So free and gentle in his way.
All loved his hand to shake ;
It was a hand both true and warm,
And one we loved to take.
Alas ! no more his kindly voice
Will cheer our Muse to sing :
Or compliment us on our Poems —
In vain she'll stretch a wing :
His welcome— and the hearty grasp
He shook our feeble hand -
Made us admire the gallant youth,
The pride of Westmoreland.
Sleep on ! sleep on ! thou worthy son
Of this our Northern Land ;
Full many weep when thou art gone
As o'er thy grave they stand.
In distant lands he fell asleep,
Far from his native home :
One of the good old stock is gone —
To this we all must come !
Ten years ago a polite reference to the poet was pub-
lished in the " Gossip's Bowl " of the Newcastle Weekly
Chronicle. This pleased the poor man so much that he
sent the writer a rather handsome copy of his "Fifth
Grand Christmas Book," with the following grateful in-
scription : —
A PRESENTATION COPY.
Presented to that (ever dear to me) gentleman who
styles himself, in the admired and wondrous Newcastle
Weekly Chronicle, "Robin Goodfellow," whose warm
heart prompts him to sympathise with the persecuted and
too often broken-hearted
POET CLO3E,
who has three sons very ill, and his great hope and pride,
the famous blue-coat boy, now in Garland's Asylum — all
explained in his next Christmas book, dedicated to
England's Queen 1
Nor did the poet's gratitude end here. The volume con-
tained, besides the unique inscription just quoted, such a
poem as Lord Falmerston must have read when he
granted the bard a pension. It will be seen that Poet
Close describes Robin and himself as "two droll birds
of one feather," and proclaims a sympathetic alliance be-
tween " the genius great of Newcastle " and the " Bard
of Westmoreland." The following gracious lines are
cited here as a further sample of the poet's powers : —
" Love begets love," and thus it is
That we have got together :
In such a weary world as this —
Two droll birds of one feather —
" Extremes will meet," and this is true
\Ve two to thus shake hand —
The genius great of Newcastle
And the Bard of Westmoreland.
Some lie on beds of roses soft and nice,
Others on benches awful hard;
And thus they squeeze thro' life at last,
A Poet's true (but poor) reward.
And such is life — with Crowned Heads
Have often corresponded,
And still I toil like a galley slave
On shore of life quite stranded.
THE POET CLOSE.
Mr. W. S. Gilbert's amusing poem " Ferdinando and
Elvira; or, the Gentle Pieman," contains an allusion to
Close. Elvira, it may be explained, has expressed a
longing to know who wrote "those lovely cracker
mottoes." Ferdinando exclaims : —
"Tell me, Henry Wadswortb, Alfred, Poet Close, or
Mister Tupper,
AtiriU
II. I
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
187
Do you write the bon-bon mottoes my Elvira pulls at
supper?"
But Henry Wadsworth smiled, and said he had not had
that honour ;
And Alfred, too, disclaimed the words that told so much
upon her.
" Mister Martin Tupper, Poet Close, I beg of you, inform
us."
But my question seemed to throw them both into a rage
enormous.
Mister Close expressed a wish that he could only get
anigh to me ;
And Mr. Martin Tupper sent the following reply to me :
"A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a
bandit " —
Which I know was very clever, but I didn't understand it.
farmhouse at night awaiting an opportunity to speak to
the young woman, and he determined to give him a
fright. So he loaded an old blunderbuss with cold por-
ridge, and the next night awaited the appearance of the
love-sick son of toil. That worthy put in his appearance
about the usual time, and on seeing him the farmer fired
his blunderbluss full in his face. The ploughman fell to
the ground in a terrible plight, full of the belief that his
last hour had come. The noise brought out the farm
hands, who went and raised him up. " Are ye much
hort, man?" was the excited question. "Aa divvent
knaa, "be exclaimed, as he wiped the porridge from his
beard: "but heor's ma brains aall ower ma hands an'
fyece !"
A NEW NAME FOR HABRIKRS.
A country-woman who visited Newcastle lately and
saw a pack of harriers (young lads belonging to a running
club) tearing through the city, told her husband when she
returned home that she had seen "a lot of ballet lads
runuin' roond the toon in thor stage dresses !"
"PUSHENER."
A woman met a friend in a railway carriage and the
following dialogue ensued : — "Hoo are ye getting on with
yor things for the chapel tea?" " Varry canny, hmny.
We've aall the cakes ready, and the new cups and saucers
will be coining the day." " Ma word, but ye're far mair
pushener than we are 1"
THE SECRET OF SUCCESSFUL BETTING.
Two pitmen had an argument about the wisdom of
betting. One held that it led to ruin, and ought to
be avoided. "Had away," replied the other; "ye're
bund te win in the end." "Hoo's that?" asked the
other. "Wey, "was the reply, "if ye loss the forst time,
back agyen ; and if ye loss the} second time, wey, back
anuthor. Ye cannot back wrong yens elwis !"
A JUDGE OF CHEESE.
A short while ago a committee of a local co-operative
store met and discussed the different qualities of pro-
visions. During the proceedings, one of the committee
slipped downstairs and asked the counterman for a plate
of cheese and a few biscuits. Suddenly he returned and
observed to the counterman : " Wey, man, this is bad
cheese. What's the price?" "Eightpence a pound,"
said the counterman. "What's this yen a pund, then?"
asked the committee man, tasting another sample.
"Sixpence," was the reply. "Sixpence! Wey, man,
yor warst cheese is the best !"
THE PLOUGHMAN'S BRAINS.
A local farmer's daughter was somewhat annoyed by
the attentions of her father's ploughman, and she asked
her parent to put a stop to his advances. The farmer
found that his man was in the habit of hanging about the
Mr. James Turnbull, of Hownam Grange, near Yet-
holm, a, well-known Border farmer, died on the 9th of
February.
Mr. Hudson Scott, head of the tirm of Hudson Scott
and Sons, lithographers and colour printers, Carlisle, and
at one time publisher of the Carlisle Examiner, during the
editorship of Mr. Washington Wilks, died on the llth of
January, at the age of 83 years.
On the llth of February, the death was announced, in
his 91st year, of Mr. Ralph Uowans, who for several years
had had charge of the woods in the Warkworth district,
and who had served successively under five Dukes of
Northumberland.
On the 12th of February died Mr. John Field, of the
Northumberland Street Post-Office, Newcastle, and for 24-
years superintendent of the Haymarket.
Mr. Mark Douglas, who had held many important
public positions in Sunderland, died in that town on the
14th of February, at the age of 76 years.
Also, on the 14-th of February, at the age of 72, died
Mr. James Eadie, of Blaydon, long prominently identi-
fied with educational, political, and co-operative move-
ments in the district. The deceased was a relative of the
late Dr. John Eadie, the eminent minister and professor
in connection with the United Presbyterian Church in
Scotland.
Mr. David Richmond, a somewhat remarkable and
eccentric shoemaker, died at Darlington on the 15th of
February. About half a century ago, he joined the
Socialistic movement of Robert Owen, and lived in
fraternity at Ham Common. After being there a short
time, he went to the Shakers in America, where he intro-
duced vegetarianism in some measure amongst them,
though it was by no means universally followed. With
his wife, who followed him in his wanderings, he lived
some years amongst the Shakers, but ultimately left
through some differences. He was afterwards engaged
in other social movements in the States, and visited the
Fourierite settlement in company with Mr. Horace
Greeley. Twice, during his stay with the Shakers, he
visited Great Britain in the peculiar garb of that
community, and introduced spiritualism amongst the
188
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/AprU
\189L
Secularists at Keighley. Mr. Richmond also delivered
lectures and attempted other propaganda at Darlington,
in London, and in other quarters. He finally settled
down in Darlington in 1862, and subsequently developed
some very mystic views, which were not appreciated by
Spiritualists generally, but which he enforced in pamph-
lets sent out from Darlington to the great rulers and
leading men of Europe. He carried on the trade of a
shoemaker, working himself in Darlington down to the
time of his death. Mr. Richmond was 75 years of age.
Dr. George Seymour Dixon, long the oldest medical
practitioner in Gateshead, where he had resided for fifty-
two years, died on the 15th of February, his age being 81
years.
Mr. Richard Willan, solicitor, of the firm of Willan
and Yeoman, died suddenly at Darlington, on the 16th of
February.
On the same day was announced the death, in his 64th
year, of Mr. Joseph Stanley Mitford, for many years
permanent-way inspector for the North-Eastern Hallway
Company.
Mr. John Close, popularly known to visitors to the
English Lake District as "Poet Close," died on the 16th
of February, in his 75th year. (See page 185.)
On the 18th of February, at the age of 80, Elizabeth,
second daughter of the late Andrew Tinwell, for many
years master of the Trinity House School, Newcastle,
and granddaughter of William Tinwell, the author of
"TinweH's Arithmetic," died at Sunderland.
Mr. Robert Gillender, one of the leaders in the famous
nine hours' movement in Newcastle, died at Whickham,
on the 16th of February. The deceased was secretary to
the Swalwell Co-operative Society, and for the past 14
years he had been school attendance officer for the
Whickham School Board.
On the 18th ot February, Mr. Thomas Middleton, who
a few days previously had met with a serious accident,
died at his residence, Burnham-in-Crouch, Essex. The
deceased gentleman, for many years, held a responsible
position under Mr. Walter Scott, contractor, Newcastle,
for whom he superintended the construction of the
Hartlepool new docks. Mr. Middleton was 72 years
of age.
As the result of an accident, Mr. Henry Belk, Town
Clerk of Hartlepool, died on the 20th of February. He
was the seventh son of the late and brother of the present
Recorder (Mr. J. Belk), and had held the office of Town
Clerk since 1882. Mr. Belk was only 35 years of age.
Mr. Alderman Foggitt, of Darlington, died very sud-
denly, from an attack of apoplexy, on the 21st of
February. He had been a member of the Town Council
since the incorporation of the borough, and in 1878 he
occupied the position of Mayor. The deceased gentleman
was a leading member of the Wesleyan body, and was 77
years of age.
On the same day, at the age of 75, died Mr. Robert
Calvert, auctioneer, of Bishop Auckland, who formerly
conducted a successful printing business at Sunderland,
where he befriended the eminent artist, Mr. John Wilson
Ewbank, R.A.S.
Mr. John Middleton, of Dockwray Square, North
Shields, merchant and broker, and prominently identified
with several large commercial enterprises in the North,
also died on the 21st of February.
Mr. Edward Sinclair, formerly a mining engineer in
Borneo, but latterly living in retirement at North Shields,
ALDEBMAN DAVIDSON.
where he was recognised as an authority on literature and
art, died on the 22nd of February.
Following upon an accident by the fall of his horse on
the 20th, Mr. Alderman
George Davidson, of
Gateshead, died suddenly
while proceeding to
church from his house at
Dunstou Hill, on the
22nd of February. For
many years he had been
a member of the Town
Council of that borough ;
and in 1886-87, and again
in 1887-88, he filled the
office of Mayor. Mr.
Davidson was an enter-
prising and successful
man of business ; his
most important under-
taking being the glass-
works at Teams, which
he established in 1868. The deceased alderman was 68
years of age.
On the 24th of February, Mr. William Dickinson, an
alderman of the Newcastle City Council, and head of the
firm of William Dick-
inson and Co., mer-
chants, Sandhill, died
rather suddenly at his
resi dence, Benton
House, Long Benton.
In addition to his posi-
tion as a member of the
Council, with which he
had been connected for
many years, the de-
ceased gentleman, who
was 70 years of age,
had a seat, as repre-
sentative of the due-
payers, on the Tyne
Commission, and he
was also a Justice of the
Peace for the borongh.
Mr. Dickinson was
especially conversant
with shipping and other commercial questions ; and some
years ago he succeeded in obtaining the appointment of a
special committee of the Newcastle Council to consider
the project of a canal from, the Tyne to the Solway.
Mr. Cuthbert Harrison, merchant tailor, Grey Street,
one of the oldest tradesmen in Newcastle, died oa the
2nd ot March at the advanced age of 83 years.
On the same day the death occurred of Mr. Thomas
Williams, of Consett, vice-president of the Board of Con-
ciliation and Arbitration for the North of England Manu-
factured Iron and Steel Trades. Mr. Williams was 42
years of age.
On the 5th of March, the death was announced of Mr.
William Usher, of Gateshead, who was 74 years of age,
and had been close upon fifty years in the employment of
the North-Eastern Railway Company as an engine-driver.
Mr. Thomas H. Hodgson, Clerk of the Peace for the
county of Cumberland, an office which he had held for
upwards of fifty years, died on the 5th of March.
ALDERMAN DICKINSON.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
189
EBV. B. F. FBOCDFOOT, B.A.
On the 5th of March, the Rev. Robert Forrester Proud-
foot, B.A., died at Fogo Manse, Berwickshire, of which
parish, in connec-
tion with the
Church of Scot-
land, he had been
minister for forty-
eight years. The
deceased gentle-
man, who was in
the 74th year of his
age, received the
early portion of his
education at the
Grange School,
Sunderland, an in-
teresting sketch of
which he contri-
buted to the Weekly
Chronicle some
years ago, among
his contemporaries
having been the
late Mr. Tom Tay-
lor, editor of Punch.
During the pasto-
rate of the Rev. G.
C. Watt, M.A., now of Edinkillie, Scotland, Mr. Proud-
foot frequently officiated in the Caledonian Church,
Argyle Street, Newcastle, and his visits were always
regarded with much favour by the members and friends
of that congregation.
Captain Theodore Williams, chairman of the Norham
and Islandshires Bench of Northumberland county justices,
died at Heatherslaw
House, Cornhill - on -
Tweed, on the 7th of
March, at the age of
70 years. The deceased
gentleman was for-
merly connected with
the 10th Hussars, and
the Hon. Corps of
Gentlemen-at-Arms.
Mr. James Horsley,
who for upwards of
thirty years was in
the employment of .
Mr. Andrew Reid, of ^
Printing House Build- >
ings, Newcastle, as
manager and editor of
"Reid's Railway
Guide," died on the
8th of March. The
deceased, who was a
native of Alnwick, but
had early removed to
Newcastle with his parents, was the author of several
songs in the Tyneside dialect, and a frequent contributor
to local journals.
On the 9th of March, Mr. W. Rowntree, a member of
the Local Board, and otherwise prominently associated
with public affairs, died at his residence, North View,
Bishop Auckland, at the age of 55 years.
©ccurreimj!.
MB. JAMES HORSLEY.
FEBRUARY.
10. — John Gowland, master stoneman, aged 56, and
another workman named John Dick, aged 29, were
burned to death by an explosion of gas in the workings of
the Beamish Second Pit.
11. — There was launched from the shipyard of Sir W.
G. Armstrong, Mitchell, and Co., Elswick, Newcastle,
the Indian torpedo gunboat Assaye.
— Mr. G. T. France tendered his resignation as a mem-
ber and chairman of the Gateshead School Board.
—A severe gale prevailed over Newcastle and district.
— What was supposed to be a pocket of natural gas was
struck at a depth of 760 feet, during some drilling opera-
tions on the Tees Salt Company's royalty, Haverton
Hill, near Stockton.
— Mr. Charles Fenwick, M.P., and Mr. John Wilson.
M.P., were examined before the Royal Commission on
Mining Royalties. On the following day, Mr. Ralph
Young, representing the Northumberland Miners' Associ-
ation, and Mr. W. H. Patterson, the Durham Miners'
Association, gave evidence.
12. — A meeting in furtherance of the formation of a
recreation ground and baths club for Jesraond was held
under the presidency of Sir C. M. Palmer, M.P.
— A dividend of 4i per cent, was declared at the annual
meeting of the Byker Bridge Company.
— Mr. Andrew Leslie, of Coxlodge Hall, near New-
castle, and formerly shipbuilder at Hebburn, intimated
his desire to defray the cost of erecting a hospital for
Hebburn, estimated at £2,500.
— A policeman, named Tough, died from the effects of
injuries received whilst driving into the arched entrance
to the Westgate Fire Brigade Depot, Newcastle.
13.— Mr. E. A. Maund, F.R.G.S., delivered a lecture
at the Northumberland Hall, Newcastle, under the
auspices of the Tyneside
Geographical Society, on
" Our New Colony of Zam-
besia." Mr. Maund had
accompanied the Embassy
sent by the Chief Loben-
gula to her Majesty the
Queen. The lecture was
illustrated by limelight
views, and proved ex-
tremely interesting.
—It was announced that
Mr. Councillor Gray, of
Durham, had received, by
subscription, the sum of
£11 14s. 6d. for the pur-
pose of raising a tombstone
at Gibraltar over the
grave of the late Mr. Alexander Blyth, secretary to the
Northumberland and Durham Miners' Permanent Relief
Fund, who had died there on the 12th of December, 1885.
14. — Mr. Charles Fenwick, M.P., was among the mem-
bers of a Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the
effect of coal dust in originating or extending explosions
in mines.
MR. S. A. JIAL'.VIi.
190
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f April
1 1891.
15.— Mr. C. R. C. Steytler was the Sunday lecturer at
the Tyne Theatre, his subject being " Edison's Latest
and Most Perfected Phonograph."
—It was officially intimated that the Rev. Canon
Creighton, LL.D., D.C.L., formerly vicar of Einbleton,
in Northumberland, had been appointed Bishop of Peter-
borough.
16. — Mr. William Cairns Wicks, surgeon and physician,
West Parade, Newcastle, who had previously been in a
desponding state of mind, committed suicide by taking
hydrocyanic acid.
— The paint stores at Messrs. Edwards and Sons'
repairing dock, Dotwick Street, North Shields, were
destroyed by fire.
—The Sunderland Town Council resolved to apply to
the Board of Trade for a provisional order under the
Electric Lighting Acts.
17. — A cordial reception was accorded to the Hon. J.
B. Patterson, statesman and ex-Minister of Victoria,
Australia, who is a native
of Alnwick, on his arrival
in Newcastle. On the
following evening, he was
entertained by a number
of leading citizens to a
complimentary banquet
in the Continental Res-
taurant, Grainger Street,
Newcastle, the chair being
occupied by the Mayor
(Mr. J. Baxter Ellis), and
the vice - chair by the
Mayor of Gatesbead (Mr.
Alderman Silas Kent).
On the following day,
Mr. Patterson arrived at
Alnw^k, and was met
and cordially received by
the leading tradesmen of
the town and members of the Local Board.
—A commencement was made with the disposal by
auction, at the Academy of Arts, Blackett Street, New-
castle, of the extensive and valuable library of the late
Mr. William Brockie, journalist and author, of Sunder-
land. The books related generally to topography,
genealogy, and philology, the Border counties and towns
of England and Scotland ; and there were rare tracts and
other publications bearing upon the counties of North-
umberland and Durham, and the towns of Newcastle,
Sunderland, and Shields. For many of the works there
was keen competition, and good prices were realised.
One of the most eagerly contested books was Mr. White's
"Battle of Otterburn," which was eventually knocked
down at 32s. ; and Mr. Brockie's own "Folks of Shields"
brought 29s. The privately-printed books of the late Mr.
James Clephan also sold well, as did Mr. Welford's
"Newcastle and Gateshead." On the second day Mr.
Brcckie's cuttings of contributions to the Newcastle
Weekly Chronicle, 23 volumes, went for £3 ; while his
"Annals of the Northern Counties " from A.D. 50 to 1850,
in nine volumes, brought £3 10s. The third and last
day's sale was devoted to works of general literature.
—Master Jean Gerardy, a remarkable young 'celloist,
gave a performance in the Assembly Rooms, Barras
Bridge, Newcastle.
—The marriage of Mr. W. B. Beaumont, M.P. for the
THE HON. J. B. PATTERSON.
Tyneside Division of Northumberland, to Edith Althea,
widow of Major-General Sir George Pomeroy Pomeroy-
Colley, K.U.S.I., and daughter of Major-General Meade
Hamilton, C.B., took place in St. Paul's Church,
Knightsbridge.
18. — It was made known that, as the result of a ballot
which had taken place, the miners employed at the Lon-
donderry collieries, in the county of Durham, to the
number of 1,064, had voted in favour of a strike in support
of their fellow-workmen at Silksworth, and 233 against.
On the following day, after having been postponed several
limes, in the hope of a settlement, the eviction of the
miners at Silksworth Colliery was commenced. With
the exception of one day and, of course, the intervention
of Sunday, the evictions were continued de die in diem
until the 27th, when the first batch of magisterial
warrants had been executed. On two of the days, the
proceedings were of a very exciting and disorderly
description. The strike at Silksworth had its foundation
in the demand of the miners that the deputies should
become members of the Miners' Union.
— It was intimated that, under his will, the late Mr.
H. B. Brady, had left £1,000, free of duty, to the
Durham College of Science, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to be
applied to the foundation of a college museum to assist in
the teaching of natural history science, or in such other
way as the Council might deem desirable for the further-
ance of the study of natural history in the said colleee.
19. — Mrs. Mary Wilson, wife of Mr. John Wilson,
deputy-overman at South Hetton Colliery, was run over
and killed by a passing train on the railway near Soutli
Hetton.
— Newcastle and Northumberland Assizes were opened,
the judges being Mr. Justice Mathew and Mr. Justice
Smith. The chief criminal case was a charge against
George Walls, aged 30, labourer, of having wilfully
murdered Dennis O'Neil, dealer in waste paper, in Low
Friar Street, on the 27th of November last. The jury
found him guilty of manslaughter, and he was sentenced
to eight years' penal servitude. In the Civil Court, the
jury awarded £1,000 to Elizabeth Holmes, a married
woman residing in North Shields, as damages for injuries
sustained in the railway accident at Ryhope, in May,
1890. On the 23rd, a little girl named Harrison obtained
a verdict for £600 damages in consequence of injuries
received at Blaydon Railway Station.
20. — Sir William Gray, of Hartlepool, was elected
president of the Chamber of Shipping in London.
— It was announced that a large bed of coal had been
feund near the village of Satley.
21. — For the second time, Mr, Arthur Brogden and his
Swiss Choir gave a musical treat, in the Town Hall,
Newcastle, to the members of the Dicky Bird Society
connected with the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle. In
addition to the vast assemblage of little people, number-
ing 3,000, who completely filled the area of the hall, and
nearly all of whom wore the familiar yellow badge of the
society, there was a large attendance of adults. A suit
able address, inculcating lessons of kindness and be-
nevolence, was delivered by the Vicar of Newcastle, the
Rev. Canon Lloyd. At the close of an excellent enter-
tainment, votes of thanks were, on the motion of Mr.
Alderman John Lucas, seconded by Mr. Councillor
Goolden, enthusiastically awarded to the Vicar, Mr.
Brogden, and the choir. Three lusty cheers were, at the
call of Mr. Alderman McDermott, given for Uncle Toby.
Arml'
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
191
— The last performance of the pantomime, "Jack in
the Beanstalk," was given at the Tyne Theatre, New-
castle. The final representation of the pantomime,
"Dick Whittington and his Cat," at the Theatre Royal,
took place on the 28th.
22.— Tbe Sunday lecturer at the Tyne Theatre was Mr.
Willmott Dixon, LL.B., and his subject was "Our
Empire of the Sea, and How we have Kept it."
24-. — The London Gazette contained a notice that a
petition had been presented to her Majesty in Council,
by the inhabitant householders of South Stockton, pray-
ing that the township of Thornaby might be constituted
a municipal borough by the name of Thornaby -on-Tees.
— A woman named Jane Robinson was found dead,
with her skull fractured, in a lodging house in the lower
part of Gateshead, and a man named Walter M' Arthur
was arrested on suspicion of being concerned in her
death. There being no evidence against him, however,
he was ultimately discharged.
25.— It was announced that the famous Thornton Brass,
after having been renovated and cleaned at the works of
Messrs. Abbot and Co., Gateshead, at the expense of Mr.
Lawrence W. Adamson, managing director of that estab-
lishment, had been replaced in the vestry of All Saints'
Church, Newcastle.
—Sir W. G. Armstrong, Mitchell, and Co. launched
from their Elswick shipyard the new British cruiser
Spartan, the christening ceremony being performed by
Lady Ridley.
— M. Felix Volkhovsky, an escaped Siberian exile, and
editor of Free Russia, gave the first of two lectures in the
Assembly Rooms, Barras Bridge, Newcastle, his subject
being "Life in Russian Prisons as a Political Suspect."
A second lecture was delivered in the same place, on the
27th, the title being "Life in Siberia and my Escape to
Freedom. " There was a large attendance on each occa-
sion.
26. — Durham Spring Assizes were opened, and there
were only eleven prisoners for trial.
27. — In the Northumberland Hall, Newcastle, a lecture
was delivered under the auspices of the Tyneside Geo-
graphical Society by Mr. J. Scott Keltic, Librarian of
the Royal Geographical Society, on "The Partition of
Africa."
28. — It was announced that, during the week, the
-whole of the charitable legacies left by the late Mr. John
Fleming, solicitor, amounting to £66,500, had been paid
by the executors, through Mr. J. G. Youll, solicitor, to
•the various institutions, free of legacy duty.
MARCH.
1. — Mrs. Annie Besant delivered a lecture in the Tyne
Theatre, Newcastle, her subject being "The Inevitable-
ness of Socialism."
2.— In the Banqueting Hall of the Old Castle, New-
castle, a number of well-known local gentlemen were
entertained to dinner by the High Sheriff of Northum-
berland, Mr. Cadwallader J. Bates, to celebrate the
commencement of the preparation of a new history
of Northumberland. The High Sheriff himself pre-
sided, and the old hall presented an exceedingly pic-
turesque and quaint appearance. In addition to the
chairman, the speakers were — the Rev. A. 0. Medd,
Rector of Rothbury; the Rev. Canon Franklin, New-
castle; Mr. Owen Wallis, Old Ridley; Mr. Wheeler,
commissioner to the Duke of Northumberland ; Dr.
Bruce, Newcastle ; Mr. Robert Blair, South Shields ; Dr.
Murray, Newcastle ; Mr. Watson Askew-Robertson,
Pallinsburn ; Dr. T. Hodgkin, Newcastle ; and Mr. C. B.
P. Bosanquet.
— A series of central services for Newcastle and Gates-
head, in commemoration of the centenary of the death of
John Wesley, was held in Brunswick Place Chapel, New-
castle. The chair was occupied by the Rev. Joseph
Bush, ex-president of the Wesleyan Conference. On the
following day, a circuit convention and reunion took place
in Clarence Street Chapel, Shieldfield, under the pre-
sidency of the Rev. Francis Hewitt. The proceedings in
both cases were very interesting and successful.
3.— A complimentary banquet was given in the Con-
tinental Restaurant, Grainger Street, Newcastle, to
Colonel A. S. Palmer, chairman of the Gateshead Board
of Guardians, in commemoration of the opening of the
Gateshead New Workhouse. In the course of the
evening a handsome illuminated address was presented
to Colonel Palmer.
— Canon Dunn, Newcastle; Canon Taylor-Smith,
Wolsingham ; and Canon Greene, South Shields, recently
appointed by the Pope, were installed at St. Mary's
Cathedral, Clayton Street, Newcastle, in the room of
the late Canons Curry (Carlisle), Kearney (The Brooms),
and Dr. Wilkinson, whose elevation to the Bishopric
created the third vacancy.
4.— Mr. William Temple, builder, was unanimously
elected an alderman of the Newcastle City Council in
the room of the late Mr. Alderman Dickinson. Mr.
Temple has been a member of the Corporation since
the 4th of December, 1877. He was then elected one of
the representatives of
Jesmond Ward, on the
elevation of Colonel
Potter to the position
of alderman. He was
the author of the re-
distribution scheme
which came into opera-
tion a few years ago,
and the ward which,
under the new arrange-
ment, was assigned to
him was that of Hea-
ton. Our portrait is
taken from a photo-
graph by Mr. James
Bacon, Northumber-
land Street, Newcastle.
On the same day, Mr.
W. H. Dunn was elec-
ted an alderman of the
Gateshead Town Council, in succession to the late Mr.
Alderman Davidson. On the following day, Mr. T. T.
Sedgwick was elected an alderman of Darlington
Town Council, in place of the late Mr. Alderman
Foggitt.
— By a practically unanimous vote, the Newcastle
Council decided not to entertain a scheme submitted by
Mr. Farquhar Laing for the conversion of the City
Markets into a Public Hall and Art Gallery.
— Mr. Herbert W. Bell, solicitor, of Hartlepool and
ALDERMAN" TEMPLE.
192
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
I April
X 1891.
West Hartlepool, was appointed Town Clerk of Hartle-
pool, at a salary of £200 per annum.
5. — The seventh annual meeting of the Bishop of New-
castle's Fund was held, under the presidency of Earl
Percy. From a statement made by the Bishop, it ap-
peared that there had been raised altogether a sum of
£80,000, out of which there had been provided twenty-
eight new clergymen, nine new churches, and three new
mission rooms. The fund, it was announced, would be
continued till the end of 1893.
6.— A deputation from the Corporation of Darlington
waited upon Mr. Ritchie at the Local Government Board,
in reference to the polluted state of the river Tees.
7.— At the Sunderland Petty Sessions, Superintendents
Isaac Burrell and James Oliver were summoned on
charges of assault preferred by Mr. Samuel Storey, M.P.
The proceedings arose out of a visit paid by Mr. Storey
to " Candy Hall " in connection with the Silksworth
evictions on the 20th ult. The case against Superintendent
Burrell, which was taken first, was dismissed, on which
the prosecution withdrew the charge against Superin-
tendent Oliver.
— The dispute at the Silkswortn Colliery culminated
in a general strike of all the collieries belonging to Lord
Londonderry in the county of Durham. The county
magistrates at Sunderland renewed evictions warrants in
155 cases, execution to be stayed for 21 days.
— As the outcome of a recent reunion, there was formed
in Birmingham an association under the title of the Bir-
mingham and Midland Tyneside Club, its objects being to
bring Tynesiders in touch with each other for social inter-
course, and to give a welcome to any prominent Tyne-
sider who might visit the Midlands. Mr. Councillor Thos.
Barclay, a native of Felling, was elected president ; Mr.
W. D. Welford, Mr. J. W. Oliver, and Mr. G. H.
Haswell, vice-presidents ; and Mr. J. Pattison and Mr.
W, F. Clark, bon. secretaries.
— On the evening of this, and during nearly the whole
of the following day, a very severe snowstorm prevailed
in Newcastle and throughout the North of England. The
snow measured nearly two feet deep. A number of tele-
phone wires between Newcastle and Gateshead were
damaged, and the tramcar traffic in the former town was
suspended for a considerable time. The storm was the
most violent that had been experienced in the district
since March, 1886.
— It was stated that Messrs. T. and R. Nicholson,
solicitors, Morpeth, had become the purchasers of all the
buildings and land connected with Morpeth Gaol, except
the Court House and Police Station, with a view to the
laying out of the ground in sites for detached and semi-
detached villas, by Messrs. Oliver and Leeson, architects,
Newcastle.
8.— In the Tyne Theatre, the last of the lectures for the
session in connection with the Tyneside Sunday Lecture
Society was given by Max O'Rell, whose subject was
"Some Platform Reminiscences."
— Fires, attended with a considerable amount of
destruction, broke out in the shop of Mr. Joseph
Minnikin, confectioner and provision dealer, Raby Street,
Byker, and on the premises of Messrs. J. Imeson and
Sons, boot and shoe manufacturers, Clayton Street, New-
castle.
9. — Lord Morpeth. eldest son of the Earl of Carlisle,
addressed a crowded meeting of the Morpeth Temperance
Society in the Town Hall of that borough, under the
presidency of the Rector, the Rev. H. J. Bulkeley, M.A.
ffierteral ©cettmnces.
FEBRUARY.
14. — News received that the Government forces in Chili
had been defeated by the insurgents.
16. — A motion by Mr. John Morley in the House
of Commons, censuring the Government for their harsh
administration of the law in Ireland, was defeated by a
large majority.
— A sum of £11,000 in bank notes was stolen from a
clerk, whilst in the National Provincial Bank of England,
Bishopsgate Street, London.
14. — An unfortunate woman named Frances Coles, aged
25, was found with her throat cut in Chambers Street,
London, and from the nature of her injuries it was
surmised that she had fallen a victim to the miscreant
known to the police as "Jack the Ripper." A man named
Sadler was arrested and charged with the crime. Owing
to the want of evidence, however, he was discharged.
17. — At a political meeting held at Toronto, Sir
John Macdonald, Premier of Canada, announced that he
took the full responsibility of charging Sir Richard
Cartwright with a deliberate conspiracy to annex Canada
to the United States. The reading of a document, showing
that negotiations were in progress with that object by the
Canadian Liberal party, produced a profound sensation
throughout the Dominion.
19. — News was received of the Capture of Tokar by
Egyptian troops. About 700 of the followers of Osman
Digna were slain.
23. — Five men, who had been en tombed in the Jeansville
mine, Pennsylvania, U.S., for nineteen days were rescued
in an exhausted state.
21. — A terrible explosion occurred at Springhill Mines,
Halifax, Canada, about one hundred men being killed.
MARCH.
1. — The centenary of John Wesley was observed by his
followers throughout the country.
2. — Great loss of life and much damage to property was
reported from Yuma, Arizona, U.S., owing to heavy
floods.
4. — Wholesale massacres were reported from Madagas-
car by a chief named Ramiakatra at Nossi Be1.
5. — The result of the Parliamentary elections in Canada
showed that the Conservative Ministry had a majority
of 33.
7. — Death of John Walsh, Fenian agitator, who was
suspected ot being concerned in the Phoenix Park tragedy.
9. — A severe snowstorm was experienced in the Southern,
South-Eastern, and South-Western Counties. Many
shipping casualties were reported off the South Coast.
Mail trains were snowed up for several hours, the train
service generally being much disorganised. Passengers in
some case were detained all night in the trains. In South
Wales 20,000 workmen were thrown idle by reason of the
storm.
Printed by WALTKB SCOTT, Felling-on-Tyne.
ttbe
Chronicle
OF
NORTH-COUNTRY*LORE«AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 51.
MAY, 1891.
PRICE 6D.
&ur0t, iSiacfcs'imtft aittr
j|HE learned blacksmith who afterwards
became Vicar of Collierly, near Lanchester,
was born at Winlaton on the 6th of July,
1801. His father, a smith, maintained
and educated his family much in the same manner as
most of the better class of skilled workmen did at that
time. The son was brought up under religious influences,
his father being a very regular attendant at a Dissenters'
meeting-house in the village. At the age of four, young
Hurst was put to school, but at seven— the usual age for
boys to be set to work at Winlaton in those days — he left
school, and was sent to make small nails at the smith's
chop, in order to add to the income of the family. He
attended, however, the Sunday school established
by the late Archdeacon Thorp, and here he im-
proved considerably his previously imperfect know-
ledge of reading, &c. He continued at this
school until he was fifteen years of age. During that
period, he pursued the art of drawing, in which he made
much progress, and in the meantime he had commenced
to learn the business of patten-ring maker, Winlaton then
being famous for the manufacture of these articles, and
producing more than half of the whole number made in
England.
About this period, Mr. Hurst says of himself : — "I was
severely afflicted, which led me to think seriously about
religion, and to surrender my heart to God. As to my
previous character, it was strictly moral, my mind always
being impressed with a sense of the importance of
religion, and I was free from many of these
vices to which youth is generally addicted."
With these impressions he became a member
of a dissenting body — the Wesleyan Methodists,
we believe, and zealously prosecuted the task of self-
education. In this way he exercised himself, after work
hours, in composition from English grammar, afterwards
directing his mind to the study of languages, for which he
evinced a peculiar adaptability. From the part which he
13
had taken in religious matters, he was induced to become
a local preacher, and his ministrations were attended with
a fair amount of success". He was rather shy, retiring in
disposition, kept very little company, and devoted every
minute of his leisure hours to mental improvement.
194
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f May
\ 1691.
Shortly after attaining the age of manhood, he married
a daughter of Mr. James Hurst, an enterprising manu-
facturer of chain cables and patten-rings, with other de-
scriptions of iron work, and the young man found
employment under his father-in-law, to whom, beyond
the identity of name and the matrimonial tie, he was in
no way related. Blythe Hurst prosecuted his private
studies with an increased vigour in the new position in
which he was placed, and in the course of a few years he
had. by dint of perseverance, acquired a thorough know-
ledge of French, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Syriac, and
Arabic. With very limited means, and a family of
several daughters growing up, for whose maintenance it
was incumbent on him to provide, he still contrived
to purchase the necessarily expensive books requisite
for the purpose of self-culture. While at work, he used to
write upon his "flame stone" (a stone suspended before
the smith's fire to protect the eyes of the workmen) the
conjugations of the verbs of the languages he was
studying, and in the evenings he wrote out his exercises.
He thus led a blameless life, respected by his neighbours,
and regarded with a considerable degree ef admiration by
his immediate friends and connections on account of his
uncommon abilities.
Neither his work nor his studies prevented him from
preaching regularly every Sunday, and taking his full
share in all the religious meetings of the denomination
with which he was connected. Subsequently he became
a member of the New Connexion Methodists, and was
considered one of the most effective local preachers of
that body ; but, after a time, he separated himself from
it also, not so much because of any disagreement he had
with its doctrines or church government, as because of
an unhappy personal feud which had sprung up in the
Connexion at Winlaton, and which induced him and
others to become members of the Church of England.
It will be remembered that great exertions were made
about the year 1840 by Robert Owen and his followers to
spread a knowledge of their doctrines among the people.
Mr. Alexander Campbell, one of Mr. Owen's leading
disciples, visited Winlaton for the purpose of expounding
his views on the new social system of his chief. A great
deal of discussion was engendered in the village as to the
truth or falsehood of the new doctrines ; and some of Mr.
Hurst's friends, knowing his extensive acquaintance with
theological topics, pressed him to engage in a controversy
with, or to deliver lectures in reply to, the Socialist
lecturer. This Mr. Hurst declined to do, alleging as his
reason for refusing that the principles of truth are seldom,
if ever, advanced by angry debates. He, however, com-
bated Mr. Campbell's arguments in a pamphlet entitled
"Christianity no Priestcraft," in which he vigorously
defended the doctrines of Christ from the attacks made
upon them by some of Mr. Owen's followers. The Rev.
Henry Wardell, the Rector of Winlaton, perceiving
evidences of learning and ability in the pamphlet, sent a
copy of it to the Rev. Dr. Maltby, Bishop of Durham,
informing him that it was the production of a labour-
ingman who worked for his daily bread as a common black-
smith. His lordship soon replied, expressing the great
satisfaction with which he had perused the pamphlet, re-
marking that, "although it might be written by a com-
mon man, it was the production of no common mind,"
and asking Mr. Wardell to furnish him with some fur-
ther particulars of the author's life. These were not
mere words of " honeyed comfort." The bishop next
wrote to Mr. Douglas, then rector of Whickham, instruct-
ing him to see Mr. Hurst, and to ascertain his ability to
make a ready application of his acquirements. Mr.
Douglas, on paying a visit to the literary blacksmith,
found him at work at the anvil. Dr. Maltby subse-
quently wrote to the Rev. Dr. Davies, rector of Gates-
head, who, after he had examined Mr. Hurst in various
languages, reported most favourably of the result to his
diocesan. Then the bishop corresponded direct with the
working student, advising him as to his course of read-
ing, recommending to his attention the most suitable
books, and enclosing the means of following out his sug-
gestions. Mr. Collinson, a former rector of Gateshead,
father of Captain Collinson, the Arctic navigator, also
took an active interest in Mr. Hurst, whom he invited to
his house, and showed him many kindnesses. Some time
afterwards, Dr. Maltby, having occasion to visit New-
castle, had an interview with Mr. Hurst, and made
arrangements for his ordination.
When the date fixed for that ceremony was at hand,
Mr. Hurst received a letter from Auckland Castle, inti-
mating that apartments had there been provided for his
accommodation. On the 9th July, 1842, the " learned
blacksmith " proceeded to Auckland, where he was most
hospitably received. Having passed the necessary exami-
nations with great credit, he was in due course ordained a
clergyman of the Church of England. Here the interest
evinced in Mr. Hurst's progress by Bishop Maltby did not
stop; for, through the patronage of his lordship,
Mr. Hurst was appointed curate of Garrigill, near
Alston. On leaving his native village to enter upon
the duties of that office, he was presented with a pocket
communion service and a purse of gold, as a
token of the great respect and esteem in which he was
held by his friends and acquaintances, the interest
ing event taking place at the residence of Mr. Alderman
Laycock. The gift was feelingly acknowledged oy the
reverend recipient, who, in the course of his address, said —
"I am taught to look upon this act of Christian benevo-
lence as a Providential supply. In illustration of this
point, I shall advert to one particular circumstance which
I shall never forget. When the Bishop of Durham kindly
consented to admit me as a candidate for holy orders, I,
with a family, was thrown upon my resources for
support. We lived upon the little we had earned with
care. A short time before the ordination, I was told
May
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
195
that our 'barrel of meal was nearly wasted,' and our
'cruse of oil' nearly run out. I said, in reply, that if
the ministerial office was not worth a sacrifice, it
was worth nothing, and that God, in His provi-
dence, would send us a supply, if needed.
Soon .after this, He put it into the heart of
a gentleman (who I suppose is present) to show me the
kindness which I have experienced from your hands this
day. It is an act which shall ever live in the records of
my grateful remembrance."
Mr. Hurst was subsequently appointed to the living at
Slaley, near Hexham, and in the year 1854 he was pro-
moted to the vicarage of Collierly, which he held with
much acceptance up to the time of his death, in June,
1882, at the age of 81.
Mr. Hurst delivered several lecture in the Church of
England Institute and in the Blaydon Literary Institute
on Semitic Inscriptions and on Egyptian Hieroglyphics,
displaying the possession of great information upon those
abstruse and difficult questions. The career of the re-
markable man, on whom, in recognition of his great
attainments, the degree of Ph.D. was conferred, forcibly
recalls that of Elihu Burritt, another learned blacksmith.
Owing to his varied and extensive learning, he occupied
a deservedly high position among his clerical brethren.
Mr. Hurst's preaching was of a very high order, and his
sermons were remarkable for that chastened eloquence
which is so characteristic of the most thoughtful of the
clergymen of the Church of England.
iU0rtft=<S:0untri>
ljn £tokoe.
A U HINNY BURD.
jjERE is one of the best and most varied ex-
amples now known to exist of what may be
called topographical songs, that is, rhymes or
short snatches of verse applicable to places
or natural objects, &c. — relics of the untaught literature
of the country, and to be found in all parts of the United
Kingdom, but rarely united to music. The localities
named in this song are all well known places in New-
castle and the neighbourhood, and the characteristics of
some of them are very happily hit off. It will be found,
however, that the march of civilization has deprived
some plac«s of the characteristics attributed to them.
Our copy of "A U Hinny Burd," both melody and
verse, is collated from the singing of an old friend, and
the late Mr. John Bell's manuscript music book, together
with his "Rhymes of the Northern Bards," 1816.
4 •
See she's rak - ing up the dyke,
It's 0 but aw ken well
A U hinny burd,
The bonny lass o' Ben well
AtJA.
She's lang legg'd and mother like,
A U hinny burd ;
See, she's raking up the dyke,
AUA.
The Quayside for sailors,
A U hinny burd,
The Castle Garth for tailors,
AUA.
The Gateshead Hills for millers,
A U hinny burd.
The North Shore for keelers,
AUA.
There's Sandgate for auld rags.
And Gallowgate for trolly bags ;
There's Denton and Kenton,
And canny Lang Ben ton.
There's Tynemouth and Cullercoats,
And North Shields for sculler boats ;
There's Westoe lies iv a neuk,
And South Shields the place for seut.
There's Harton and Holywell,
And bonny Seaton Delaval,
Hartley Pans for sailors,
And Bedlington for nailors.
JZTItc iWassacre 0f
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NE SAMUEL COULSON, whose name
would probably never have been known to
UH, but that it happened to him to have
his lot cast in Amboyna, one of the
Molucca or Spice Islands, was born in Newcastle-on-
Tyne about three hundred years ago. In the summer
of 1622, he got the appointment of chief English factor
of Hitto, a mountainous peninsula. Within a year of
his attainment of the post, he was cast into prison by
the Governor of the Dutch colony, and died by the
executioner.
A volume of the Calendar of State Papers (Colonial),
issued in 1878, is occupied with che "East Indies : 1622-
1623." It thus embraces the time of the "Amboyna
196
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
Massacre," in which ten English factors at the settle-
ment were put to death on a charge of conspiracy to
expel the Dutch from the island ; with also nine
Japanese and a subject of Portugal. This memorable
tragedy of the reign of King James the First sent a
thrill of horror and indignation through England, and
excited an especial interest in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, of
which town, as we have said, the second sufferer in
importance, Samuel Coulson, was a native.
Early in 1623, when Coulson had occupied for several
months the place rendered vacant by the death of Samuel
Foxcroft, came the arrests, examinations, tortures, and
executions, arising out of a supposed conspiracy to over-
throw the Dutch ; and not until the summer of 1624, in
that age of slow communication by sea and land, did
the news reach England. In the month of July, the
Governor of the East India Company and his colleagues
were sending to the English Ambassador at the Hague,
Sir Dudley Carleton, "a narrative of the bloody pro-
ceedings," a duplicate of which being read before the
Privy Council in England on the 12th, "sundry of the
greatest shed tears." The narrative relates how, about
the llth of February, a Japanese soldier of the Dutch,
walking in the night upon the wall of the castle of
Amboyna, came to the sentinel, a Hollander, and asked
him some questions touching its strength. Being appre-
hended on suspicion of treason, he was put to the torture ;
and others of his race were examined, with also the
Portuguese guardian of the slaves under the Dutch.
During these proceedings, there was one Abel Price, a
" chirurgion " of the English, imprisoned in the castle,
for offering in his drunkenness to set a Dutchman's
house on fire. " This fellow the Dutch took, and
showed him some of the Japoneses whom they had
first most grievously tortured, and told him they had
confessed the English to have been of their confederacy
for the taking of the castle, and that if he would not
confess the same, they would use him even as they had
done thfse Japeneses, and worse also. Having given
him the torture, they soon made him confess whatever
they asked him." Captain Towerson — (sent in the ship
€rlobe, in 1621, " to be agent in Amboyna, with Emanuel
Thompson as assistant for language and accounts ") — was
with other Englishmen summoned before the Governor,
and informed that they must remain prisoners until
further trial. On the same day order was made to
apprehend the English at the other factories in the
island, viz., Hitto and Larica. Three from the one, two
from the other, were brought to the castle of Amboyna ;
and three other apprehensions were subsequently made.
In the course of these arrests there were examinations
of prisoners with torture. Several prisoners were dealt
with on Sunday, the 16th of February (Old Style) in the
hall of the castle, among them Robert Browne and
Edward Collins. "Next was Samuel Coulson brought
in, being newly arrived from Hitto, and was the same
day brought to the torture, who, for fear of the pain
wherewith he saw Collins come out, in such case that his
eyes were almost blown out of his head with the torment
of water, chose rather to confess all that they asked him,
and so was quickly dismissed, coming and weeping and
lamenting and protesting his innocency. Then was John
Clarke, that came with Coulson from Hitto, fetcht in,
and a little after was heard by the rest that were without
in the hill to cry out amain. They tortured him with
water and with fire by the space of two hours. The
manner of his torture (as also of Johnson's and Thomp-
son's) was as followeth : — First, they hoisted him up by
the hands with a cord upon a large door, where they
made him fast upon two staples of iron fixed on both sides
at the top of the door posts, hauling his hands the one
from the other as wide as they could stretch. Being thus
made fast, his feet hung some two feet from the ground
which also they stretcht asunder so far as they would
reach, and so made them fast under the door trees on
each side. Then they bound about his neck and face a
cloth so close that little or no water could go by. That
done, they poured water softly upon his head until the
cloth was full up to the mouth and nostrils, and some-
what higher, so that he could not draw breath, but he
must withal suck in the water. When he had drunk his
body full, then began his pain, for then the water, being
still continued to be poured softly, forced all his inward
parts, came out at his nose, ears, and eyes, /ind often as it
were stifling and choking him, at length took away his-
breath, and brought him to a swounde or fainting. Then
Mny 1
1891. I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
197
they took him down quickly, and made him vomit up the
water. Being a little recovered, they triced him up
again, and poured in water aa before, eftsoona taking him
down, as he seemed to be stifled. In this manner they
handled him three or four several times with water till
his body was swollen twice or thrice as big aa before, his
cheeks like great bladders, and his eyes staring and
strutting out beyond his forehead ; yet all this ha bore
without confessing anything, insomuch that the Fiscal
and the tormentors reviled him, saying he was a devil
and no man, or surely was a witch, nt least had some
charm about him, or was enchanted, that he could bear so
much. Therefore, they cut off his hair very short, aa
supposing he had some witchcraft hidden therein. After-
wards they hoisted him up again as before, and then
burnt him with lighted candles in the bottom of his feet
until the fat dropped out the candles ; yet then applied
they fresh lights unto him. They burnt him also under
the elbows, and in the palms of bis hands, likewise under
the armpits until his inwards might evidently be seen.*
At last, when they saw he could of himself make no
handsome confession, then they led him along with
questions of particular circumstances by themselves
framed. Being thus wearied and overcome by the tor-
•ment, he answered yea to whatsoever they asked,
whereby they drew from him a body of a confession to
this effect, to wit, that Captain Towerson had, upon New
Year's Day last before, sworn all the English at Am-
boyna to be secret and assistant to a plot that he had
projected, with the help of the Japoneses, to surprise the
castle, and to put the Governor and the rest of the Dutch
to death."
Towerson was afterwards called in for examination,
and shown what others had confessed of him. Having
deeply protested his innocency, " Samuel Coulson was
brought to confront him, who, being told that unless he
would now make good his former confession against
Gabriel Towerson, he should go to the torture, coldly
re-affirmed the same, and so was sent away. "
When Coulson was afterwards required to set his hand
to his confession, " he asked the Fiscal upon whose head
he thought the sin would lie, whether upon his that was
constrained to confess that was false, or upon the con-
strainers. The Fiscal, after a little pause upon this
question, went in to the Governor, then in another room,
but anon returning told Coulson he must subscribe it,
which he did, yet withal made this protestation : —
Well (quoth lie), you make me to accuse myself and
others of that which is as false as God is true ; for
God is my witness, I am as innocent as the child new
born."
On the 26th of February, the prisoners, with the
exception of Captain Towerson and Emanuel Thompson,
* Our drawing of the tortures inflicted in Amboyna is copied
from an engraving in the " Cabinet ef Curiosities."
were assembled in the great hall of the castle, to be pre-
pared for death by the ministers. After supp«r, Samuel
Coulson and Edward Collins were brought from the rest
into the room where Thompson lay. The Fiscal told them
it was the Governor's mercy to save one of them three ;
and it being indifferent to him which was the man, it was
his pleasure they should draw lots for it ; which they did,
and the free lot fell to Edward Collins. Coulson was
taken back to the hall, whither came the Dutch ministers.
The English prayed that they might receive the sacra-
ment as a sort of forgiveness for their sins, and withal
thereby to confirm their last profession of their inno-
cency. But this would by no means be granted ; where-
upon Coulson said thus unto the ministers : — " You mani-
fest unto us the danger of dissimulation in this case ; but
tell us, if we suffer guiltless, being also otherwise true
believers in Christ Jesus, what shall be our reward ?'"
The preacher answered, "By how much the clearer you
are, so much the more glorious shall be your resurrec-
tion." With that word, Coulson started up, embraced
the preacher, and gave him his purse, with such money as
he had in it, saying, Domine, God bless you ! Tell the
Governor I freely forgive him ; and I entreat you to
exhort him to repent him of the bloody tragedy wrought
upon us poor innocent souls." Here all the rest of the
English signified their consent of this speech.
The ten English, "with nine Japoneses and a Portu-
gal," were marched to the place of execution on the
morrow. "Samuel Coulson had conceived a prayer in
writing, in the end whereof he protested his innocency.
Which prayer he read to his fellows the night before,
and now also devoutly pronounced the same : then threw
away the paper, which the Governor caused to be brought
to him, and kept it." Then were the doomed prisoners
put to death by strike of sword, ten of whom were
English : — Captain Gabriel Towerson, the agent of the
English at Amboyna, Samuel Coulson, factor at Hitto,
Emanuel Thompson, assistant at Amboyna, Tymothy
Johnson, assistant there also, John Wetherall, factor at
Cambello, John Clarke, assistant at Hitto, William '
Griggs, factor at Larica, John Fardo, steward of the
house at Amboyna, Abel Price, chirurgion, and Robert
Browne, tailor. (The story is told at large in the fofio
Collection of Voyages and Travels made by John Harris,
D.D., F.R.S., and published in 174*, with an engraved
illustration of their sufferings and death.)
Sir Dudley Carleton, on the 1st November, 1624, sent
from the Hague to Secretary Sir Edward Conway the
Remonstrance of the Dutch East India Company, in jus-
tification of the process against the English at Amboyna ;
and with it was a deposition of Laurens Mareschalk,
who had served there as chief merchant, and as one
of the judges. Herein he has this reference to Coul-
son : — " That a little before his death Towerson wrote a
letter to Samuel Coulson, which is still in the hands of the
Governor of Amboyna, Herman Speult, that Coulson was
198
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f May
\ 1891.
the sole cause of Towerson having first consented to the
plot to make himself master of the castle, notwithstand-
ing which he now forgave Coulson."
The East India Company enclosed to Sir Dudley, on
the 20th of November, "a provisional answer to the
attestation of Laurence Mareschalk, and to the rest of the
fifteen new arguments alleged in justification of the pro-
cess against the English at Amboyna." We copy a
sentence concerning Coulson, viz. :— " That the confes-
sions of Thompson are forgeries of Mareschalk ; for, if
Thompson had spoken as reported, it would have been in
the acts " (of the Council of Amboyna) ; " and the like
may be said of all the rest of the matters concerning
Towerson, especially of the letter of Towerson to Coulsou,
an authentic copy of which might have done great service,
and would not have been omitted in the acts."
Further on in the volume, under date December 6,
1624, there are " Court Minutes of the East India Com-
pany." Mr. Deputy and others had that morning
attended Secretary Con way, who declared that the King,
graciously tendering the prosperity of the Company, was
pleased, for the better accomplishment of the intended
design upon the Dutch East India Company, to enlarge
his sea forces by addition of merchant ships and New-
castle ships to the ships royal then at sea, " which might
be able to attempt, second, and make good the action,
if any resistance should happen." "The King had given
intimation of this preparation, and the reason thereof,
to the King of Spain and other foreign States, that they
may not apprehend it to be intended against them, and
that, therefore, the King's honour was every way engaged
by force to take reparation of the insolence of thn Dutch
at Amboyna, if otherwise it were not forthwith
given."
There was no reprisal, however ; nor any reparation.
The reign of king James was now running out ; it ended
on the 27th of March; "and though, "says the editor of
the State paper (Mr. Noel Sainsbury of the Record
Office), in his Preface, "efforts were made by his
successors from time to time to see justice done, which
were renewed again and again during the Interregnum,
and even in Charles II. 'a reign, whenever any treaty
between England and the Provinces was in question, so
the matter rested."
Returning to the " Narration," we are told in the course
of it that "in the waste leaves of a book wherein were
bound together the Common Prayers, the Psalms, and the
Catechism," Coulson had made several entries. On one
page he wrote: — "March the 5th, stilo novo Lnew style],
being Sunday aboard the Rotterdam, lying in irons.
Understand that I, Samuel Coulson, late factor of Hitto,
was apprehended for suspicion of conspiracy, and for any-
thing I know must die for it. Wherefore, having no
better means to make my innocency known, have writ
this in this book, hoping some good Englishman will see
it. I do hereupon my salvation, as I hope by His death
and passion to have redemption for my sins, that I am
clear of all such conspiracy, neither do I know any
Englishman guilty, nor other creature in the world. All
this is true, God bless me.— SAMUEL COULSON."
The name of the writer occurs among the State Papers
as Colson, Collson, Colston, and Coulson. We give it, all
through, as it appears in his signature. On the first page
of the Catechism he makes the following note: — "In
another leaf you shall understand more which I have
writ in this book. — SA. COULSON. Being in the beginning
of the Psalms."
"The Japoneses," lie says on the leaf referred to,
" were taken with some villany, and brought to examina-
tion. Being most tyrannously tortured, were asked if the
English had any hand in their plot, which torture made
them say yea. Then was Mr. Thompson, Mr. Johnson,
Mr. Collins, aud John Clarke brought to examination,
and were burned under the arms, the armpits,
the hands, and soles of the feet, with another
most miserable torture, to drink water. Some of
them almost tortured to death, and were forced to
confess that which they never knew, by reason of the
torment, which flesh and blood is not able to endure.
Then were the rest of the Englishmen called one by one,
amongst which I was one, being wished to confess or else
I must go to torment. Withall called Mr. Johnson, who
was before tormented, to witness against me, or else
he Should be tormented again, which rather than he
would endure, he said what they would have he would
speak. Then must I confess that I never knew or else go
to torment ; which rather than I would suffer I did con-
fess that which (as I shall be saved before God Almighty)
is not true, being forced for fear of torment. Then did
they make us witness against Captain Towerson, and at
last made Captain Towerson confess, all being for fear of
most cruel torment, for which we must die. As I mean and
hope to have pardon for my sins, I know no more than
the child unborn of the business. Written with my own
hand the 5th of March, stilo novo. — SA. COULSON."
On one more blank space, the prisoner records the place
of his birth : — " I was born in New Castle upon Tyue,
where I desire this book may come, that my friends may
know my innocency. SA- COULSON."
The volume, thus freighted with a testimony of a dying
man, he delivered to one that served the Hollanders, who
sewed it up in his bed, and afterwards, at his oppor-
tunity, delivered it up to Mr. Richard Welden, the Eng-
lish agent at Banda, who, hiring a Dutch pinnace, had
passed to Amboyna. Thence " he took the poor remnant
of the English along with him in the said hired pinnace
for Jaccatra [Batavia], whither the Governor had sent
John Beaumound and Edward Collins before, as men con-
demned, aud left to the mercy of the General."
May 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
199
The live air that waves the lilies waves the slender jet of
water.
Like a holy thought sent feebly up from soul of fasting
saint :
Whereby lies a marble Silence, sleeping (Lough, the
sculptor, wrought her),
So asleep she is forgetting to say Hush ! — a fancy
quaint.
Mark how heavy white her eyelids ! not a dream between
them lingers ;
And the left hand's index droppeth from the lips upon
the cheek :
While the right hand — with the symbol-rose held slack
within the fingers —
Has fallen backward in the basin — yet this Silence will
not speak !
— Elizabeth Barrett Browning : " Lady Geraldine's
Courtship."
John Graham Lou§h
TRAVELLERS who drive from Shotley
Bridge to Edmondbyers, or traverse the
road from Allansford to Riding Mill, will
pass, at the junction of these two thorough-
fares, the curious old hall of Black Hedley, and its
dependent hamlet of Greenhead. In this pleasant and
fertile spot, far removed from the busy haunts of men,
was born, nearly a hundred years ago, the one man
whom, in the long list of eminent English sculptors,
Northumberland can claim as her own. John Graham
Lough first saw the light of day at this place, in January,
1798.
Many biographies of Mr. Lough have been written.
In most of them, the privations of his childhood, the
struggles of his youth, and the achievements of his prime,
are described in minute detail and with graphic force.
But, so far as a vigorous hunt through accessible books
enables one to judge, none of his biographers has ex-
plained the means by which this son of a husbandman,
born in an out-of-the-way hamlet, taken from school,
with but a scanty education, to help in the homestead and
the fields, acquired a taste for art, and for a most difficult
branch of art — that of sculpture. The explanation may
now be given.
Black Hedley was, for many generations, the property
of a branch of the ancient local family of Hopper.
About the middle of last century, a member of this
family, imbued with military ideas — an old soldier,
perhaps— took it into his head to make his home
emblematical of the two burning questions of his
time, war and peace. With crude visions of a barbican
floating in his brain, he built at the Greenhead end of
the avenue leading to the hall, a roofed and embattled
archway, upon which he planted wooden cannon, and
seven military figures. There was a figure at each corner,
one over the centre of the arch, front and back, and
a seventh crowning the apex of the roof. Having
in this strange manner exhibited his martial propensities,
and bidden defiance to foes without, he manifested his
peaceful proclivities, and proclaimed a welcome to friends
within, by erecting at the hall figures of a gentler aspect
and more inviting character. Upon a dovecote attached
to the mansion he placed two shepherds in Highland
costume ; one of them with a crook in his hand, accom-
panied by a coupla of dogs, the other without a crook, and
enjoying the companionship of only one dog : while upon
a wall behind the front roof he set three busts. These
curious sculptures (they are still in situ, though the
cannons are gone) were among the first things which
greeted the eye of John Graham Lough when he became
conscious of surrounding objects ; they were the com-
panions of his infancy ; they excited the admiration of his
boyhood ; and no doubt they inspired him with a desire
to emulate the gifted being who made them. And thus
it happened that the little farmer's boy became a great
sculptor.
With clay from the ditches of Greenhead the young
artist pursued his studies. " Clay dollies " came from his
hands of all shapes and sizes, but mostly rough models of
soldiers, like the warriors on the archway, or fighting
men of some kind. In his father's cottage, as he told
Haydon, the painter, in after years, was an old copy of
Pope's Homer ; he and a brother fell to modelling repre-
sentations of the contending armies described in it — he
fashioning the Greeks, and his brother the Trojans. An
odd volume of Gibbon's " Decline and J'all," containing an
account of the Coliseum, came in his way. He persuaded
his brother to sit up with him all night, and by daybreak
the two lads had constructed a model of the Coliseum
in the family kitchen, and filled it with fighting
gladiators. One day, a Shotley Bridge schoolmaster,
walking in the neighbourhood, found young Lough build-
ing up a figure with clay, in the midst of a group
200
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/May
\1891.
of youngsters, one of whom stood naked before him. He
called at the cottage of the boy's parents, and told Mrs.
Lough what he had seen. " Oh !" said the matter-of-fact
mother, "aa'se warrant it's just oor cull lad making clay
dollies !" " Cull lad " as they deemed him, neither
mother nor father put any obstacle in his way. They
allowed his " clay dollies " to fill the cottage, and over-
flow into the garden. The great squire of Minsteracres,
kind-hearted George Silvertop, riding past one evening,
on his return from fox-hunting, saw Lough's little plot
strewed all over with legs and arms and broken heads.
Curious to know the meaning of it all, he alighted,
entered the cottage, found it similarly decorated, and
received from the complaisant mother the necessary
explanation. His interest aroused by the proofs of genius
which he saw in these rude models, Mr. Silvertop
invited the boy to Minsteracres, showed him his works of
art, described to him the wonders which, as a far travelled
man, he had seen in various countries of Europe, and
gave him sound advice and encouragement
The visit to Minsteracres was a decisive step in young
Lough's upward progress, followed, as it was, by his
apprenticeship to a builder in the hamlet of Shotley
Field. Here he acquired dexterity in the art of stone
cutting, and by the time that his apprenticeship expired
be felt himself qualified to undertake commissions on his
own account. His first independent effort as a stone
cutter is still to be seen in the churchyard of
Muggleswick— to which village his parents during his
apprenticeship had removed. It is a representation of
an angel's head, with banging drapery, on a gravestone,
"In memory of Jane, daughter ot John and Ann
Mayor." A more pretentious undertaking, completed soon
afterwards, is shown in the church of Allendale Town,
described by Mackenzie, in his " History of North-
umberland," as "a large freestone monument to the
memory of Mrs. Ann Stephenson, &c., remarkably well
executed by John Lough, an ingenious young man, of Low
Muggleswick."
While the Allendale monument was in progress, in the
autumn of 1823, the library of the Newcastle Literary and
Philosophical Society was rising from its foundations.
Mr. Lough, then approaching his twenty-sixth year, came
to Newcastle, and obtained employment upon the new
building. Before it was completed, he felt himself strong
enough to venture upon the hazardous step of proceeding
to the metropolis, and there maintaining himself while he
mastered the sculptor's art. He left the Tyue in one of
the old sailing traders, and in due course arrived in
the great world of London, friendless and alone. It
is said that the skipper of the vessel was so much
interested by Lough's enthusiasm and pluck that he
»fer6GTz}?eaci'§irf!?PkGe
May
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
201
refused the stipulated guinea for passage money, allowed
the traveller to sleep on board while the vessel discharged
her cargo, and promised to bring him back to "canny
-aad Newcastle" when he should have grown tired of the
vain pursuit of fortune in town. For a time it seemed
probable that the prediction involved in the old skipper's
offer might be fulfilled. Lough took a modest lodging in
Burleigh Street, Strand, studied the Elgin marbles,
worked and waited, but the road to success and the way
to fortune remained for some time closed to him. At the
Royal Academy Exhibition, 1826, he exhibited, with
some smaller subject, a bas-relief of "The Death
of Turnus," slain in single combat by .^Eneas. Nothing
came of it. Still undaunted, he set his hand to a much
loftier conception — a colossal statue of Milo the athlete
caught in the oak and devoured by the wild beasts of the
wood. There is a story told of this remarkable undertak-
ing which, if not true, deserves to be. Lough's studio, it
is said, was too low, and he broke through the ceiling to
obtain the necessary height for his figure. The landlord,
annoyed at the liberties taken with his property, con-
sulted Brougham, afterwards the famous Lord Chancellor,
who thought the incident so remarkable that he went to
inspect the place himself. Amazed at the wonderful sight
:tnat met his eyes, he went into society and spread the
story. Society ran to see the phenomenon, were en-
chanted, enraptured, and set the artist at full speed on
the highway to fame and honour.
Haydon, in his "Autobiography," tells the story of
Lough's sudden accession to fame, with his usual
enthusiasm and exaggeration : —
1827 — May 18. — From me Lord Egremont went to
young Lough, the sculptor, who has just burst out, and
has produced a great effect. His Milo is really the most
extraordinary thing, considering all the circumstances, in
modern sculpture. It is another proof of the efficacy of
inherent genius.
May 24. — I went down [to Lough's studio], and was per-
fectly astonished. The feet and hands are not equal to
the rest, but the body, head, thighs, legs, and whole ex-
pression and action, are grand beyond description. It is
the most extraordinary effort since the Greeks, — with no
exception — not of Michel Angelo, Bernini, or Canova.
To see such a splendid effort of innate power built up in
an obscure first floor (No. 11, Biirleigh Street, over a
green grocer's shop), without the aid of education, foreign
travel, patronage, money, or even food, is only another
instance of the natural power which no aid or instruction
can supply the want of. Lough never ate meat for three
months; and then Peter Coxe, who deserves to be
named, found him ; he was tearing up his shirts to make
wet rags for his figure to keep the clay moist, and on the
point of pulling it down. Lough will be a great man.
He has all the consciousness of genius, with great
modesty.
June 8.— Interested for Lough and his exhibition,
whom I hope in God I have rescued from a set of harpies,
who wanted to make him a tool. Cockerell got him a
202
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
( May
\ 1391.
room. I have set him on the right road, and his own
energy will do the rest. His is the only high and sound
genius 1 have ever known.
June 9. — Lough passed the evening with me. He
declared solemnly to me that he had not ate meat for
three months, and began the fourth. He said every day
at dinner-time he felt the want, and used to lie down
till it passed. He felt weak— at last faint— giddy con-
tinually, and latterly began to perceive he thought
sillily, and was growing idiotic. He had only one bushel
and a half of coals the whole winter, and used to lie down
by the side of his clay model of this immortal figure,
damp as it was, and shiver for hours, till he fell asleep.
He is a most extraordinary being — one of those creatures
who come in a thousand years.
June 10. — Lough's private day. It was a brilliant one.
I wrote to Mrs. Siddons, and begged her to come. She
came, and I conducted her into the room. She was
highly delighted. The Duke of Wellington entered
before Mrs. Siddons and I had gone. The duke
felt great admiration indeed, and, going to the books
opened, wrote, with his own illustrious right hand,
an order for Milo and Samson. One of Lough's
patrons came over and shook his grace by the hand, and
thanked him. TheDukesaid " He should go abroad, " in
his loud, distinct, and military voice. Silvertop hesitated.
The duke, surprised at his view not being acceded to,
half-blushed and said, "Not to stay, but to see — eh—
the — eh — great works, as others have done." To con-
clude, the day was, I know, a brilliant one. I saw it
would be, and first advised this step. Such attendant
circumstances can never concur again in the execution of
any future work of the same mau. I, therefore, told
Lough, "Bo prompt and decisive ; get a friend to do, I
will direct, and promise you a harvest." He did so.
Lord Egremont approved. A friend got all the tickets
ready ; I marked the Court Guide ; his servant took
them round ; Cockerel! and Bigge secured his room, and
God be thanked ! we have placed this mighty genius on
the road to prosperity. If his health keep strong, which
I pray God it may, he will be the greatest sculptor since
Phidias.
By the following spring Lough had completed other
figures, and in March he opened a second exhibition with
Milo, Samson, Musidora, and Somnus and Iris. A little
handbook to this exhibition, signed by "Buonarroti,"
described these creations of Lough's genius in terms
scarcely less eulogistic than those employed the year
before by Haydon. Somnus was praised for its bold form
and proportion ; Iris for its contour, flexibility of skin,
and rich expression of the flesh ; Musidora for its luxuri-
ance of form, dignified air, and engaging expression of
countenance ; Samson, though sketchy, and open to
criticism, as exhibiting a faculty of invention beyond
anything extant in British art, &c. Society again flocked
to the show, and the artist received unstinted praise and
unending compliment. Commissions, however, came but
slowly. Lough informed Haydon, ten days after the
exhibition opened, that he had not received a single order
for his Musidora — that "pure, virginal, shrinking, chaste,
delightful creature," as Haydon described the figure.
"My God!" continued Haydon, "to hear on the private
day people saying ' Very promising young man,' at works
before which Michael Angelo would have bowed. 'Why
does he not do busts ?' Why does not the State give him
sufficient employment to prevent the necessity?"
Mindful of his Tyneside friends, Mr. Lough sent down
to Newcastle, in October, 1828, a cast of his Milo, to be
placed (where it still stands) in the library of the Literary
and Philosophical Institution — the building at which he
had worked as a journeyman mason but four years before.
It was a thoughtful act, highly appreciated throughout
the North Country, where the wonderful achievements of
the young man from Muggleswick had been the talk not
only of the "nobility, gentry, and clergy," but of every
farmer, cottager, and artisan. For many a day after,
although frowned upon by some of the more puritanical
members of the institution, who wanted a figure with
more clothing upon its limbs, the statue of Milo at the
Lit. and Phil. — "dyun by yan o' wor canny lads, aall
oot o' his aan heed " — was one of the "lions " of New-
castle.
Within the compass of a sketch like this it is not
possible to follow Mr. Lough through the details of a
prolonged and brilliant career. He married in 1832
Mary, second daughter of the Rev. Henry North, and
sister to the wives of Sir James Paget, surgeon, and Mr.
Twining, the London banker. With her, in 1834, he did
the "Grand Tour" of all artists — a pilgrimage to Italy.
There he remained four years, studying the works
of the great sculptors of old, but relying, as in his
youth, upon his own intellectual resources, and dis-
daining the aid of guide or master. Upon his return
to England, the influence of his Italian studies became ap-
parent in " Boy giving Water to a Dolphin, " " A Roman
Fruit Girl, " " A Bacchanalian Revel, " and similar groups,
exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1839 and 1844.
Ma
1891
1}
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
203
In the last-named year he showed at Westminster Hajl
Exhibition one of the most effective and affecting produc-
tions of hia prolific fancy — a group called " The
Mourners." Among monumental statues which issued
from his studio at this time were the figure of her
Majesty, which stands in the Royal Exchange, London ;
the companion statue of Prince Albert, which adorns the
great room at Lloyd's ; a recumbent figure of Southey for
Crosthwaite Church, Keswick ; and a life size statue of
the Marquis of Hastings, erected over the hero's grave at
Malta. To the Great Exhibition of 1851 he sent a
colossal group, now at the Free Library, Newcastle,
'•Satan subdued by the Archangel Michael," a work
that is considered by competent judges to be one of
the finest, if not the finest, production of his chisel ;
together with "Duncan's Fighting Horses, "and several
figures from a Shakspearian series that he executed for
his life-long patron, the late Sir Matthew White Ridley.
Time and space do not permit even an enumeration of his
further triumphs. No North-Countryman needs to be
told of the great things which Lough accomplished. In
marble or bronze, in stone or plaster, all his principal
works are with us in the North from day to day, and
from year to year— a joy for ever. Facing the Chronicle
Office in Newcastle stands his monument of George
Stephenson; at Tynemouth, overlooking the harbour-
mouth, rises his statue of Lord Collingwood. In the castles
of Alnwick and Ravenswortb, the halls of Blagdon and
Howick, on the staircase of the Literary and Philosophical
Society, and in various parts of the Free Library of New-
castle, are brilliant examples of his genius in the finished
marble ; while at Elswick Hall, in the western park of the
town, are exhibited, the gift of his widow, full-sized
plaster models of nearly every work to which he set his
hand — classical and ideal, statuesque and monumental.
Mr. Lough died in London, April 8, 1876 ; his widow
died December 29, 1888. The issue of their union was two
daughters, the elder of whom married Rudolph Scully,
Esq. ; the younger was united to General Sir George
Bouchier, K.C.B.
jlURING the greater part of the Heptarchy
period, war was almost continual between
the Northumbrians and Mercians. Long
after the conversion of the former to
Christianity, the latter continued to be Pagans. The
votaries of Odin and Christ mutually abhorred each other.
In the matter of ferocity there was little to choose
between them. Whichever got the upper hand ravaged,
burned, and slew, without stint or stay. But the Pagan
Mercians, either having had no historians to write
eulogies and apologies for them, or having had their
annals destroyed, still lie under the stigma of having been
utter barbarians, while the more fortunate Northumbrians,
privileged to have their Christian piety and Maccabean
courage recorded with the pen of a ready writer, even
that of the Venerable Bede, the father of English history,
are presented to posterity as burning and shining lights in
an otherwise dark and dismal period. It is true that, even
as in the Roman Empire, and in Constantino the Great's
own family, there was a Julian the Apostate, so in the line
of Anglo-Northumbrian princes, there were two or three
who apostatised from the true faith ; but then, as Bede
tells us, it was agreed with the unanimous consent of all
that the names and memory of these apostates should be
entirely erased from the catalogue of the Christian kings,
and no date be ascribed to their reign.
Of all the kings of the Northumbrians, Oswald, " a man
beloved by God," was " the most Christian." It was his
fate, however, to be killed in a great battle. "by the same
Pagan nation and Pagan king of the Mercians who had
slain his predecessor. ^Edwin." The last words he uttered
when he fell were — " Lord, have mercy on the souls of my
people ! " The locality where the battle was fought is a
disputed point. Some think it must have been a place
called Mackerfield, in the parish of Winwick St. Oswald,
near Warrington, in South Lancashire, the scene of an
obstinately contested battle in 1648 between Oliver Crom-
well and the Scots, when the North Britons were de-
feated with terrible slaughter. Others think there are
stronger arguments in favour of Oswaldstre, now
Oswestry, that is, Oswald's Town, in Shropshire. A
little westward from the town is Oswald's Well, a small
basin under an arch in the recess of a stone wall, with a
crowned head of Oswald, hear the spot where that monarch
is supposed to have fallen. A chapel formerly stood near
it, dedicated to the royal saint, whence the town is
ecclesiastically known as Oswestry St. Oswald. Tradition
has it that the members of his body were severally affixed,
by the victorioun Penda, to three crosses, in derision of
the Holy Trinity and the crucifixion of Christ. The
original Saxon mime of the place is said to have been
Maserfeld, otherwise Maeresfeld, the etymology of the
former word leading us to infer that it was the spot on
which a great international fair was held, from " massere,"
"mangere," or "manegere," a monger, merchant, or
tradesman, and that of the latter, that it was a field where
the mares were kept separate from the stallions. But
these things are of little consequence.
.The esteem in which Oswald had been held by the
monks led to his canonisation. The scene of his death,
presumed to be Oswestry, became hallowed. Miraculous
virtues were ascribed to his relics, and a monastery was
soon afterwards raised to his memory, named Whit-
minster.
"Infirm men and cattle," says Bede, "are healed to
this day in the place where Oswald was killed by the
Pagans, fighting for his country." Many, he tells us.
204
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
• May
. 1881.
took up the very dust from the spot where his body fell
to the ground, and, putting it into water, "did much
good with it to their friends who were sick." To such an
extent was this practice carried, that a hole was at length
formed there, "as deep as the Height of a man." The
historian relates two cases of miraculous cure which he
heard from his ancestors. We shall let him tell the first
story in his own words : —
It happened, not long after the illustrious King's death,
that a man was travelling on horseback near that place,,
when his horse on a sodden began to tire, to stand stock-
still, hang down his head, and foam at the mouth, and, at
length, as the pain increased, he fell to the ground : the
rider dismounted, and throwing some straw under him,
waited to see whether the beast would recover, or he
should have to leave him dead. At length, after much
rolling about in extreme anguish, the horse happened to
come to the very place where the illustrious King died.
Immediately the pain ceased, the beast gave over his inad
struggles, and, as is usual with tired horses, turned gently
from side to side, and then, starting up, perfectly re-
covered, began to graze on the green herbage. This the
man observing, being an ingenious person, he concluded
there must be some wonderful sanctity in the place where
the horse had been healed ; and left a mark there [that be
might know the spot again]. After which he again
mounted his horse, and repaired to the inn where he in-
tended to stop. On his arrival he found there a girl,
niece to the landlord, who had long languished under the
palsy ; and when the friends of the family, in his
presence, lamented the girl's bitter calamity, he gave
them an accouut of the place where his horse had been
cured. In short, she was put into a cart and carried and
laid down at the place. Being placed there, she slept
awhile, and when she waked found herself healed of her
bodily infirmity. TTpon which she called for water,
washed her face, arranged her hair, covered her head
with a linen cloth, and returned home on foot, in good
health, with those who had brought her.
The second case is that of a Welshman, who, happening
to travel past the battle-field, observed one particular
spot of ground greener and more beautiful than any other,
whence he judiciously concluded that some person of
more holiness than any other in the contending armies
had been killed there. He therefore took along with him
some of the dust he could scrape together, tying it up in
a linen cloth, supposing it would some time or other be of
use in curing sick people. Then, proceeding on his
journey, he came at evening to a certain village, and
entered a house where the inmates were feasting at
supper. They hospitably invited him to partake. He
accepted the invitation and hung up the cloth in which
he had brought the earth on a post against the wall.
They feasted long and drank hard, with a great fire in
the middle of the room. Some of the sparks flew up and
set fire to the roof, which was of wattles covered with
thatch, whereupon the guests ran out in a fright, and the
house was burned down. "Only that post on which the
dust hung remained entire and untouched by the flames "
— a miracle which was "made known and reported far
and wide," and led many to visit the spot which had
been hallowed by Oswald's blood, "where they received
health to themselves and their friends."
Oswald's pious niece, Osthryda, who had married
jEdilred, King of the Mercians, a convert to Christianity,
determined to have the venerable bonea of her uncle
deposited in a noble monastery in the province of Lin-
dissi, now Lindsay, called Beardeneu, and now Bardney.
When the relics arrived there, they were left in the open
air all night, owing to some scruples on the part of the
monks, only a large tent being spread over the waggon
in which they were. But during that whole night a
pillar of light, stretching from the waggon up to heaven,
was seen by almost all the inhabitants of the province.
So in the morning the monks were only too glad to
receive the precious deposit into their church. They
hung over the shrine in which they were placed the
banner of the sainted monarch, made of gold and purple ;
they poured out the water in which they had washed the
bones in a corner of the sacristy; and "from that time
the very earth that received that holy water had the
effect of a salutary grace in expelling devils from the
bodies of persons possessed."
A certain venerable abbess, named ^Edilhild, who was
still living when Bede wrote, having paid a visit to
Bardsey monastery, and having been told of the wonder-
ful works wrought there by means of the relics, begged
that she might be allowed to carry away some of the
"healthful dust." And her request, as she was a person
of great consideration, having been granted, she got a
little casket full, and returned home with it. Shortly
afterwards, a guest came to the monastery she presided
over, "who was wont often in the night to be on a sudden
grievously tormented with an unclean spirit. "
This man, being hospitably entertained, and having
gone to bed after supper, was in a sudden seized by the
devil, and began to cry out, to gnash his teeth, to foam at
the mouth, and to distort his limbs by different move-
ments. None being able to hold or bind him, th« servant
ran, and, knocking at the door, acquainted the abbess.
She, opening the monastery door, went out herself with
one of the nuns to the place of the men, and, calling on
the priest, desired he would come with her to the sufferer.
Being come hither, and seeing many more present, who
had not been able, though they endeavoured it, to hold
the tormented person and prevent his convulsive motions,
the priest used exorcisms, and did all he could to assuage
the madness of the unfortunate man ; but, though he took
much pains, neither could he prevail. When no hope
appeared of easing the madman, the abbess suddenly
bethought herself of the said dust, and immediately
ordered her servant to go and fetch her the small casket
in which it was. As soon as she came with what she had
been sent for into the porch of the house, in the' Inner
part whereof the possessed person was tormented, he
iiecame suddenly silent, and laid down hia head, as if he
liad been falling asleep, stretching out all his limbs to
rest. All present were silent and watchful, and stood
attentive to see the end of the affair. After some time,
the man that had been tormented sat up, and, fetching a
deep sigh, said, " Now I am like a sound man, for 1 am
restored to my mental senses." They earnestly inquired
how that came to pass, and he answered, "As soon as
that virgin drew near the porch of this house, with the
casket she was carrying, all the evil spirits that vexed me
departed, and, having left me, were no more to be seen."
Then the abbess gave him a little of that dust, and, the
priest having prayed, he had a very quiet night ; nor did
lie, from that time forward, suffer the least nocturnal fear
or disturbance from the old enemy.
A certain little boy in the same monastery, who had
been long troubled with a severe fever, was advised to go
E1
ii
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1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
205
into the church, get close to Oswald's tomb, and stay
there quiet, not stirring from the place, till the time that
the fit was to go off should have elapsed. He did so, and
not only, we are told, " the disease durst not affect
him as he sat by the saint's tomb, but in its fear it fled so
absolutely that it durst not touch him either on the
second or third day, or ever after." Bede's informant,
who testified to the truth of the story, knew the boy.
The fame of St. Oswald was not confined to Britain :
but, "spreading the rays of his healing brightness even
far beyond the sea," it reached also to Germany and
Ireland. St. Wilbrord, the Apostle of the Frisians, who
was a native of Northumbria, and the first archbishop of
Utrecht, used to relate many wonderful cures that had
been effected within his own experience by the relics of
that most revered king. While yet only a priest, Wil-
brord had led a pilgrim's life in Ireland, "for love of the
eternal country"; and there, "at the time of the mor-
tality," that is to say, a great pestilence, which occurred
in the year 665, the infection reached a certain scholar of
the Scottish race, "a man indeed learned in worldly
literature, but in no way solicitous or studious of his own
eternal salvation." This man, seeing his death near at
hand, began to fear and tremble, lest as soon as he was
dead he should be hurried away to hell for his sins. He
sent for Wilbrord, who was in the neighbourhood, con-
fessed his sins to him with great contrition, and expressed
his resolution, if the divine mercy should grant him a new
term of life, to correct his vicious habits, and totally to
reform his mind and whole course of life in obedience to
the divine will. He went on to say : — " We have heard,
and the report is universal, that there was in your nation
a king, of wonderful sanctity, called Oswald, the excel-
lency of whose faith and virtue is become renowned even
after his death by the working of miracles. I beseech
you, if you have any relics of his in your custody, that
you will bring the same to me ; in case the Lord shall be
pleased, through his merits, to have mercy on me."
Wilbrord answered — " I have indeed some of the stake on
which his head was set up by the Pagans, when he was
killed ; and, if you believe, with a sincere heart, the
divine goodness may, through the merit of so great a
man, both grant you a longer term of life here, and
render you worthy of admittance into eternal life." He
answered immediately that he had entire faith therein.
Then Wilbrord blessed some water, and put into it a chip
of the aforesaid oak, and gave it to the sick man to drink.
He presently found ease, and recovering of his sickness,
lived a long time after; and, "being entirely converted
to God in heart and actions, wherever he came, he spoke
of the goodness of his merciful Creator, and the honour of
his faithful servant Oswald."
St. Wilbrord, we may here observe, was not uniformly
successful in his proselytising work, even though he did
possess a piece of the stake on which St. Oswald's head
had been fixed by the Pagans. For we are told that, on
one notable occasion, when he had, with the assistance of
the missionary Wulfrason, brought the stubborn Pagan
King of the Frisians, Reedbod, so close to the point of
conversion that he had come to the holy font and put one
foot in the water, the half-hearted monarch started the
question whether there were a greater number of Fries-
landers in heaven or in hell ; and on being incautiously
told that all the unbaptised kings and nobles whe had
preceded him were in the latter place, he withdrew his
foot, saying he would prefer going to the place where he
would meet his ancestors to that which might only
happen to be peopled by some of his descendants.
During the Danish invasion, St. Oswald's bones were
carried from Bardsey to Gloucester, then (A.D. 910) the
capital of Mercia and the residence of " the indomitable
King of the Angles, Eadward." His head was placed in
the same coffin with the body of St. Cuthbert, and was
found when the tomb of that saint in Durham Cathedral
was examined in 1827. In the ancient sculptures of the
patron saint of Durham, he is generally represented as
carrying St. Oswald's head in his hand.
It is perhaps worth mentioning that Anglican hagio-
logists boast of a second St. Oswald, who flourished in the
tenth century, in the reign of King Edgar. Originally
Bishop of Worcester, and eventually Archbishop of York,
he formed one of an ecclesiastical triumvirate, the other
members of which were the still more celebrated St.
Dunstan and Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, who,
backed by royal authority, were the chief agents in
forcing a new character upon the conventual establish-
ments then existing. Chapters were converted into
monasteries wherever practicable ; and this process of so-
converting them became known as " Oswald's Law."
STfte
at
250rlrn%
IV.
THE DUNBAR FALLS.
JHE Falls, merchants and shipowners at Dun-
bar, were descended from the Faas of Yet-
holm. This family gave Dunbar provosts
and baillies, and ruled the political interests
of the town for many years. One of them, Captain
James Fall, represented the Jedburgh district of burghs.
in Parliament from 173* to 1741. The house had agencies
in the chief Baltic and Mediterranean ports, and bore so
high a character that several of the best families in Scot-
land sent their sons to it to be initiated into the mysteries
of commerce. The Falls were connected by marriage
with the Anstruthers of Elie, the Footies of Balgonie,
aud other gentle Scotch families, and their blood ran, it
is said, in the veins of Thomas Coutts, banker, the grand-
father, on the mother's side, of the Baroness Burdett
Coutts. The celebrated Jenny Faa (afterwards Lady
Anstruther) is described in Dr. Alexander Carlyle's-
206
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I Maj
\ 1891.
autobiography as a coquette and a beauty, lively and
clever. A Captain Fall, supposed to be one of the
family, visited Dunbar in an American ship of war
during the time of Paul Jones. (See Monthly Chronicle,
1889, p. 545.) There is a well-known Scottish song,
entitled, "Johnny Faa, the Gipsy Laddie." It concerns
a Sir John Faa, who carried off a Countess of Cassilis
in the seventeenth century, under very singular circum-
stances.
LADY CASSILIS AND SIR JOHN FAA.
The following, taken from Whitelaw's " Book of Scot-
tish Ballads," gives an account of the adventure just
mentioned : —
John, the sixth Earl of Cassilis, a stern Covenanter, of
whom it is recorded by Bishop Burnet that he never
would permit his language to be understood but in its
direct sense, married Lady Jean Hamilton, a daughter of
Thomas, first Earl of Haddington, a man of great
ability, who had risen from the Scottish bar to a peerage.
The match seems to have been dictated by policy. Lord
Haddington was anxious to connect himself with the old
nobility, while Lord Cassilis was just as anxious to be
allied to his father-in-law's rich estates. It is therefore
not very likely that Lady Sean herself had much say in
the matter. On the contrary, report says she was in love
with a young knight, Sir John Faa of Dunbar, who had
probably seen her at her father's seat of Tynningham,
which is near that town.
When several years had passed, and three children
were born to Lord and Lady Cassilis, this love led to a
dreadful catastrophe. Sir John Faa, seizing his opportu-
nity while the earl was absent attending the Assembly of
Divines at Westminster, presented himself at Cassilis
Castle in the disguise of a gipsy, and accompanied by a
band of these outcasts. In the words of the ballad,
"They cuist the glaumourye ower her " : but love would
be the" only magic used on this occasion, and so powerful
was its spell that the countess eloped with her lover.
The earl returned soon after their departure, and, learn-
ing what had happened, at once started in pursuit.
Accompanied by a band which put resistance out of the
question, he overtook them, and captured the whole
party at a ford over the Doon, still called the "Gipsies'
Steps," a few miles from the castle. He brought them
all back to Cassilis, and hanged all the gipsies, including
the hapless Sir John, upon the "Dule Tree," a splendid
plane, which was his gallows in ordinary, as the name
testifies. As for the countess, whose indiscretion occa-
sioned all this waste ot human life, she was taken by her
husband to a window and compelled to survey the
dreadful scene— to see one after another of the
fifteen gallant men put to death, and at last to
witness the dying agonies of him who had been
so dear to her. The particular room in the castle
where the unhappy lady endured this torture is
still called the "countess's room." After undergoing a
short confinement in that apartment, the house belonging
to the family at Maybole was fitted up for her reception
by the addition of a fine projecting staircase upon which
were carved heads representing those of her lover and his
band. In this house Lady Cassilis was confined for the
rest of her life— the earl in the meantime marrying again.
One of her daughters, Lady Margaret, was afterwards
married to the celebrated Gilbert Burnet.
THE BALLAD OF "JOHNNIE FAA."
Subjoined is a copy of the celebrated ballad relating to
the elopement : —
The gipsies cam' to our gude lord's yett,
And O but they sang sweetly ;
They sang sae sweet and sae very complete
That doun cam' our fair lady.
And she cam' tripping doun the stair,
And all her maids before her ;
As sune as they saw her weel-faured face,
They cuist the glaumourye ower her.
" O come with me," says Johnnie Faa,
" O come with me, my dearie,
For I vow and I swear, by the hilt of my sword,
That your lord shall nae mair come near ye."
Then she gieci them the gude wheit breid,
And they ga'e her the ginger ;
But she gied them a far better thing,
The gowd ring off her finger.
" Ga'e, tak fra me this gay mantil,
And bring to me a pladie,
For, if kith and kin and a' had sworn,
I'll follow the gipsy laddie.
"Yestreen I lay in a well-made bed,
Wi' my gude lord beside me ;
This night I'll lie in a tenant's barn,
Whatever shall betide me."
" Come to your bed," says Johnnie Faa,
" Come to your bed, my dearie ;
For I vow and I swear, by the hilt of my sward,
That your lord shall nae mair come near ye."
" I'll go to bed to my Johnnie Faa,
I'll go to bed to my dearie ;
For I vow and I swear, by the fan in my hand,
That my lord shall nae mair come near me."
And when our lord cam' hame at e'en,
And speired for his fair lady ;
The tane she cried, and the other replied,
"She's awa wi' the gipsy laddie."
" Gae saddle to me the black, black steed,
Gae saddle and mak' him ready ;
Before that I eat or sleep,
I'll gae seek my fair lady !"
And we were fifteen well-made men,
Although we were nae bonnie ;
And we were a' put doun for ane,
A fair young wanton lady.
THE NORTHUMBRIAN FAW8.
In a Newcastle paper for the 27th July, 1754, an
advertisement appeared, offering a reward for the appre-
hending of John Fall and Margaret, his wife, William
Fall and Jane, otherwise Ann, his wife, &c., commonly
called or known by the names of "Fawes," &c. Four
years previously, one James Macfidam, alias Macfarlane,
belonging to a gang of Faws, who had, for a long time,
infested the neighbourhood, was hanged at Durham for
stripping a boy of all his clothes except his breeches and
shoes, on Whickbam Common. Seventeen of the gang,
including two named Fall, were transported to South
Carolina for seven years, at the Northumberland Quarter
Sessions in the spring of 1752. These felons had infested
the county for years, and were incessantly shop-breaking
and plundering. Fourteen were advertised as having re-
turned from the plantations within two years, and were
again lurking about the district. One of them — Richard
Clark — was afterwards hanged at York. Seven more of
the gang, who had long been a terror to Rothbury and its
neighbourhood, were apprehended in July, 1752, and
lodged in Morpeth gaol. In the burial register of Jarrow
Church, under date Jan. 19, 1756, occurs this entry:—
"Francis Heron, King of the Faws."
MEG HERRI LEES.
Those who wish to know about Jean Gordon, the proto-
type of that singular character, Meg Merrilees, will find
May 1
1891. r
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
207
copious information in the Monthly Chronicle, 1889, p.
202.
THE BLYTHE ROMANCE.
In the year 1890 a celebrated law suit, known as the
Ely the Will Case, was tried at San Francisco, U.S.
Many of the persons who claimed an interest in the estate
of the testator, one Thomas Henry Blythe, a millionaire,
hailed from the Borders, being the descendants of a queen
of the gipsies who resided at Yetholm. Owing, however,
to circumstances which are detailed below, all of them
failed to participate in the great fortune of the
deceased : —
The testator, Thomas Henry Blythe, went to California
in the pioneer days of 1849. It is presumed that his
original object was to seek his fortune in the gold fields.
He, however, followed his own trade, that of a hawker
and pedlar, and made a little money, some of which he
lent on the security of freehold estate in San Francisco,
which estate afterwards came into his possession, the
owner thereof being unable to repay the loan. This was
the commencement of Blythe's fortune. At first he was
somewhat embarrassed with the acquisition of property,
regarding it as a somewhat unsafe investment of his
capital. But San Francisco began to expand, and
eventually Blythe had no cause to regret his enterprise.
He increased his possessions so much that it was said
at the time of his death that the greater part of San
Francisco was built upon his land. He also owned
an estate in Mexico, the total amount of his fortune
exceeding a million sterling.
Blythe, who was unmarried, died, it was supposed,
without making a will, and his relatives put in claims to
his estate; but a will in favour of an illegitimate daughter
turned up somewhat curiously, and this girl brought suit
against all the other claimants for Blythe's money.
The claimants were numerous. The Blythes origi-
nally belonged to Fife in Scotland. One Charles Blythe,
the husband of Elizabeth Winter, had a son named
David, who married Elizabeth Clarke. Their son,
Charles Blythe, was a pedlar, and in the course of his
peregrinations he met a woman named Esther Faa, who
became his wife. Esther was queen of the tribe of gipsies
that were settled at Yetholm. (See p. 164. ) The couple lived
happily together, and had many children. Their eldest
son was called Charles, being the third of that name. In
the course of time he married, and had a son named
Adam, who lived at Glasgow, and followed the trade of a
weaver in the winter, but during summer led a wandering
life. Adam married one Betty Savage in an Episcopal
church at Glasgow, and his son was Thomas Henry
Blythe, the San Francisco millionaire.
After Blythe had "made his pile," he appears to have
determined to visit the scenes of his youth. About the
time of the American Civil War, we find him touring in
Europe. In 1873, whilst at Birmingham, he met David
Blythe, a member of the Yetholm tribe, and, in a casual
conversation, he asked after Adam Blythe. David
replied that that person was a marriage connexion.
"Then," said the millionaire, "let me tell you that you
and I are relatives." In the same year he visited the
queen of the gipsies, Esther Faa, at Yetholm.
Without discussing any points of the millionaire's
morality, it may be explained how he met the mother of
the daughter previously mentioned. Blythe was walking
along Westbourne Grove, London, in 1873, when his
eye alighted upon a pretty young woman. Completely
fascinated, he made it his business to become acquainted
with her. Her name was Julia Perry, and she was about
twenty years of age. What were the conditions of this
irregular match we know not, but it is asserted that Julia
Perry gave birth to a daughter, who was called Fl»ra, or
Florence. Blythe never saw his child, but he gave the
mother his name and address, and maintained correspon-
dence with the family until his death, which took place
on April 4, 1883, at 27, Geary Street, San Francisco.
Blythe'a will would never have been heard of had it
not been that one of the millionaire's mistresses (for he
appeared to have had several), a certain Miss Dickerson,
who claimed to be his wife by contract, but who was
non-suited by the Supreme Court, declared that a will by
Blythe, in favour of Florence, had been left in her apart-
ments. Of course, after the decision of the judge, further
concealment was useless on Miss Dickerson's part, and
she atoned somewhat for her remissnt-ss by sending the
original will to Florence's legal advisers. This young
lady, then of some sixteen summers, claimed to be heiress
to Blythe's money, and, after a trial extending over
twelve months, the court decided in her favour.
GIPSY COOKERY.
The gipsies made use of neither pot, pan, spit, nor oven
in cooking fowls, which formed great part of their fare.
They twisted a strong rope of straw, which they wound
very tightly round the bird, just as it was killed, with the
feathers on, and its entrails untouched. Sometimes they
plastered it over with wrought clay, which served much
the same purpose. It was then covered with hot wood or
peat ashes, and a slow fire was kept up around and about
it till it was sufficiently done. When taken out it was
stripped of its hull and shell, which, if of baked clay, was
broken by a blow with a hammer, and to which the
feathers and down adhered of themselves. It was thus
found to present a fine clean appearance, and was, when
the entrails had been taken out, ready to be served up on
a wood platter as a dainty dish. Butcher meat is
cooked in much the same fashion, but rags are used as a
wrapper instead of straw, and the clay outside prevents
the juice or gravy from running out.
MARRIAGES AND DIVORCES.
The gipsies preferred early marriages, few of them
remaining single after they were twenty years old. The
nuptial ceremony was a singular one, which we cannot
take it upon us to describe here, either as we find it in
books or as we have heard it from eye-witnesses. Such as
it was, it was held inviolable. Nothing put a gipsy into
such a rage as to impute incontinency to his wife. One
almost equally extraordinary ceremony was that of
divorce. Simson says an essential part of it was the
sacrifice of a horse, over whose dead carcase the hapless
pair separated, and that tor ever. Divorced women could
not marry again ; divorced men might and did.
THK GIPSY CANT.
The gipsies all over Europe, continental or insular,
have, it is well known, a language of their own, though
they also understand and speak that of the country and
district in which they live. The basis of the gipsy
tongue is Hindustani, half of the words being obviously
of Indian origin. Several Persian words also occur in it,
and a few German and Italian. Others are Sclavonian,
others again Turkish, gathered up and corrupted in the
course of the migrations of the tribes. Several words can
be traced to Sanscrit roots that have never been admitted
into the Hindustani. There are, in the British dialect, a
few Gaelic terms, also Welsh. And not the least charac-
teristic part of that dialect consists of cant words, such as
blinker for window, muffler for cat, &c. Several gipsy
208
'MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
words have been admitted into the dialect spoken by
the Lowlanders of North Britain. Thus randie, a word
signifying a bold, scolding woman, is derived from the
Gipsy raunic, the chief of a tribe of viragoes. It is the
Hindustani ranee, gentlewoman, lady, princess, queen,
cognate with the French reine, the Latin regina, and the
Gaelic righinn, meaning the same thing. Close to Smail-
holm, in Roxburghshire, there is a road called the Randie
Road, from its having been the way to a common on which
the gipsies used to camp. The Scotch sorn, to live at free
quarters by force, to be a masterful beggar, to rob coolly
and systematically, is the gipsy choar, the Hindustani
rhorna, to steal. The gipsy word for the Evil One, the
Devil, Buffie, is in Lowland Scotch ffauf, the black man
who carries off naughty children. It is the Sanscrit
Eaphas, the Destroyer, from the root raph, riph, snatch,
seize, destroy. Many other instances might be given.
PRESENT CONDITION OF THE GIPSIES.
The Rev. Adam Davidson, parish minister of Yetholm,
wrote as follows in 1876: — "I have always pleasure in
saying to my correspondents that the gipsies are greatly
improved in condition and habits within the last fifteen
or twenty years. I know them now for fourteen years,
and can see a great change for the better. Two causes
may be assigned for this : The first distinctly is, having
them educated. For a generation or two little progress
could be seen among them. The old required to die off,
and a new and an educated generation had to arise before
the good could be actually proved. Perhaps in my time
the change has made itself more felt ; but the cause was
at work long before. Instead of the usual careless, thought
less life of hawkers — wandering from
place to place — they all now stay at
home and are engaged in farm labour,
except the heads of only three families.
These are old people, used through life
to the wanderers' habits, and continue
still as they did in youth. The remark-
able sight is, however, that not one of
the younger members of their families
will join them. These old people travel
alone, their children working where
they can. Without exception, so far
as I know, all the young can read and
write, and take much pride in line
clothes and cleanliness. Last year two
brothers married daughters of farm
labourers in the district. The gipsy
husbands both signed the marriage
schedule— both their wives signed with
a mark. It is a common thing now-a-
days for them to intermarry with those
not of their own race. The second
cause of their reform was the county
magistrates making it illegal to camp
by road sides and light fires at night.
The effect of this was to drive them to lodging houses,
where they had to pay for quarters, and this they grudged
much. After striving against the order for a time, they
found that all they could gain would not keep them, when
they paid lodgings. So by degrees they took narrower cir-
cuits, and came to their own homes at night. But this
again crowded the district, and in despair the young and
strong took to harder work, and gave up the travelling to-
the elder people. Both these causes wrought for good —
the one helping the other."
IT roond the fire o' winter neets an" think,
The while ye toast yor shins afore the lowe,
Whe gov yor harth that warm an' cosy blink ?
Whe's tired byens bee myed yor fireside
glow?
Ne cumfort ritched yor Brussel-cuvor'd floor,
But hard, hard wark has myed /us joy the syeni.
An' Grief may weep within yor knocker'd door,
While laughter tills the pitman's humble hyem.
He nivvor bubbles for a shillin' lost,
Tho' hard he toils an eight-boors' shift a day ;
He laughs an' tells ye what his daftness cost
The neet he stopped an' skyull'd away the pay.
An' i' the tap-room at the Jinglin' Gate,
He tells his marra, ower'his pint o' yell,
Hoo things gat smashed up iv an aaful state
The day they shifted up te Pelton Fell.
* The illustrations Rre by Ralph Hedley.
-
BK)
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
209
He's warked at Seggersen an" Windy Nyuk,
At Nicky-Nack an' Dudley an' the Syke ;
He's warked hard kyevils wi' the warst o' luck,
An' been oot yen an' twenty weeks on strike.
He's warked as debbity an' been nigh lost, —
Haaf harried under sum greet faall o' styen.
But, man, he nivvor stops te coont the cost, —
He's hed his heed brok an" his collor-byen.
An' aall the bairns bed meezels iv a week,
An' Nanny at the time wiz put te bed,
An' he wiz oot o' wark an' dorsent squeak,
An', hhmy, bliss us ! what a time he bed.
Hoo weel he minds the freaks ov younger days,
Hoo mony a match wiz settled efter wark,
An' boo he wun the crack men's loodest praise
The day he bool'd ower Geordy Waakor's mark.
For varry few ov aall the colliery cheps
Cud fling a bool as clivvor as he flung'd,
An' nyen cud dance wi' him the fancy steps,
An' nyen cud swing a buckstick as he swung'd.
An' quoits, — man, Bobby Tait might haad his gob,
Caz he cud lick aad Bobby clean away ;
Man, hoo he stuck the gators roond the hob,
An' jowked the flattest riugers off the clay !
He hed a greyhoond yence cud best the North ;
Man, hoo he doated on the bonny beast !
A smarter greyhoond nivvor trod the orth,
But she wiz stown away yen Howteu Feast.
His banty, like a tarrier, elwis fit, —
The beggor waddent leave the waak for yen ;
His hens (black-Spanish) wor the best te sit,
Thor eggs wad jawp an' var-ny crack a styen.
He elwis kept his pigeons when a lad ; —
Wad flite the colliery for a croon or twe,
An' lots he oopt ; — what clivvor sprees he had,
To see the skemmies tiv his duckit flee !
An* noo he's just as whick as onny lop,
Altho" he's gettin' on for sixty-fower,
An' ov a. pay-neet, when he gets a drop,
Man, he cud tell ye things wad myek ye glower.
Sit roond yor fire this winter neet an' think.
The while ye toast yor shins afore the lowe,
'Twas Geordy gov yor harth that cozy blink,
His weary byens hez myed yor fireside glow.
JOHN ROWELL WALLEB.
14
NDER this nom de plume George Searle
Phillips was well known in the North of
England some forty years ago. Mr. Phillips
then represented the Yorkshire Union of
Mechanics' Institutes. It was about that period that he
resided for a short time in Newcastle. People who yet
remember him speak of Mr Phillips as a highly accom-
plished and genial man. Not only was he an admirable
lecturer, but he could sing so good a song and tell so good
a story in private life that his company was much in
demand. Poor Phillips, after residing for some time in
America, showed symptoms of insanity, was confined for
several years in a lunatic asylum, and eventually died on
the 7th of February, 1889. A brief account of his career
was printed in the Monthly Chronicle for the following
March, page 140. Mr. Joseph Hall, of Leeds, however,
has just contributed to the Yorkshire County Magazine a
more extended biography. It is from this article, with a
few corrections of our own, that we take the main portion
of the present narrative.
George Searle Phillips was born at Peter-
borough, Northamptonshire, in January,
1816, and took the degree of B.A. at Trinity
College, Cambridge. Visiting America, he
wrote and reported for several New York
papers. When he returned to England, he
edited, in 1845, the Leeds Times, and the
succeeding year received the appointment
of Secretary to the Mechanics' Institution,
Huddersfield. During the years 1846-9, he,
along with Dr. Lees, edited the Truth-
Seeker. In 1853 he was appointed to the
position of lecturer to the Yorkshire Union
of Mechanics' Institutes and Literary Insti-
tutes. Mr. Phillips was on terms of close
intimacy at this time with Ebenezer Elliott,
"The Corn Law Rhymer," John Bright,
Richard Cobden, Edward Baines, the Rev.
Cooper Abbes of Cleadon, and most of the
naturalists and literati of the North of
England.
Among his published works may be
mentioned " The Life, Character, and
Genius of Ebenezer Elliott," 1850; "Coun-
try Sketch Book of Pastoral Scenes," 1851 ;
210
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
"Memoirs of William Wordsworth," "Life at Home and
Abroad," "Sherwood Forest," and "The Gipsies of the
Dane's Dyke." He was author, also, of "Walks Round
Huddersfield," "Guide to Peterborough," and "The
History of Pel Verjuice, the Wanderer."
Besides being a contributor to the Newcastle Chronicle
and the Northern Tribune during the time he resided in
Newcastle in 1854- and 1855, he delivered a series of lec-
tures in connection with the Northern Union of
Mechanics' Institutes. One of his peculiarities at that
time was to take with him on the lecturing platform a big
black dog to which he had given the grotesque name of
"Satan."
Domestic difficulties threw a gloom over the genial but
moody author's pathway. His unfortunate partner was
placed in the lunatic asylum at Wakefield, where, wrongly
or rightly, she was confined for several years, until she
was finally discharged — a privilege she rendered disagree-
ably memorable, so far as her husband was concerned, by
publishing a remarkable book, in which her experiences
in the madhouse were graphically described.
About 1860 he returned to America, and shortly after-
wards, when Mr. Charles A. Dana connected himself with
the Chicago Tribune, Mr. Phillips became his literary
editor and book reviewer. When Mr. Dana severed his
connection with the Chicago newspaper, Phillips accom-
panied him to New York, and for some little time occupied
the position of literary editor. of the New York Sun.
Afterwards his work was intermittent and promiscuous,
such as writing for papers and magazines. He likewise
wrote books and stories for Pinkerton, the detective. Mr.
Phillips's last unfortunate literary association was with
Woodhull and Claflin's Revolution — Mrs. Victoria Wood-
hull of " free love " fame — and the last poetical pro-
duction of his once facile pen was a poetic rhapsody, a
column in length, entitled "Love's Philosophy." This
wild, irregular lay bore sad testimony to the fact that the
once brilliant powers of the man had vanished.
The following is extracted from an account of a visit to
Morristown Asylum, in New Jersey, by a gentleman
connected with the New York Telegram : —
In the corridor the object of the visit was seen awaiting
the visitor, who, cordially grasping the coldish, purple
hand, and glancing keenly at the bright, dark brown
eyes, the scorched or weather-beaten face, and the
wretched ill-fitting garb, asked —
" How is January Searle ?"
"First rate; I'm all right," he answers, with too
willing alacrity and a vacant smile.
Respecting events immediately preceding his judicial
confinement he professed to have a "poor recollection."
It was in vain that incidents like the death of Dickens,
in June, 1870, were recalled.
His book on Ebenezer Elliott was referred to, and the
names of several of his former friends in Northumberland
and Durham were introduced. On these topics his
memory was almost perfect. He spoke of the scenery
around Marsden Rock and of the Allan family with
enthusiasm, particularly recalling Lizzie's exploits with
the rifle, and the hours he used to spend with her shoot-
ing at pennies and glass bottles.
When placed in the asylum, he was suffering from
partial dementia, which the medical board rightly de-
clared to be incurable. At first the unfortunate patient
would contribute by song and address to the regular
entertainments held weekly in the chapel ; for he pos-
sessed a magnificent baritone voice, which was heard to
best advantage in some of the standard English songs
fashionable half a century ago. Gradually, however,
he grew more surly and unsociable ; his moods were no
longer songful ; and latterly his mind became almost
completely overclouded. The end came, as we have said,
in February, 1889.
For the portrait which accompanies this articie, copied
from a photograph in the possession of Dr. F. R. Lees,
we are indebted to the kindness of Mr. J. Horsfall
Turner, editor of the Yorkshire County Magazine.
Utraresttal* 3&all dftuot.
JJNARESDALE Hall, about four and a half
miles south-west from Haltwhistle, anciently
the seat and manor of the Pratts, has the repu-
tation of being haunted. The story runs that, at some inde-
finitely remote era, the laird of Knaresdale, a more than
middle-aged man, not over "well faur'd," that is to say,
not an Adonis, but of a very covetous disposition and
somewhat churlish temper, married, against her in-
clination, but with the consent of her parents, a
lady of great wealth and beauty, several years his junior.
The natural consequence followed —
Between husband and wife,
A cut and dog life.
Now it fell out, after a time, that things seemed to go
on more smoothly, the young wife giving her old
lord and master less visible cause for dissatisfaction than
M»y \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
211
it had been her wont to do even during the honeymoon,
'when at almost every meal she had taken occasion to
show her marked dislike to him. The laird imagined pro-
bably that Bhe had exhausted her stock of petulance. But
the truth was that the marked change was owing to no alter-
tion in his spouse's feelings towards himself, but to the
growth of an attachment between her and the laird's
nephew, a strapping young fellow, justoutof his teens, who,
together with a sister, a year or two younger, were under
their uncle's guardianship, and formed part of the family
.at the hall. The illicit intercourse they carried on tended
to reconcile the lady to her situation. But one day
when the fond pair were in secret dalliance, they were
surprised by the laird's niece, who, horror-struck at what
she saw, ran away and hid herself in her own room,
where she gave vent to a flood of bitter tears. Terrified
at the idea of getting her brother turned out of doors,
however, and possibly afraid of even a worse catastrophe,
•she resolved that she would say nothing whatever about
the matter to her uncle or anyone else, but take the first
opportunity of remonstrating with her infatuated brother.
But the guilty pair could have no assurance that the
young lady would act such a prudent part ; and so, fearful
of exposure, they determined to put her out of the way.
How they accomplished this, William Pattison, of Tow
Law, Wolsingbam, related in Richardson's "Local
Historian's Table Book," in November, 1845 :—
It was a night fitting for the deed. Amid the thick
and moonless gloom the storm raged wildly on the dis-
tant fells, and, careering over the thick woods, came at last
to the old hall. Gathering strength and fed by mighty
speats of rain, it fell on the aged walls and sturdy roof,
and the house was filled with hideous noises. At the
height of the storm the laird was aroused by his wife,
who directed his attention to the fearful din caused by
an open door in the rear of the house, and desired him
to despatch his niece to attempt to close it. The p»or
girl, wrapped in a cloak, left her apartment to perform the
mission. Shivering with cold and pelted with the pitiless
rain, she traversed the dreary passage, and was about to
close the door, when her brother, who was on the watch
by an old pond whose volume had been materially in-
creased by the rain, suddenly seized and plunged her into
its murky depths. The old man, anxious for the safety of
his niece, and alarmed at the length of her stay, left his bed
in search of her ; but she was nowhere to be seen. On re-
turning, his wife persuaded him that she must have en-
tered the house during his absence, and retired unseen ;
and the laird, unsuspicious of foul play, was obliged to
rest satisfied. So, returning again to rest, he strove to
recruit himself in sleep. Before long be was again awoke
by the howling of one of his dogs, and, starting up in
agony, he beheld his niece standing by the kitchen fire,
wringing the water from her long hair. Her uncle spoke,
but at the sound of his voice her apparition vanished.
"If all tales be true, "as conscientious old story-telling
crones used to say, " this one is no lie." How much of
truth there really is in it we cannot take it upon us to de-
termine. Suffice it to say that it is a local tradition of
immemorial age. What became of the guilty brothei,
the murderer of his sister, nobody seems to have heard.
As for the lady who had been the prime agent, she fell
deadly sick of a brain fever, became delirious, and in her
incoherent ravings, babbled about her unfortunate niece in
such a way as to direct suspicion to the cause of the girl's
disappearance. The pond was dragged and the body
found ; but nobody, of course, could tell how the calamity
had occurred. And so the coroner's jury, if such an insti-
tution then existed in South Tynedale, must have re-
turned an open verdict — "Found drowned." The laird's
faithless spouse died raving mad. The murdered niece's
ghost, it is said, was afterwards seen to glide from the
back door of the hall to the fatal pond on the anniversary
night of the catastrophe. More than this, if we may believe
what used to be told, some unseen agency always used
to burst that door wide open, however strongly it might
have been barred, on the annual return of the eventful
night. It was not given, indeed, to everybody about the
place to hear it clashing upon its rusty hinges, though
those who did generally found before long, by sad ex-
perience, that the unhallowed sound boded them no good.
But the ghost has now for many years been effectually
laid, while the door that once behaved so abominably has
either been blocked up or has learned better manners.
gttttftar at "gullr
drag."
JlLTHOUGH "Robin Gray" has long been
a household word, little is known of
the writer of that touching lyric, and
some account of Lady Anne Lindsay
and her family (not only in connection with the song,
but as representatives of a poetic time, when Laird
and Lady came into more direct and kindly contact
with the humble cotters around them than their suc-
cessors do now in this more cultured and less sympa-
thetic age) may prove of interest to North-Country
folk on either side of the Border. James, fifth Karl
of Balcarres, found himself, at sixty years of age, chief
of his clan, last of his race, inheritor of an ancient
title, a barren estate, and an old library of books.
Born during the waning years of the stormy
seventeenth century, he commenced lifa as a naval
officer in the service of the established Govern-
ment; his family, howsver, were all devoted ad-
herents of the ill-fated Stuarts ; so wearying of the
sea, and unsettled by political intelligence from home,
he, a young man of twenty-five, left the navy, re-
turned to Scotland, and actively engaged with his
father, as a leader in the Rebellion of 1715. After
the collapse of that rising he entered the army,
went through several campaigns and fought brilliantly
and bravely at Dettingen and Fontenoy. His dis-
tinguished services in those battles were recognised
by the commandsr-in-chief, and his name was sent
in to George II. as that of a valiant officer deserving
a higher rank. The King, unfortunately, remem,
212
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I M
i 18!
ay
1891.
bered against him that he had drawn his sword in the
Stuart cause, and further promotion was refused.
Disappointed and mortified at finding advancement
impossible, even after a lapse of thirty years, to a
rebel of "The Fifteen," he quitted his thankless ser-
vitude and returned to his home at Balcarres, his
books, his farming, and his country neighbours,
no very exciting society or occupation for the ac-
complished soldier and travelled man of the world.
He did not remain long in this retirement; his
broken health and thwarted ambition soon rendered
his lonely hearth unbearable; he felt that man was
not made to live alons, and emerging from his solitude
went to drink the waters of Moflat, a health resort
about fifty miles distant. Here the deaf and battered
old veteran fell headlong in love with Miss Dalrymple,
and, with all the ardour and enthusiasm of twenty
asked the young and beautiful girl to become his wife.
Miss Dalrymple refused him, respectfully, .buti
frankly and finally. Lord Balcarres fell sick, sick
unto death, and making, as he supposed, a last dis-
position of his property, left the obdurate fair one the
half of his possessions. On hearing this the lady, in
an outburst of gratitude, promised to be Ms wife
should he recover. This he did speedily ; the
marriage took place, and the apparently ill-assorted
union turned out a most happy one. The earl was a
man of distinguished manners and address, kind-
hearted, honourable and courtly, while the bride had
not only the charm of youth, but "an approved
merit, with all the ornaments of beauty." Under
her control her husband's grim old castle again
became the cheerful residence of a domestic circle,
and it was there in December, 1750, that Lady Anne
Lindsay first saw the light. Har birth, though a joy
to her parents, was a source of disappointment to
many, as the Jacobites earnestly looked for the ful-
filment of an ancient prophecy which foretold that
the first child of the last descendant of the house of
Balcarres was to restore the family of Stuart to its
royal inheritance. The partisans of the Pretender
were, therefore, sadly disconcerted when they found
that instead of the wished-for boy the countess had
presented her lord with a daughter. A numerous
family followed in succeeding years, to the great de-
light of Earl James, who was excessively proud of
his brave band of eight boys and three girls, and
would even stop abusing Queen Elizabeth to say
to his guests "Look at those fine fellows and charming
princesses! The Mahomedans reckoned planting of
trees and of cluldren the two highest claims to Para-
dise : if so, have not I a right to expect a place there for
my good works at seventy-seven?"
Lady Balcarres was a strict disciplinarian, and
ruled her house and family with a firm but just
hand. Sometimes, when the breaking of cups or the
tearing of clothes was too vigorously chastised, the-
earl would exclaim, "Odsflsh, madam! you will break
the spirits of my young troops." It was not the cus-
tom of the century (1700) to treat children wih gentle-
ness, but though the countess sharply chastised her
little ones with her own white hand if their weekly
progress in learning was not satisfactory, yet she did
not neglect her other duties ; every reasonable atten-
tion was paid to their health, and they all learnt
from their mother's conversation and practice thosa
general rules of truth, equity, and honour by which,
their future lives were governed. Of all the children
Lady Anne was the most difficult to punish. The
faults she committed were not atrocious enough to
deserve a whipping, and, if ordered to have bread and
water for dinner, she took It so contentedly that it
seemed no punishment. Nay! she was even heard
one day to beg the servant to give her a piece of oaten
cake for a change. On one pccasion the children^
complaining of hard laws and little play, and judging
that their daily tasks were harder than those imposed
on the children of Israel by the Egyptians, determined
to leave home and seek some other place where they
would be more kindly treated. Accordingly, they
set out on their journey, but their progress was slow,
as they had to carry a little brother who was too
young to walk. Before they had gone far their flight
was discovered by Robin Gray, the old shepherd, who at
once gave information that "all the young gentlemen
and all the young ladies and all the dogs are run
away." A messenger was despatched, the mis-
creants brought back, and carried before their
mother, who declared that whipping was too good for
them, and administered to each a dose of rhubarb to
tsach them to stay at home in future!
In spite of lessons and many whippings, "all for
their good, " the children led a merry life ; out of
school hours they were absolutely free from control
of tutor or governess, and galloped down in squadrons
to the farmyard to visit the fat oxen, feed the pigeons,
play on the swing, or in fine weather wade in the burn.
Curious figures Lady Anne and her sister must have
presented half way up the legs in water, attired in
yellow and silver frocks, made out of an old wedding
gown of their grandmother's, the material, which had
been enough for one, eked out with blue gauze.
Certainly Pharaoh's daughter, when she pulled Moses
out of the bulrushes, could not have appeared more
gorgeous than the two little girls when they jumped
into the i stream with their silver trains tucked up be-
hind them. The childhood of Lady Anne was passed
amid romantic surroundings, for
"Fair Balcarres' sunward sloping farms"
commanded an extensive prospect of lake, sea and
beach, the great Bass Rock rising immediately
May \
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NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
213
opposite the house, lending a distinctive and interest
ing feature to the view. It was a sort of creed in the
family that it was impossible for any one who lived
in this beautiful spot to wish to be anywhere else,
and Anne In after years always looked back with
pleasure to her joj'ous life in the old seagirt mansion,
with its neglected gardens, ruined fountains, and
broken-nosed statues — a noble place, but too large for
the impoverished state of the earl's finances.
As the youthful party grew up, frequent visits
were paid to Edinburgh, and Anne passed much of her
time at the house of her grandmother, Lady
Dalrymple, where she was early introduced into1
society, and became acquainted with Hume, Johnson,
Boswell, Monboddo, and other strangers of distinction.
This careless, peaceful period passed only too rapidly.
Lord Balcarres died when his daughter Anne was
barely seventeen. For a considerable period, she
had been his almost constant companion, and un-
consciously imbibed much of his chivalrous character
and picturesque manner of thought. After hia
death the feeling that much depended on her as the
eldest of so large a family roused her abilities and
called out every latent talent within her; she had
not learnt much from her governess, a fantastic,
romantic little woman, whom the Countess had dis-
covered weeping and painting butterflies in the garret
of a house where she lodged in Edinburgh. Amused
with the variety of uncultivated talents she discovered
in this curious girl, who claimed to be descended
from an old Highland chief, she carried her back
to Balcarres, placing her at first in a subordinate
position. Finding on further acquaintance that her
protege, in spite of all her vapours and vauntings,
was worthy of trust, she committed to her charge
the persons, morals, manners, and education of her
daughters. Education was not then the order of (flie
•lay : few women knew any language but their own,
a little arithmetic and a knowledge of cookery being
deemed sufficient. But Lady Anne and her sister
were not to be so easily satisfied. A stream of genius
ran sparkling through their characters ; they possessed
application, read and studied together, and soon
developed into clever, graceful, witty women, full of
life and animation.
Lady Margaret married early, and it was during
the depression caused by the loss of her favourite
sister that Anne, then in her twenty-first year, wrote
the perfect and unapproachable ballad which has
conferred on her name such a pleasant immortality.
Moved to the heart by the strange sense of change
which comes into a family when the home circle is
broken by the first marriage, and wanting words for
an old Scotch air, which had been familiar to her
since infancy, she shut herself up in her own little
closet, with her pen in her hand and a few envelopes '
of old letters to scribble on, and unburdened her
heart while wedding to the plaintive notes of the
old melody a womanly and touching picture of
virtuous distress. Calling to her little sister, who was
the only person near her, "I have been writing a
ballad, my dear ; I am oppressing my heroine with
many misfortunes. I have already sent her Jamie
to sea, broken her father's arm, and made her mother
fall sick, and have given her Auld Robin Gray for a
sweetheart ; but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow
in four lines, poor thing! Help me to one, I pray."
"Steal the cow, sister Anne," said the little Elizabeth.
The cow was immediately lifted and the song com-
pleted. So great was the dread Lady Anne then had
of being suspected of writing anything, that she
never acknowledged the authorship, and no one out
of her own family would ever have thought of it
being her composition had not Lady Jane Scott said
one evening at Dalkeith, "You sing that song in a way
that makes me sure it is your own writing. I will betray
you unless you give me a copy." After this it got
out into the world, was sung everywhere, had n
romance composed from it, was the subject of a play,
an opera and a pantomime, and engaged the attention
of the Antiquarian Society. Thus for fifty years, while
all admired the song, few or none could agree as to
its ancient or modern origin, and it became almost
a party question as to whether it was an old ballad,
composed probably by David Rizzio, and a great
curiosity, or a mere pastoral of the day and no curiosity
at all. It was not till 1823 that Lady Anne, in a.
letter to Sir Walter Scott, who had already quoted
one of the verses in the "Pirate," gave a full account
of the "origin, birth, life, death and confession, will
and testament, of Auld Robin Gray," with an
assurance that the author of "Waverley" was the
first person, except her immediate relatives, • to
whom she had acknowledged her authorship. Such
was the history of the first part of this ever popular
song, as told by the author two years before her
death. As to the second part it was composed many
years after the first to please her dear old mother,
.who often said. "Anne! I wish you would tell me
how that unlucky business of Jeanie and Jamie ended. "
The continuation was written, but, like all continua-
tions, was inferior. It could not be otherwise, as
a severe critic (Ritson) says "the elegant and accom-
plished authoress has in this beautiful production, to
all the tenderness and simplicity for which Scottish
song has been so much celebrated, united a delicacy
of expression which it never before attained. We
may, therefore, conclude that this species of corn-
position, which has been carried to the utmost perfec-
tion, must either cease or degenerate."
After the death of her sister's first husband,
Lady Anne took up her abode with her in London.
214
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
where, owing to the popularity of the hostesses, their
house became the meeting place of many eminent
characters, both literary and political. Amongst
other distinguished and familiar guests may be men-
tioned Burke, Sheridan, Wlndham, Dundas, and the
Prince of Wales. The attachment of the Prince only
ended with his life. Years after, when George IV.,
remembering this old friendship, he sent for Lady
Anne to come and see him as he was very ill.
"Sister Anne" (the appellation he usually gave her),
he wrote, "I wished to see you, to tell you I lore
you. I wish you to accept this gold chain for my sake, I
may perhaps never see you again." Many anecdotes
are related of her social successes. She possessed
a charm of manner and a power of pleasing rarely if
ever equalled, combined with a facility for drawing
forth the talents, feelings, and accomplishments of
those with whom she associated. She could make
the dullest speak, the shyest feel happy, and that
without any apparent effort. To add to her other
attractions, her store of anecdotes was as endless as
amusing.
Lady Anne had many offers from men in high
positions, but remained single till 1793, when she
married Mr. Barnard, a wealthy and accomplished
gentleman, several years younger than herself. On
his appointment as Colonial Secretary she accom-
panied him to the Cape of Good Hope, where she
remained till after the Peace of Amiens, when
the Cape was given back to the Dutch. During
her residence abroad she kept a journal, and de->
scribed in a graphic and lively manner all she saw.
This journal with the drawings and sketches of the
scenes described is still preserved among the family
manuscripts. Mr. Barnard did not long survive his
return to England, and after her widowhood Lady
Anne resided almost continually in London, making
occasional visits to Scotland and solacing her de-
clining years with gathering together and compiling
memoirs and anecdotes of her forefathers. This was
a sacred duty in her eyes, as her father had expressed
a wish that one of his children should continue the
family history which he had commenced. It was one
of his maxims "that the person who neglects to leave-
some trace of his mind behind him, according to hi»
capacity, fails not only in his duty to society but in
gratitude to the author of his being, and may be said
to have lived in vain." Lady Anne retained to the
last the ready wit and proverbial cheerfulness of the
"light Lindsays." Living peacefully, usefully,
thankfully, and rationally, she passed the last hours,
of her life surrounded by loving friends and relatives,
leaving behind a more enduring monument than,
sculptured marble in "Auld Robin Gray."
M. S. HARDCASTLE.
jjORBRIDGE, which is now a quiet country
village, ranked at one time as a town of
considerable importance. It is a place of
remote antiquity. In the times of the all-
conquering Romans, Corstopitum (for that was the name
of the place in those days) was one the largest stations m
the North of England. The camp was situated about half
May!
189L /
NORTH-CO <UA 'TRY LORE AND LEGEND.
215
a mile west of the modern town, and covered an area of
about twenty-two acres. Here, from time to time, many
valuable evidences of Roman occupation have been dis-
covered. The walls and other buildings of the station
afforded a ready quarry to the founders of the mediaeval
town, and this fact accounts for the almost total disap-
pearance of the camp itself. It also accounts for the
discovery, when old buildings in the village have been
removed, of several Roman altars and other memorials
of the former presence of that people.
The site of the Roman station adjoins one of the great
Roman military roads — the famous Watling Street. This
road crossed the Tyne by a bridge of several arches. Till
a little over fifty years ago, very considerable remains of
the piers and abutments of the bridge remained ; and
even now, when the water in the river is low, the founda-
tions of the piers can be distinctly seen. The masonry is
said to be of the most massive character, the facing stones
being very large, and carefully fitted and clamped to-
gether. From the fact that the Watling Street, as it
approaches the Tyne from the south, bends considerably
to the westward, evidently for the purpose of coming up
to the walls of the Roman station, it has been held that
the site of that camp had been previously occupied by a
British settlement or stronghold.
I have already mentioned that many memorials of
Roman occupation have been found at Oorbridge.
Amongst these are several altars, two of which have
inscriptions in Greek, one dedicated to Astarte, and the
other to the Tyrian Hercules. Then, in the year 1735,
a very beautiful and valuable silver dish, weighing 148
ounces, and adorned with a group of mythological deities
and other devices which have not yet been satisfactorily
explained, was found here. This is the celebrated Cor-
bridge Lanx. It was discovered by the little daughter
of an artizan whilst playing on the river bank, and was
sold by her father to a Newcastle silversmith, but was
recovered by the then Duke of Somerset, as treasure trove
found within his manor of Oorbridge. It is now the pro-
perty of the Duke of Northumberland. Another Roman
216
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
May
1891.
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NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
217
silver vessel was found at Corbridge, but most un-
fortunately it has not been preserved. Its great point
of interest was that it bore what is usually known as
the Christian monogram— that is, the blended Greek
letters chi and rko— six times upon its rim. It thus
formed one of our few evidences of the introduction of
the Christian faith amongst the Roman colonists in
Britain.
In the middle ages, Corbridge was a place of consider-
able commercial impirtance. It was made a borough by
King John. It had its markets, its fairs, its common
seal, and even its mint, and it returned burgesses to
Parliament. We gain some idea of the departed im-
portance of Corbridge when we learn that, besides its
present church, it had at one time three others. One
of these was dedicated to St. Helen, and stood in a field
now known as Hall Walls, on the north side of the vil-
lage. Some portions of the walls existed within living
memory, and to it one of the streets, Sintlins Lane (that
is, St. Helen's Lane), owes its name. Another of the
destroyed churches was dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin,
and stood a little west of the Hill Bank farm-house. The
third of these churches was dedicated to the Holy
Trinity. It stood on the east side of the Roman station.
Some of the stones with which it was built, including
portions of the tracery of a window, are inserted into
modern walls, and may still be found ; and a garden
which adjoins its site still bears the name of Trinity.
To the existing church, dedicated to St. Andrew, only
a few sentences can here be devoted : first of all,
because space would fail me to deal worthily, even
in the briefest manner possible, with this interesting
and venerable edifice ; and, in the second place,
because a whole article ought to be given to the subject.
I may here, however, mention that parts of the present
building date back to pre-Conquest times. These ancient
218
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
• Mar
. 1891.
portions are the tower, and parts of the walls of the nave
over the arcades. As early as 786, a monastery existed at
Corbridge, wherein, in that year, as we are told by Symeon
of Durham, Aldulf (Bishop of Lincoln) was consecrated
by Eanbald (Archbishop of York) and Bishops Tilberht
(of Lindisfarne) and Hygbald (of Hexham). It is by no
means improbable that the monastery which is mentioned
by Symeon was connected in some way with the church of
which, as we have seen, portions of the highest interest
have come down to our own day. One part at least,
however, even of the earliest church, must rank* as a
reconstruction. This is the tower-arch, which, there can
be no question, is a Roman arch, carried away from the
neighbouring station by the Saxon builders, and re-
erected stone for stone. In Norman times a south aisle
and a new chancel were added to the then already ancient
church. At various times in the thirte«nth century the
church was almost entirely rebuilt, so that now it presents
the general appearance of an edifice of that period.
One of our illustrations is a view of the pele which
stands on the south side of the churchyard. It is a very
interesting example of the smaller fortified Northumbrian
residences of the Edwardian period, and is generally said
to have been the abode of the ancient priests of(
Corbridge, but I have never met with any evidence to
justify the statement. The pele is entered by a pointed
^aSci*iii /A1' v 'i WD.I -^p , \'\\Wf-///t
-•^S==^siiV '\\p' ^*u " Jelc lower* /J,"V}
May \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
219
doorway on the ground floor. The apartment which
occupies this floor is barrel vaulted. A stairway in the
thickness of the wall leads to the first floor. At the head
of this stairway is a recess and a sink. A second flight of
steps, at the foot of which is a garderube recess, leads
to the upper storey. The walls are surmounted by
a machicolated parapet and corbelled corner turrets.
The window slits or loops are few. One of these, on the
west side, throws light on a shelf, which has been
described as a "stone book-rest, where early vicars of
Corbridge must have meditated in the dim religious light
of the period. "
There is a second pele at the east end of the village.
Scarcely anything is known of its history. It is said to
have belonged to George Gibson, of Stonecroft, who for-
feited it for the part he took in the Rebellion of 1715.
The one apartment of the ground floor has again a barrel
vault, and in the thickness of the wall is a newel stair,
case. The walls are surmounted by a plain parapet.
Built into the wall of the front is a fragment of a Roman
memorial tablet, addressed to the Emperor Marcus
Aurelius Antoninus.
The Angel Inn is a substantial and picturesque build-
ing, as will be seen from the accompanying sketch, and is
of considerable age, though probably it is not so old as
the fine sun-dial over the door, which dial has perhaps
been taken from an older structure. A curiosity in the
jf. ^
figure. ,Willr
220
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{ im.
front exterior of the inn is the insertion of a carving of
the arms of Newcastle in the wall, these being accom-
panied by a couple of masonic symbols. How the arms of
Newcastle came to be put up in so conspicuous a position
in Corbridge it is hard to tell, unless the house were built
by a company of Newcastle masons, who left this sign to
tell of their handiwork. Then there is the Wheat Sheaf,
which, like the Angel, is a most respectable hostelry.
In the stable yard of the Wheat Sheaf there exist two
curious stones apparently of great age and exceeding
antiquarian value. The chief of these is a stone figure,
like that of the goddess Ceres, about three feet high or
under. To the right of the Wheat Sheaf is a picturesque
thatch-roofed seventeenth century house, of which the
accompanying illustration will give a very good idea,
bearing the two dates 1698 and 1670 — one over the
doorway, and the other over the gabled window above
the door.
The derivation of the names by which what we now
call Corbridge has at various periods of its history been
known is not one of the questions which have passed
beyond the limits of controversy. It is certain, however,
that the earliest of recorded names, Corstopitum, is
partly derived from the proximity of the little streamlet
which runs into the Tyne near the Human station— the
Cor — and it is equally clear that the present name is in
some measure due to the existence of a bridge. How
long the Roman bridge was maintained after the depar-
ture of the imperial legions, we do not know. A bridge
was built on the site of the present one in 1235, in which
year Simon de Dilston granted liberty to the burgesses of
Corbridge to erect the head of a bridge on his land at
Dilston. The present bridge, though datinir only from
the year 1674, is a picturesque structure, and gains some
measure of respect and dignity in our estimation by virtue
of the fact that it is the only bridge on the Tyne which
withstood the assaulting flood of 1771.
The village of Corbridge is one in which a few hours
may be spent with pleasure and advantage. It possesses
many objects of interest. Besides its ancient church, its
two venerable pele towers, and its brave old bridge, it has
many quaint, old-fashioned houses, some of which form
delightfully picturesque groups. And when from the
" town " itself we turn to the surrounding country, who
could fail to be charmed ? There the lover of nature finds
everything in which his heart rejoices. Waving corn-
fields, bright peaceful expanses of pasture land, rolling
woods, spread over a gently undulating landscape, dotted
here and there with farmsteads and red-roofed cottages,
gladden the eye in every direction. Round about Cor-
bridge there are grass-grown high-banked lanes, there are
secluded dells, there are clear streams which the burn
trout has not yet forsaken. There are great orchards, the
sight whereof almost re-awakens our school-boy instincts.
Them are old-fashioned, well-kept gardens from which
Flora, in her genuinely English attire, has not been
driven out to make room for an array of new-fashioned
exotics ; but above all there is the old, old Tyne, not here a
deep and mighty stream in which great ships may anchor, •
but a clear and usually a quiet and well-behaved river,
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
221
here rippling gently over shingly shallows, there eddying
across the deeper pools. Corbridge is a. place in which
to spend a bright and peaceful summer's day. Nay, it is
a place wherein to spend a bright and peaceful life.
JACOB BEB.
fllLLIAM ALLAN, of Sunderland, who unites
in so remarkable a degree the opposite facul-
ties of the mechanical genius and tho poet,
was born at Dundee on November 29th, 1837. The son
of an engineer, he adopted bis father's calling as his own
profession, and subsequent results have abundantly justi-
fied the wisdom of his early choice. Mr. Allan's career
has been laborious, eventful, and — in at least some of its
phases — exciting. In his youth he served as an engineer
in the Royal Navy, and afterwards passed through a
succession of adventurous experiences as chief engineer of
a blockade-runner during the American Civil War, which
culminated in his being
taken prisoner by the
Federal cruisers. Liber-
ated on parole, he returned
home, and in 1866 entered
the service of the North-
Eastern Marine Engineering
Company at Sunderland.
Two years later, he was en-
trusted with the manage-
ment of this undertaking,
which, under his control, be-
came an important and suc-
cessful enterprise. In 1887 Mr. Allan commenced busi-
ness on his own account at the Scotia Engine Works,
where he is now a considerable employer of labour, and it
is gratifying to add that he enjoys in an enviable degree
the confidence and esteem of the workers from whose
ranks he has made his way to the front. Mr. Allan's
poems are the product of his leisure hours. Although a
son of the land which is regarded as the " meet nurse for
a poetic child," he never gave any sign of the poetic
instinct within him until he had been long settled on this
side of the Border, and his literary career dates only from
1871. But during the score of years that have since
elapsed, Mr. Allan's muse has been wonderfully prolific,
volume after volume having been issued from the press
in quick succession, whilst countless poems have been
given to the public through the columns of newspapers
and the pages of magazines. The complete list of his
books comprises " Rough Castings," "Hame Spun Lilts,'
" Heather Bells," "lanVor," " Rose and Thistle, " "A
Life Pursuit" (printed for private circulation only),
"After Toil Songs," "Lays of Leisure," "Northern
MR. WILLIAM ALLAN.
Lights," and "A Book of Songs." Besides these, Mr.
Allan has also published a couple of works on technical
subjects connected with his own profession. From the
latest of his poetical volumes we extract the following
specimen, entitled "Amang the Green Hills of the
Border":—
I love them ! I love them ! oh ! grandly they rise,
Their swellin' crests kissin' the bonnie blue skies ;
Tho' far frae their beauty, my heart ever lies
Amang the green hills o' the Border.
The vales and the dales in their bosoms»are fair,
Wi' crystal streams singin' o' love or despair,
An' wee cosy cots a' like bowers are there, —
Amang the green hills o' the Border.
When gloamm' creeps ower them wi' saft-fa'in' shades,
Then leal-heartit shepherds in bonnets an' plaids
Gang wooin' the blithe, lauchin', rosy-cheeked maids
Amang the green hills o' the Border.
The glory o; story an' sang is their fame.
Oh ! whaur is the Ian' that sic glory can claim ?
An' whaur are sic folk as ye see hae their hame
Amang the green hills o' the Border ?
ilBOUT half-way between Sherburn and
Pittington, on the road leading from Durham
to Easington Lane, is the hamlet of Hall-
garth, so named because situated within the
ancient garth, croft, or park of a now ruined but once
splendid hall, built by Hugh Whitfield, the last prior and
first dean of Durham. There is a corn-mill in the town-
ship, supplied with water from a burn which comes down
through Elemore Hall grounds, joins the Pitting brook a
little below, and falls into the Wear at Old Durham. The
mill, in the y^ar 1831, was tenanted by a person of the
name of Oliver, in whose service was a lad of nineteen,
named Thomas Clarke, and a young woman, about the
same age, named Mary Ann Westropp, otherwise Wes-
thorpe.
On the morning of the 14th of August, which was
Sunday, Mr. and Mrs. Oliver went from home, leaving
the house in the care of the two servants, who were seen
together during the afternoon by some of the people in
the village, by whom Clarke was heard to say, in reply
to an answer which the girl gave him, that he thought her
very saucy, but he would be straight with her before
night. About six o'clock the same evening Clarke
alarmed the neighbourhood, stating that six men, whom
he believed to be Irishmen, had entered the house, com-
menced plundering it, and killed the girl and nearly
killed himself. When the people hastened to the mill,
they found the young woman's body behind the kitchen
door, with a contused wound on the forehead, her ear
cut through, and an incision across her throat dividing
the carotid artery. On examining the premises, twenty-
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MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{
1891.
two sovereigns and about fifteen pounds in silver, be-
longing to Mr. Oliver, were discovered to have bean
stolen. The drawers in which they had been deposited
had been broken open by means of a piece of metal which
had been whitewashed, which was found near them, and
which fitted exactly the marks in the drawers. Clarke's
room had been recently whitewashed, and this piece of
metal had been lying in it. The money abstracted was
some time afterwards found in one of the drawers;
another accounl^says in a purse concealed among some
standing corn in an adjoining field. Clarke declared that
his account of the affair was quite true; that the men
who entered the house had attacked him with the poker;
and that he had escaped with difficulty to call for assist-
ance ; but those who saw him immediately after the
alarm was given declared that they could not discover
any marks of violence about him. Besides, his own
box, which was in the next room to that from which the
money had been taken, was found to be untouched.
Everything therefore seemed to point to the fact that
Clarke was the actual murderer, particularly as no men
such as he described had been seen by anybody else that
day. He was accordingly taken into custody, and
committed for trial at the ensuing spring assizes at
Durham.
The trial commenced on the 25th of February, 1831,
before Mr. Justice Littledale ; and such was the excite-
ment in the city and neighbourhood, that no sooner were
the doors opened, which was before eight o'clock in the
morning, than the court-room was filled almost to suffoca-
tion. Clarke, who had all along protested his entire
innocence, pleaded "Not guilty." The examination of
the witnesses occupied the whole of the day, not having
been concluded till nearly ten o'clock at night. The
Court adjourned till nine o'clock on the following morning,
when Mr. Justice Littledale proceeded to sum up the
evidence, which he did with great minuteness and im-
partiality. At a quarter-past twelve o'clock the jury
retired, and, after an absence of twenty-five minutes,
returned with a verdict of "Guilty." The Judge then
passed sentence in the usual terms, ordering the prisoner
to be executed on the following Monday, the 28th of
February.
On the Monday morning, an immense concourse of
people, from all parts of the surrounding country, as-
sembled in front of the County Courts at Durham to
witness the execution. When the culprit mounted to the
drop, he addressed the assembled multitude in the follow-
ing words: — "Gentlemen, I am innocent! I am going
to suffer for another man's crime !" The cap was im-
mediately drawn over his t'ace ; the drop fell ; and this
world closed upon him for ever. After the body had
been suspended for nearly an hour, it was taken down,
and conveyed in a shell to the Durham Infirmary for
dissection.
Clarke's trial and execution were commemorated in a
doggerel ballad, printed by Mr. Francis Humble, at the
Durham Adertiser office, upon a foolscap broadside, with
a heavy black border. A woodcut in the centre, also
within a black border, gave a view of the scene of the
murder. The title was printed in red ink. The
" Tragedy " consisted of thirty-four stanzas, whereof
Sykes, in his "Local Records," quotes the following
Eighteen hundred three times ten,
August the eighth that day —
Let not that Sunday and that year
From memory pass away.
At Hallgarth Mill near Pittington,
Was done a murder foul,
The female weak — the murd'rer strong —
No pity for her soul.
Her skull was broke, her throat was cut,
Her struggle soon was o'er ;
And down she fell, and fetched a sigh,
And welter'd in her gore.
HT fellow servant, Thomas Clarke,
To Sherburn slowly sped,
And told a tale that strangers six
Had done the dreadful deed.
Now, woe betide thee, Thomas Clarke !
For this thy coward lie ;
A youth like thee for girl like her
Would fight till he did die.
"They've killed the lass," it was his tale,
"And nearly have killed me";
But when upon him folks did look,
No bruises could they see.
[ AMOUS in the shipping annals of the Tyne is
the ship which bears this name. The Amphi-
trite was built in 1776, for Mr. Peter Dale, of
North Shields, the great-grandfather of Mr. Alderman J.
B. Dale, of South Shields ; but whether her builder was
Mr. Laslie, of St. Peter's, or Mr. Headlam, of Gateshead,
grandfather of the late Dr. Headlam, of Newcastle, is
not definitely known. After having been navigated by
the owner and his son, Mr. Shalot Dale, she was sold in
the early part of the present century to Mr. Joseph
Elder, of North Shields, and on the decease of his son she
passed into the hands of Mr. Laing, of North Shields,
who in turn sold her to Mr. Davison, butcher, of the
same town. Some time about 1870 the Amphitrite
foundered on the Herd Sand, when she was put up for
sale, and was purchased by Mr. James Young, J.P., of
South Shields, owner of another celebrated vessel, the
Brotherly Love.
As Robert Gilchrist's famous local song helped to give
the old ship her reputation, it is here appended : —
Fra Team Gut to Whitley, wi' coal black and broon,
For the Amphitrite loaded, the keel had come doon ;
But the bullies ower neet had their gobs see oft wet
That the nyem o' the ship yen an' a' did forget.
To find out the nyem, now each worried his chops,
And claw'd at his hips fit to murder the lops —
May
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
223
When the Skipper, whe hunger, was always most bright.
Swore the pawhogger luggish was called Empty Kite.
Fra the point round the Girt, a' the time sailin' slow.
Each bally kept bawling, " The Empty Kite, ho ! "
But their blairin' was vain, for nee Empty Kite there,
Tho' they blair'd till their kites were byeth empty an'
sair.
A' slaverin', the Skipper ca'd Geordy and Jim,
For to gan to Newcassel and ax the reet nyem ;
The youngest he thowt myest to blame in this bore,
So Pee Dee and his marrow were seun pack'd ashore.
tip Shields Road as they trudged i" their meyst worn-out
soles,
Oft cursin' the Empty Kite, Skipper, and coals ;
At the sign of the Coach they beyth ca'd it befel,
To mourn their hard case and to swattle some yell.
Here a buck at a sirloin hard eatin' was seen.
Which he said i' the air myed his appetite keen ;
" Appetite ! " cried the bullies — like maislins they stared,
Wyde gyepin' wi' wonder, till " Crikes ! " Jemmy
blair'd.
"The Appetite. Geordy ! smash dis thou hear that?
The very outlandish cull nyem we forgat,
Bliss the dandy ! for had he not tell VI up the nyem,
To Newcassel we'd wander beyth weary and lyem !"
To Shields back they cauter'd, and seun frae the keel
Roar'd, "The Appetite, ho ! " neuf to frighten the de'il.
Thus they fund oot the ship, cast the coals iv a swet,
Still praising the dandy that day they had met.
Then into the buddock, weel tir'd, they all gat,
And of Empty Kite, Appetite, lang they did chat,
When the Skipper discover'd, mair wise than a king,
Tho' not the syem word, they were much the syem
thing.
The Brotherly Love, mentioned above, has repeatedly
been stated to be the vessel on board of which Captain
Cook, the famous navigator, served his apprenticeship.
But this is a mistake. It was in the Free Love, of
Whitby, which belonged to Mr. John Walker, that
Captain Cook made his first practical acquaintance with
the sea. Some of the younger branches of the Walker
family settled on the Tyne, and Walker Place, in North
Shields, it has been said, is called after them.
ERNEST WELLS.
= tft e=
JlITHIN recent years the fishing village of
Newbiggin-by-the-Sea has become a popular
watering place. Novocastrians who sigh for
a breath of fresh air have frequent opportunities of
satisfying their desires, for the North-Eastern Railway
Company runs cheap excursion trains to Newbiggin
about once a week during the holiday season — a
boon that is highly appreciated. Inasmuch as there
is little of interest beyond the old church to attract
attention, all visitors invariably hasten to the sea
beach, from which point the venerable edifice is seen
to advantage, standing as it does upon the bold
headland, known as Newbiggin Paint. To sailors and
fishermen it is a most useful landmark, for the spire is a
prominent object both from the sea and from a long line
of coast.
The church was at one time larger than at present, the
side aisles having been destroyed. In the arcades of the
north and south walls may be seen a number of grotesque
corbel heads. Archaeologists may find interest in the fact
that the east window is one of the rare examples in this
part of the country of five lancets grouped into a window
224
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
without tracery. Amongst the epitaphs on the tomb-
stones in the graveyard is the following : —
So frail is the youth and the beauty of men.
Though they bloom and look gay like the rose ;
But all our fond care to preserve them is vain,
Time kills them as fast as he goes.
Newbiggin would appear to have formerly been a place
of some importance, for it is recorded that in 1352 an
indulgence of forty days wan granted to any person who
assisted in keeping in repair a pier on the north side of
the harbour, while in the reign ot Edward II. "New-
byggyng" was required to furnish a ship for naval pur-
poses.
at Jflarfc
atttt
Melforb.
oh.n anb $Jmjamin dfcen,
ARCHITECTS.
j|HE fame of Richard Grainger, who found
his native town of Newcastle meanly
built of red brick, and reconstructed it,
or the greater part of it, of enduring stone,
seems to have absorbed into itself all the credit and
honour of the enterprise. Architects who assisted the
famous builder in designing his work, and artists who
helped him to beautify it, are seldom recognised in the
story of his achievements. Yet no fact is more certain
than this — and the reiteration of it takes nothing from
the merits of his undertakings — that Mr. Grainger's
genius manifested itself in finance and construction rather
than in drawing and design. His was the lofty concep-
tion of gigantic improvements; to others he very wisely
entrusted the work of adaptation and adornment. How
much the stately edifices of Grey Street, Grainger Street,
and Market Street owe to the artistic taste of Mr. John
Dobson has been described in a filial tribute from the pea
of his daughter. Miss Dobson's modest vindication of
her father's right to share in the honour of reconstructing
Newcastle came as a surprise to those who knew no
name in connection with that gigantic undertaking but
the great name of Grainger. To them and to others it
will be news to learn that two of the most conspicuous
objects in the finest of the fine streets which Mr. Grainger
erected were the creation of two local architects who, fifty '
years ago, enjoyed a reputation second only to that of
Mr. Dobson. The Theatre Royal, whose lofty portico
overshadows the footway in Grey Street, and the towering
monument which crowns the northern end of that noble
thoroughfare, owe their elegant proportions to the skill of
John and Benjamin Green.
John Green was born on the 20th June, 1787, at Newton
Fell House, an isolated habitation lying north-west of
the village of Nafferton. In that sequestered locality his
father carried on a respectable business as a contractor,
builder, carpenter, and agricultural implement maker.
At some local school, and perhaps under one of the
famous village pedagogues to whose tuition half the best
men of the county not so long ago owed their success
in life, he received a sound, practical education. When
he approached man's estate, he began to study architec-
M-vy \
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
225
ture, and this proved to be so useful to his father's in-
terests that, soon after he came of ape, he was admitted
to be a partner. With the talent and energy which he
threw into the affairs of the firm, business increased until
Nafferton became too small to hold it, and the workshops
were removed to Corbridge.
After a time, proficiency in architecture and engineer-
ing encouraged Mr. John Green to attempt higher
things. He left Corbridge about the year 1820, and estab-
lished himself in Newcastle as an architect and civil
engineer. Under his superintendence, in 1821, the
building of Cresswell House, from designs by Shaw, was
begun. The following year he commenced the erection of
the building in Westgate Street that has been ever since
the home of the Newcastle Literary and Philosophical
Society. His next imporant work was the projection of
a bridge over the Tyne — that elegant structure which,
still serving its original purpose, is known as Scotswood
Suspension Bridge. Besides a church at Uswortb, the
foundation stone of which was laid in June, 1831, he
designed, and the same year successfully carried out, the
construction of a chain bridge over the Tees at Whorlton,
about three miles below Barnard Castle. Next he erected
a stone bridge acro-ss the same river at Blackwell Ford,
and after assisting Mr. Dobson to secure the foundation of
St. Nicholas' Church, Newcastle, he constructed (1834-35)
the bridge over the North Tyne at Bellingham. About
this time his son Benjamin, who had been specially
trained for the profession by the elder Pugin, came into
the business. It becomes difficult thenceforward to distin-
guish the work of the father from that of the son.
Chapels-of-ease at Dissingtou and Sugley, in the parish
of Newburn, erected in 1836, were in all probability
designed by Benjamin Green. Newcastle Theatre Royal
was certainly his conception. The beautiful column,
crowned by Baily's statue of Earl Grey, which the firm
erected at the head of Grey Street, was probably his also.
To the same source may, with equal likelihood, be
assigned the Corn Exchange in the Cloth Market, New-
castle, begun in 1838, and removed in 1854- to make way
for the present Town Hall.
But the achievement which gave the firm its chief
reputation was undoubtedly the work of John Green. He
it was who invented that new style of building wooden
bridges for railway transit across still waters and over
deep valleys which our forefathers in the " thirties " and
"forties" considered to be the highest combination of
strength and economy known in railway engineering.
Those who attended Section G at the British Association
meetings in Newcastle, on Saturday, August 25, 1838 (the
day after Earl Grey's statue had been raised to the height
of its column), heard Benjamin Green, on his father's
behalf, describe these timber viaducts, and had the oppor-
tunity, with the rest of the assembled savants, of seeing
the system exemplified in the bridges that were destined,
to carry for many years the North Shields Railway
across the Ouseburn and the Dene at Willington. In the
Exhibition of Mechanical Inventions which the British
Association gathered together during this, its first, visit
to Newcastle, no more attractive objects were shown than
226
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
the models of the Messrs. Green. There was one of a
Suspension Bridge which John Green proposed to erect
across the mouth of the Tyne, with a span 1,000 feet
at a height of 110 feet above high water level;
another of the Scotswood structure as at first projected ;
a third showing the construction of the Ouseburn and
Willington Viaducts ; with others representing the Grey
Monument, the Corn Exchange, a church, a Gothic cross,
and the monument to the memory of Mr. John Bruce in
Westgate Cemetery. The models of the viaducts were
the theme of universal praise. For a description of these
timber bridges, Mr. Benjamin Green received, in 1841,
the Telford medal of the Institution of Civil
Engineers. Sketches of them, painted in water colours
by T. M, Richardson, and reproduced in lithography,
may still be seen among the mural surroundings
of elderly Novocastrians, and in the portfolios of local
collectors.
During the next few years, railway extension was the
principal occupation of architects and engineers in the
North of England, and the Messrs. Green obtained a
goodly share of the work. They drew the plans from
which the church of Tynemouth, and St. Hilda's at
Middlesbrough, were erected, but most of their skill was
displayed upon that great main line which, creeping
northward, gradually linked " Scotia's darling seat " to
the world's metropolis. John Green designed some of
the bridges over which the railroad ran ; his son planned
booking-offices and houses for stationmasters. It is said
that all the stations between Newcastle and Berwick
were erected from Benjamin Green's drawings. Fine,
handsome buildings some of them were ; more like the
villas raised by retired tradesmen than residences for
railway officers.
For several years John Green held an appointment as
architect for farms, &c., for the Duke of Northumbeiland,
upon whose estates he erected many good and substantial
bouses. He published, among other designs, a plan
for a college in Newcastle (a castellated building of two
storeys, forming three sides of a parallelogram, with a
piazza running the entire length of the inner court), and
was the author of one of the schemes by which it was
sought to connect the higher levels of Newcastle and
Gateshead. Benjamin Green, as became a disciple of
Pugin, threw the glamour of art over his conceptions.
While the father's style was plain, severe, and economical,
the son's was ornamental, florid, and costly. Two
well-known examples of their work will illustrate this
difference of treatment — John Green's monument to the
memory of the Earl of Durham erected on Pensher Hill
(see Monthly Chronicle, ii., 400) and Benjamin Green's
Church of the Virgin Mary Hospital in Ryehill,
Newcastle. With these two specimens of the modern
work of the Messrs. Green — for an enumeration of all the
public buildings they erected would be tedious — this
narrative may be brought to a close. John Green died
in Newcastle on the 30th September, 1852 ; Benjamin
expired at Dinsdale Retreat on the 24th November, 1858.
JUcfyarb (Sitptn,
PHYSICIAN AND DIVINE.
From the district of Kendal, in Cumberland, sprang a
race of Gilpins whose genius at various periods of our
history irradiated the religious and social life of Great
Britain, and shed its influence among English-speaking
communities far away. Two members of the family,
Bernard Gilpin, of Houghton-le-Spring, and Richard
Gilpin, his grand-nephew, may fairly be claimed as
belonging to our own side of the island. For, although
born in the " Gilpin Land " about Kendal, both these
two eminent men lived the most part of their time,
wrought the greater portion of their public work, and
achieved the highest phases of their renown, in the
counties of Northumberland and Durham. Placed by
circumstances, the one on the south and the other on the
north side of the dividing river, with a hundred years of
conflict and of change separating their lives, there was
between them a remarkable identity of temperament and
a striking similarity in modes of action. Both of
them were leaders of men at widely differing periods of
social disruption, yet each in his sphere shook off his early
environments, led tne forward movement, and placed
himself in the van of progress and reform. Bernard
Gilpin, educated in the ancient faith of Christendom,
chose the " new learning " of the Reformation, and, re-
fusing a bishopric, became the world-famed " Apostle of
the North." Richard Gilpin, trained in the Reformed
religion, went out from the church of his family, and de-
clining, like his great-uncle, to wear a mitre, became the
apostle of Northern Nonconformity.
Richard Gilpin, son of Isaac Gilpin, of Strickland
May \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
227
Ketel, a homestead on the road from Kendal to the
Windermere Ferry, was baptised on the 23rd October,
1625. Little is known of his early days. It has been
ascertained that he was designed for the profession of
medicine, but that, feeling a stronger inclination towards
divinity, he laid aaide his medical studies and determined
to become a preacher. In the "Life of Ambrose Barnes"
it is stated that he received his education in Scotland.
Another authority places him at Queen's College, Oxford,
"where he took the degree of M.D." The Rev. A. B.
Grosart, in an admirable memoir prefixed to a reprint of
one of Gilpin's books, surmises that he may have been
trained at the famous school which his ancestor founded
at Houghton-le-Spring. But, wheresoever he obtained
his education, he is found in 1653, when 28 years of age,
installed as the parish clergyman of Greystoke, in his
native county — preferment to which he had probably
been appointed by the Parliamentary Commissioners for
sequestered livings.
Shortly after his settlement at Greystoke, Kichard
Gilpin married, and, as family cares increased upon him,
he purchased from the Musgraves the old fortalice and
estate near Carlisle known as Scaleby Castle. In the
comparative privacy of Greystoke and Scaleby he
laboured as a faithful minister, keeping a watchful eye
upon the great movements of his time, yet living in
charity with all men. Evidence of the esteem in which
he was held by his fellow-clergymen is to be found in the
"Agreement of the Associated Ministers and Churches
of the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland "
which, at their special request, emanated from his pen in
1656. Testimony of the respect entertained for him by
the higher authorities is seen in the Patent by which, a
year later, Lord Protector Cromwell nominated him a
"Visitor" of the College proposed to be founded and
endowed out of the Church lands of the see of Durham.
Proof of his own large-hearted tolerance appears in a ser-
mon which he preached in 1658 before the Associated
Ministers at Keswick. and, by their unanimous desire,
published.
The struggles of the Presbyterian party after the
Restoration are matters of general knowledge. Prelacy,
as the Puritans termed the episcopal form of Church
government, triumphed, and the Act of Uniformity came
into operation. Gilpin, moderate and tolerant, could not
approve of an Act so rigorous and unreasonable. Unable
to subscribe to it, he resigned his living and retired to his
house at Scaleby. King and Council tried to win him
back, and tried in vain. They offered him a bishopric —
the see of Carlisle ; he refused the bribe, and determined
to remain a Nonconformist. A younger brother, Allen
Gilpin, who had served his apprenticeship with a well-
known local merchant, Phineas Allen, was at this time
living in Newcastle, where Nonconformity, gathering
strength through persecution, needed more preachers.
Hither, therefore, from his seclusion at Scaleby, came
the famous minister of Greystoke to take pastoral charge
of a Nonconformist congregation. "Mr. Gilpin," writes
the anonymous author of the Life of Ambrose Barnes,
"living retired in the West, succeeded him [Samuel Ham-
mond, D.D.]at Newcastle, where, by the encouragement
his ministry met with from the liberality of the people,
and his emoluments by the practice of physick, he raised
a considerable estate. He went to Holland, and took the
degree of Dr. of Physic at Leyden. The purchase of the
lordship of Scaleby had put him into debt, but he now
cleared it off; and Mr. Barnes went with him to Sir
Richard Musgrave, and got the conveyances finisht.
When the Five Mile Act came out [in 1665], Dr. Gilpin
lodged at Mr. Barnes his house for more security. When
his goods were distrained upon, Mr. Barnes, to prevent
their being squandred away, replevyed them. These
good offices contracted a friendship between them.
They placed out their eldest sons at the Inns of Court
together. And when there was a design to banish the
Doctor from Newcastle, Mr. Barnes, by persuading the
magistrates of his great usefulness in the town, by his
skill in physick, procured him quietness to the end of
King Charles his reign. "
Before this happy consummation was attained, Mr.
Gilpin and his co-religionists suffered much persecution.
Bishop Cosm busied himself greatly with their proceed-
ings, writing to the king and council about their meet-
ings, and sending to the archdeacon and clergy reproach-
ful letters upon the lukewarmness of the municipal
authorities in dealing with them. In December, 1668,
the Vicar of Newcastle. Thomas Naylor, received one
of these episcopal missives, desiring him to impress upon
Ralph Jenison, the Mayor, Sir Francis Anderson, and
Sir James Clavering (whose sister was married to Gilpin's
co-pastor, William Durant), the duty of suppressing their
assemblies. A similar message, enclosing one from the
king, was sent to the Mayor and aldermen direct, who
replied that if offenders had not been punished it was
for want of evidence, and suggesting that his lordship's
informers should have taken the trouble to give them,
the authorities, the information first. Whereupon, the
bishop fired up, telling the Mayor and aldermen that
these meetings were notorious ; one of them, held in the
Barber Surgeons' Hall, upon All Saints' Day, November
1, being "voiced and made known to all the town
and country about " ; while at another, upon the 25th
November, held in one of the ringleaders' houses, "they
appointed and kept a fast, with preaching and praying,
which they held out from eight of clock in the morning
till four in the evening, the work being held forth by
their four chief leaders and abettors, Mr. Gilpine, Mr.
Durant, Mr. Leaver, and Mr. Pnngle. Of all which
surely you had or might have had knowledge." The
magistrates still remaining inactive, other means were
tried. During the following summer occurred that oft-
quoted scene in which Cuthbert Nicholson, cordwainer.
228
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I Itfay
I 1891.
being on the look-out one quiet Sabbath morning in
July, "about five or six of the clock, did see a great
nomber of people goe inn to the howse of Mr. Richard
Gilpyn, minister in the White Freers, and afterward he
went to parson Jno. Shaw [of St. John's] and acquainted
him with the premisses. Whereupon the said Mr. Shaw,
togeither with the churchwardens, constables, and ser-
jeants-att-inace, by the comaund of Mr. Maior, did
repaire to the said Richard Gilpin's howse. And when
they came there, all the dores were shutt and made
fast. And after the dores were broken open he did see
these severall persons come out, viz., Robert Johnson,
merchant, Dr. Tunstall [the town's physician], William
Hutchinson, George Headlam, and diverse other persons
to the nomber of fortie." Whereupon, again, the watch-
ful cordwainer laid an information against "Mr. Richard
Gilping, Mr. William Deurant, Mr. John Pringle, and
Mr. Henry Lever, preachers," and fifty-five others, in-
cluding five past sheriffs, four ex-mayors, and an alder-
man or two.
More peaceful times for Dr. Gilpin and his followers
were coming, were at hand. In 1672, Charles II. issued
his famous declaration of indulgence. Under shelter of
this declaration Dr. Gilpin obtained a license to preach
in his dwelling house, and shortly afterwards he occurs as
pastor of a congregation, assembling in a newly built
place of worship which stood on the north side of the
roadway, outside the Cl(-se Gate.
Dr. Gilpin's activities closed only with his life. On
the 4th of February, 1700, suffering from feverish indis-
position, he preached from 2 Cor. v., 2, but his weakness
was manifest to the congregation, and he was conducted
home. In ten days came the end. "Dr. Gilpin, that
eminent man of God," wrote his friend at Stockton, the
Rev. Thomas Thompson, " died much lamented by all,
on (Tuesday) February 13, 1699-1700, about 8 o'clock
in the morning." He was buried at All Saints', New-
castle, on Friday, the 16th, the parish register briefly
describing him as "Richard Gilpin, Doctor of Physick."
In addition to the " Agreement " and the " Sermon "
printed while he was rector of Greystoke, Dr. Gilpin
issued a book of 216 small quarto pages, entitled,
Doemonologia Sacra, or a Treatise of Satan's Tempta-
tions. In Three Parts. London : Printed by J. D. for
Richard Randel and Peter Maplisden, Booksellers in
Newcastle-upon-Tine. 1677. [Reprinted by Mr. Grosart,
with Memoir and Portrait, in 1867. J
THE UTERART ATTORNEY.
A gentleman who could stay with us only long enough
to make us know how much we lost by his leaving us. —
Dr. Johnson. ,
Towards the close of last century, James Glynn, son of
a Morpeth freeholder, came to Newcastle and commenced
business as an ironfounder and engineer. Down in the
valley of the Ouseburn, on the east side of Ouse Street,
with a lone frontage to the streamlet, he set up his factory,
and there, in course of time, being an intelligent and
enterprising man, he brought together a large and profit-
able connection. For a while he lived in Hanover Square,
but as his undertakings at the eastern extremity of the
town multiplied, he found it desirable to change his
residence. Soon alter the present century came in he
removed to St. Ann's Row, at the far end of the New (or
Shields) Road. St. Ann's Row at that time was rather
a pleasant place to live in. Behind it were gardens and
meadows ; in front, deep down below, ran the river ; while
over and beyond was an uninterrupted view of cornfields
and pastures, bounded by the picturesque acclivities of
Heworth and Sheriff Hill. At No. 1, St. Ann's Row, in
the year 1817, Edward Glynn, youngest son of the iron-
founder, was born.
James Glynn's elder boys had been educated at Mr.
John Bruce's newly-opened academy in Percy Street, and
thither, at the proper age, Edward also was sent to be
equipped for the battle of life. When he was nine years
old he lost his father— killed by a fall from his horse.
Two of his elder brothers carried on the father's business,
and it was determined that he should be trained to a
different profession. In 1834- he was articled to Messrs.
John and Matthew Clayton, to learn the theory and
practice of the law. Under the personal superintendence
of Mr. John Clayton, then, as for many years before and
after. Town Clerk of Newcastle, he served out bis inden-
tures, and having spent, according to custom, a year or
two in a London office, and passed his examinations, he
was admitted, in 1839, an attorney. Shortly afterwards
an opportunity of beginning life on his own account pre-
sented itself at Hexham. In that quaint and quiet town
he started business, taking for his partner Mr. Thomas
Mav 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
229
Johnson, son of the steward of the Beauir.ont estates. It
was not a prosperous venture. Hexham was too well
provided with lawyers, and the firm soon discovered that
they had embarked upon a ban-en enterprise. After two
or three years' unsuccessful endeavour, the partnership
was dissolved and Mr. Glynn returned to Newcastle.
Six years before his own admission, his friend Mr. C. U.
Laws, son of Mr. William Laws, of Prudhoe Castle, one
of the Duke of Northumberland's Commissioners, had
been entered on the rolls, had opened an office in Colling-
wood Street, and had commenced practice as a solicitor
and bailiff of the manor of Tynemouth. With him Mr.
Glynn joined hands, and, removing to Grey Street,
created the firm of Laws and Glynn. The union thus
established proved to be a most prosperous one. Before
long the firm became as well known in Newcastle as the
clock of Reid's shop, over which their offices were situated.
In his student days Mr. Glynn had been attentive and
industrious. Although fond of society, and inclined to
conviviality, he had kept those tendencies in due subjec-
tion. While he read hard for the law, he read harder still
for self-culture. Without neglecting the classics, he made
himself acquainted with the best works of the best authors,
French as well as English, in fiction, poetry, and the
drama. Thus, being blessed with a retentive memory,
he was able to relieve the graver duties of his profession
by recreative excursions into literature. For some years
his gifts in these directions were held in check — known to
his intimate friends, but rarely displayed. The dignity
of his profession held him in thrall ; he could not be in-
duced to make public use of his diversified abilities. It
was not until the establishment of the Newcastle Daily
Chronicle, in May, 1858, that he was prevailed upon to
indulge with freedom in the delights of journalism. He
had written occasional articles for the weekly issue, but
with reluctance and at long intervals. Once the
Rubicon had been crossed, however, there was no turn-
ing back with him. He wrote editorial articles for the
Daily Chronicle early in its career, and from that time
forward his pen was seldom idle. Nothing came amiss
to him — politics, science, the drama, art, trade, industry ;
he could write, and write well, upon them all ; while in the
by-paths of political squib and social caricature he was,
locally at least, unique and inimitable. How many of his
best things are hidden in the early files of the Daily
Chronicle can never now be known.
Three of Mr. Glynn's productions were separately pub-
lished with his name attached. He had gathered to-
gether a number of the waifs and strays of the streets,
furnished them with brushes, blacking, and uniform, and
under the superintendence of Detective Elliott, now
Chief-Constable of Gateshead, organised them into a
brigade. For the benefit of these boys was published,
in the same year that the Daily Chronicle started—
Sketches of Oldminster. The "Chares" of Newcastle
and their Inhabitants. By Edward Glynn, Honorary
Secretary of the Shoeblack Brigade. Newcastle : M. and
M. W. Lambert, Grey Street. 1858. 56 pp.
Another pamphlet was written to assist a movement
for removing the deaf and dumb from hampered quarters
in the town to the breezy expanse of the Moor — a move-
ment that, through the munificence of Sir William Arm-
strong, was eventually successful. It was entitled—
Silence. A Visit to the Northern Counties Institution
for the Deaf and Dumb. A Contribution to the Building
Fund. By Edward Glynn. Newcastle : M. and M. W.
Lambert, 42-50, Grey Street. 1859. 12 pp.
At the date of this last-named pamphlet a Press Club
had been started in Newcastle. The editors, managers,
and reporters of the Newcastle papers formed themselves
into a little mutual admiration society, which utilized
Saturday afternoons in summer for roaming expeditions
to Marsden, Bywell,. Hartford Bridge, and other places
of resort, and in the winter assembled for the reading
of papers, the interchange of ideas, and the enjoyment of
social intercourse. Of that faithful brotherhood Mr
Glynn was an acceptable member. He possessed a
wealth of anecdote which time could not impoverish ; his
skill as a raconteur was only excelled by his musical
talent. At one of the meetings he read a paper — "Mems.
of a Mourning Mercer" — which was to have been printed
for private circulation, but, so far as can be remembered,
remains concealed in the columns of the local press.
Shortly afterwards the club itself went into mourning.
A local editor read a paper upon "Capital Punishment,"
and the members never ventured to meet again.
For the Drama Mr. Glynn had a love which amounted
to passion. From first performances, in London or New-
castle, he was rarely absent, and he was a most regular
attender for some years on the Friday evenings at the
Newcastle Theatre Royal. He wrote, or adapted from
the French, two or three plays of merit. One of them
was acted under Mr. Davis's management in Newcastle.
Another, his own composition entirely, and written in
French, was accepted by the management of the Porte
St. Martin Theatre in Paris, on the eve of an insurrection
which gave the Parisians something else to think and
talk about.
It was by his influence that, at the end of 1859, after
weeks of discussion and criticism, the amateur dramatic
representation of "Much Ado About Nothing," for the
benefit of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum Building Fund,
took place in the Town Hall. He rehearsed the part of
Dogberry, but at the last moment was taken unwell, and
resigned bis place to another. For this performance he
wrote a prologue — one of his best efforts — in which he
enumerated local men of mark, or some of them, in
happily chosen phrase, thus : —
Let us not think, as ancient names decay
Our race of worthies all have passed away.
New Collingwoods shall lead our sons to war,
Stowells and Eldons sway th' admiring bar ;
And future Stephensons, from sire to son,
Shall run their course, as those before have run ;
230
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
Some future bard, in future times aspire
To take up Akenside's neglected lyre.
The strains of music Shield from nature drew
(I mean the ancient Shield and not the new,*
Though he will have his turn) ; in future age
Find in this spot a rival on the stage.
Bewick on wood or metal once more trace
With skilful burin all our feathered race ;
Loftus explore the halls, sublime idea !
Of buried Babylon or old Ohaldea ;
And Gateshead hospitality bestow,
In days to come upon a new Defoe.
Let us not wait the honours time shall give,
But show our worthies honour while they live.
If with a master's pencil, bold and free,
Garmichael still pourtrays the restless sea;
If Richardson draws Nature's beauties forth,
In starch of Nature Hancock braves the North ;
If other Richardsons the furnace ply
For secrets yet undreamed in alchemy,
And other Hancocks shadow furth the strife
Of tropic birds with art that mimics life ;
If pondering o'er the sea an Alder dwells,
Finds worlds in spray, and harmony in shells ;
If Dobson's genius rears the massive pile.
And Armstrong's guns protect our sea-girt isle —
To all their due.
At this class of literary work Mr. Glynn was an adept.
It was easy to him, he delighted in it, and no one in
the North of England could do it better. The prologue
spoken by Miss Desborough at the opening of the Tyne
Theatre, September 23, 1867, was his ; so also w»s the
long poetical address delivered by the lessee, Mr. George
Stanley, May 9, 1868, at the close of the first season of
that popular place of amusement.
Next to love of the play and devotion to literature, Mr.
Glynn cultivated a taste for music. Indeed, music may
claim to have been his first love. He assisted in 1848 to
establish the Newcastle Philharmonic Society, and was an
active member of its committee of management. In 1851,
upon the retirement of Mr. Francis Taylor, Jun., he took
upon himself the added labour of the honorary secretary-
ship, and so continued till the society was merged into
some other organisation whose name has been forgotten.
Although Mr. Glynn could not be persuaded tD enter
the governing body of his native town, he took consider-
able interest in municipal matters. Thus, after the great
explosion of October, 1854, had reduced great part of the
river-side property in Newcastle and Gateshead to ruins, he
started the question of providing the town with a fire
brigade. For a time he laboured in vain ; the authorities
would not listen. But a series of fires that occurred in
1857, 1858, and 1859, strengthened his advocacy, and in
October of the last-named year, a town's meeting, con-
vinced by his arguments, appointed a committee to carry
out his proposals. In the end his persistency triumphed,
and he lived to see in Newcastle efficient means provided
of coping with destructive conflagration, and of minimi-
sing incendiary disaster.
As an advocate Mr. Glynn was clear, concise, and
logical. He did not often appear in court, but when he
did so his speeches, lit up by poetic quotation, relieved by
* The late Henry Shield, wine merchant, who took the part of
Benedick.
gentle raillery, and spiced with subtle sarcasm, were
something to be remembered. He was the defender of
young Vicomte de Maricourt, arraigned for presenting a
pistol to the head of a local editor who had insulted the
French Consul, his father. No one who heard it can forget
that brilliant defence, and its suggestive conclusion : —
I take the liberty to direct your attention to a pre-
cedent which I think you might without the least impro-
priety follow, or which may, at any rate, serve to guide
you in your judgment. You will find it in that invalu-
able digest, the "Ingoldsby Legends," for which the
learned world is indebted to the late Mr. Barham. It
is the celebrated case of Mrs. Winifred Price killed by an
unlucky " lick," given her by her husband, whom she had
provoked by her pungent taunts to "shy "his stick at her.
Then came up Mr. Ap Thomas, the coroner.
With his jury to sit, some dozen or more on her.
The jury retired, and sat on the body.
And after discussing the case in gin toddy,
They returned to the room at eleven at night
Aunanimous verdict of— "Sarved her right."
In politics Mr. Glynn was a Liberal, but for party
warfare he had no taste. Social reforms lay nearest to his
heart, and he was more at home among shoeblacks,
Ragged School boys, Wellesley lads, and dwellers in the
slums, than with politicians in the Lecture Room or de-
monstrators in the streets. He was the first solicitor in
Newcastle who adopted what was called in 1858-9 "the
beard movement." Many and ominous were the warn-
ings of the shavelings against this innovation upon old
established practice, but he laughed them down, and
allowed his hair to appear where Nature intended it to
grow. With admirable mimicry he was accustomed to
describe the astonishment of his clean-scraped London
agent when first he presented himself in the Metropolis
with his hirsute adornments thick upon him. The old
lawyer eyed him from top to toe, put on his glasses and
looked him over again, and then, resuming his seat,
remarked " Humph ! I hope you'll find that sort of thing
pay in Newcastle."
Shortly prior to his death, Mr. Glynn read a paper before
the Newcastle and Gateshead Articled Clerks' Society, of
which he was a vice-president, on "Other Knowledge
required by an Attorney, besides a Knowledge of Law."
It was published by the society, and forms the last of the
three pamphlets to which he appended his name. The
paper was read on the 30th of March, 1871, and on the 25th
of October in that year he died at the age of fifty-four.
QUAINT manuscript volume of apothecaries'
lore and household recipes was discovered by
Mr. George Weddell some years ago amongst
the papers belonging to the old firm of Gilpin and Com-
pany, chemists, Pilgrim Street, Newcastle. Careful ex-
amination, in which some of the curators of the British
Museum kindly assisted, showed that the manuscript
dated from the period of "Quene Elizabeth," addi-
Ma?
1891
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
231
tiona having been made from time to time, in various
handwritings, up to the middle of last century. To many
noble and ancient families in the North of England
its interest is enhanced by the names appended to
the recipes. In a section of the
book, written during the. first half rffia \
of the 17th century, occur the *•
names of ye Lady Widdrington, ye
Lady Selbye, ye Lady Fairfax,
and a number of others. There is
also evidence of its having been
used during that period in the
family of Lord Fairfax, and several
of the handwritings have been
identified as belonging to members
of that historic house.
The remedies employed bear
evidence of the curious super-
stitions with which, in old days,
family medicine was permeated.
They also seem to indicate that,
in addition to their acknowledged
high courage and powerful ima-
ginations, onr English forefathers must have been
remarkable for strong digestion, to bear the gruesome
" brothes, poulders, and dyett drinckes " of the ancient
apothecary. "Half a peck of earth- wormes," the
"lunges of a fox," the "harte of a
toade, " are remedies which would shake
the nerves of the modern invalid. Besides
the purely medical bearing of the work,
there is a portion devoted to such house
hold matters as "To makes cruddes and
creame," " A note howe to die blewe out
of white," "To make uskabaughe," and
there is also " A note of Mrs. Barbara, her
lessons on ye Virginalle, " which included
compositions by Mr. Bird, organist to Queen Elizabeth, and
by Dr. Bull, the reputed composer of our National Anthem.
-jji">\ V 0 /
»?
£,', fe
tA-
two ounces eftde iuice oftkc
<rvcrjfjw>c/oite efroffs> one ounce
> n ounce eutp ot a.n.tujoj-pooneuJ
t.fA of a. mancAil^ and three nutmegs finely fca.ke.7i &
Jerftct enJ&fmud) mace ma/tjmjXHV&rast£tnutffitps
red reft fratcr> and ajmucb fame
bar '
an
ufj
ann
mu
/ s
d aft
ter :
Mr. Weddell supplies the fallowing particulars re-
specting the ownership of the volume: — "The book
seems to have
passed into the
possession of
Henry, fourth
Lord Fairfax of
Denton, whose
daughter Ann,
following the
example of her
grandmother,
Mary Cholrae-
ley, probably
carried it to her
new home when
she married
Ralph Carr,
Esq., of Cocken,
in the county
of Durham.
Her son Ralph,
who was born
hc&d; putfn
/• ' / < **
Ifpfjifi'tion) to
h of rfdarvjcs or one ounce
oiu. andtwoj-ooenei
; nmofe all dcfc todfat
an£nUt/>enaeof tb
ery
n2/fa<terearer
L
232
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{ IS*'
in 1694, and married to Margaret Paxton in 1721,
does not seem to have valued the book so highly as
did the Fairfaxes, because either he or his son Ralph pre-
sented it as a gift to his neighbour Robert Green, of
Cocken, whom as yet I have been unable to trace. The
Carrs were connected by marriage with the Hodgsons of
Hebborne, and the Davisons of North Biddick, they in
turn, as well as the Hedworths, being related to the
families of Bellasis and Penniman of previous generations,
who were kinsfolk of the Fairfaxes. These neighbours
round about Cocken, although historically less prominent
than the Fairfax group of the previous century, are highly
interesting to the North Country from their intimate
relationship to its notable families, the Delavals of Seaton,
the Lambtous of Larnbton, the Liddells of Ravensworth,
the Hedworth-Williamsons of Monkwearmouth and
Whitburn, the Ellisons, the Fenwicks, the Forsters, and
many more almost equally illustrious."
The manuscript has been reproduced in fac-simile by
Messrs. Mawson, Swan, and Morgan, publishers, New-
castle, by whose courtesy we are enabled to give the
accompanying specimens of the text.
Membevti at tftc itintret
dfamilg.
adult bird in winter is very beautiful, being of a pale
grey or mealy appearance all over. The margins of the
feathers are a clear white ; the rump and under parts are
also white, with a few obscure streaks of pale brown
on the flanks, The front of the head is of a dull crimson,
but there is no red elsewhere.
The mealy redpole (Linota linaria — Linn. ) is a resi-
dent in the North of England, and frequents wooded
localities in the neighbourhood of plantations. Mr. J.
W. Fawcett states that it nests, or has nested, in the
county of Durham. It is a circumpolar bird, breeding
at or near the limit of forest-growth, and possibly in
some of the alpine districts of Central Europe. In
J1REVIOUS pages of the Monthly Chronicle
have contained descriptions of the two com-
moner members of the Linnet family— the
brown linnet and the lesser redpole. We
now deal with the remaining members of the family that
are so far known to have been found in Northumberland
nd Durham.
The Arctic redpole ( Linaria canescena ) is, according to
the late Mr. Hancock, a casual visitanb to the Northern
Counties. A specimen of this species was knocked down
with a clod of earth, on the sea banks, near Whitburn,
Durham, on April 24, 1855. It was seen flying about for
some days previous to its capture. The plumage of the
winter it is found in various places throughout the whole
of Central and Southern Europe. The bird winters
in South Canada and the northern portion of the United
States. In summer the crown of the male is a glossy red ;
nape, back, and scapulars, dark brown, margined in some
places with whitish ; rump much whiter, washed with
pink and streaked with brown ; greater and middle wine
coverts tipped .with whitish ; tail feathers dusky,
narrowly margined with whitish ; chin black, breast rosy
pink, streaked with black and white ; rest of under parts
whitish ; flanks streaked with brown ; legs and feet
brown ; irides brown. The bird is about five inches in
length.
The mountain linnet (Fringilla montium — Bewick;
Linota montium — Yarrell), like the common linnet, is a
resident in the Northern Counties. Mr. Hancock re-
marks : " It is not uncommon, breeding on the heather
in the wild, uncultivated parts of both counties. I found
a nest, with young, in July, 1866, at Cragside, Coquet-
dale ; and Mr. Thomas Thompson took a nest with eggs,
at Haltwhistle, in 1869." This bird is smaller than the
common linnet, of more sober plumage, and is not so well
known. As its name implies, it has to be sought on wild
heathery moors or mountains, where it almost invariably
breeds. It is also known as the twite (from its ordinary
note), yellow bellied linnet, and heather lintie. Its night
is rapid and undulated, and it wheels over the fields
previous to alighting, uttering a soft twitter at intervals.
May 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
233
When disturbed it betakes itself to tall trees or to distant
fields. Its food consists of the seeds of various wild plants
and grasses. The male is about 5| inches in length ; head,
on the sides, light reddish brown; forehead, crown, neck on
the back, aud nape, brown of two shades, the middle part of
the feather being darker than the rest ; chin and throat,
light reddish yellow brown, streaked on the sides with dark
brown ; below, dull brownish white ; back, brown, the
middle part of the feathers being darker than the rest,
the lower part crimson or purple red in summer. The
wings, which expand to a width of nearly nine inches,
are brownish black. The tail, which is long and well
forked, is brownish black, with narrow, yellowish brown
external edges, white at the base, and broader light brown
or greyish white inner margins ; upper tail coverts brown,
the middle of the feathers darker than the edges ; under
tail covert", dull brownish white, some of them with a
dark central mark.
ilatro atttf
SAND DESKS.
Mr. Robert Blair, F.S.A., contributes an interesting
note on this subject to the Antiquary. Barrington
School, Bishop Auckland, was, he says, founded in 1810.
The following curious items in connection with it are
gleaned from an old account of William Ramshaw, a well-
known joiner, builder, and auctioneer of the time, a
native of Bishop Auckland, and the father of Lady
Armstrong : —
To Sand Bords with desk 13s. each .. ..160
To 2 Rowlers for leveling Sand ................... 020
To 2 Rowlers with Handles .............................. 0 3 0
To Levelling old Sand Bord and putting new edges
on ............................................................ 066
To a new Sand Bord 11 ft. long with 3 Desks ...... 1 2 0
To painting Desks .......................................... 0 3 6
To a Rouler with handle of oak ........................... 0 2 0
To a Rouler with handle grooved at end ............ 016
These items, continues Mr. Blair, refer to writing in sand
formerly in vogue, now an obsolete practice, said to have
been derived from the Hindoos. The use of it in the
Barrington School was for the first teaching of letters.
The lowest class, the sixth, was called the sand-class.
The children stood before a long desk, called the sand-
table, about 12 feet long and 10 inches wide, with a small
rim on each side. On this table was put some sand, which,
by the application of a"rowler"of a peculiar form, was
reduced to an even surface, with three lines in it to direct
the height of the letters. A card with letter A was placed
before the child, and the finger was directed by the
teacher to make the letter in the sand, and so on from
letter to letter, until the end of the alphabet was
reached. ECHO, Newcastle.
THE LOUGH FAMILY.
Being a native of the village of Greenhead, and intim-
ately acquainted with the Lough family, I wish to
add a few items to the biography of the sculptor, which
appears in the Monthly Chronicle, page 199.
William Lough, the sculptor's father, was a blacksmith
and farrier at Greenhead, who, when John was quite a
child, entered upon the farm of Low Muggleswick. His
wife, the sculptor's mother, a tall, fine-looking woman,
was a native of Allendale Town. Her maiden name was
Clemitson, and she had a. nephew, whom I knew very
well as an itinerant minister in the Primitive Methodist
body.
When old Mr. Lough went to Muggleswick, he left the
smithy in charge of his son Clemitson, or "Clem," as we
called him. "Clem" was a man of fine physique, and
acquired great skill in farriery. He eventually succeeded
to the business, and helped John tc maintain his father
and mother in comfort at Blanchland, where they died
about forty years ago. " Clem " remained at Greenhead
till 1846, when he removed to the adjoining hamlet of
Car terway- Heads, and died there in February, 1876— a
couple of months before his more celebrated brother.
Besides Clemitson and John, there were two sons of the
fa'aily— Thomas and William. Thomas was the brother
who helped tne sculptor with his clay dollies. It used to
be said that he was the better modeller of the two. Cer-
tainly he could draw wonderful figures on the floor with
cinders from under the grate. I have in my possession
some rough sketches of his upon paper, which he made
less than twenty years ago, when he had become a sort of
vagrant, for, although he was a fairly good blacksmith,
he never could be induced to settle down to anything. He
composed various pieces of poetry, some of which were
published, and could play moderately well upon the
fiddle, which he held between his knees, using the
bow with his left hand. Thomas died in Lanchester
Workhouse somewhere about twelve years ago. The
the other brother, William, held a responsible position
for about fifty years at Murton Colliery, under
the South Hetton Coal Company, and died (about the
same time as poor Tom), either at Seaham Harbour or
234
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
South Hetton, I am not sure which. He left a son who,
I believe, is still employed in the London office of the
company.
The Mr. Hopper who built the porch, or gateway, at
Greenhead was a retired naval captain. Why he had the
figures dressed as Highlanders instead of as sailors, I
never was able to understand ; but so it was.
Greenhead is, without doubt, a quiet and out-of-the-
way place to-day. But when I was a lad it was much less
so. Being on the main road from Scotland to the South,
it was a favourite rendezvous for the dealers and drovers
who accompanied the great droves of cattle and sheep
that were sent from the North to Southern markets.
There was a good inn at Greenhead, plenty of grass land,
and Lough's smithy, where they could have their cattle
shod if necessary ; for, strange as it may appear to the
present day reader, cattle often wore shoes like horses at
that time. At this kind of work, " Clem " Lough was
an adept. I have known him to be sent for from long
distance to shoe cattle, and have heard of his ac-
companying droves as far south as York for the same
purpose. Before the advent of railways, Greenhead was a
sort of centre for a wide district, and was kept in close touch
with the outside world.
A. RICHARDSON, Guisborough, Yorkshire.
Room in a Cherry Stone : Landeau and Six, drawn by a
Flea ; Scissors, &c. &c. &c. is shewn at the above shop at
the usual Time and Price.
F. FAWCUS, Alnwick.
"I'M BROWN."
Newspaper readers who have perused the accounts of
the experimental trial of the London and Paris telephone,
which was formally opened on the 31st of March, may
have noticed that the word " Brown " cropped up rather
frequently as the name of an experimenter at the Paris
end of the cable. Its owner is Mr. William Brown, who
was for many years in the Newcastle telegraph office.
Mr. Brown was placed in charge of the telephone ex-
change on its establishment in Newcastle in 1882. Sub-
sequently he was transferred to the staff of Mr. W. H.
Preece, the electrician to the Post Office, by whom he
was sent to Paris to assist in the experiments there.
X., Newcastle-on-Tyne.
S. BOVERICK, WATCHMAKER.
The following advertisement is taken from an "His-
torical Register of Remarkable Events," by John Sykes,
bookseller, Johnson's Head, Newcastle, printed in 1824 : —
August 31. 1765.
S. BOVERICK, WATCHMAKER,
In the Groat Market, Newcastle, begs leave to acguint
the curious in the Medal Way, That he has discovered a
perticular neat Manner of taking the Impressions off
from all sorts of Medals ; the Matter of which they are
made being far more durable than any yet made use of.
He sells them either in a Collection in Frames, or singly
gilt, or plain white : or if any Person chuses a perticular
Colour, by given Time, may be accommodated. A speci-
man may be seen of both gilt and plain at the above Place.
N.B. — His Collection of Miniature Curiosities, made by
himself, consisting of a Chaise, weighing but one Dram,
drawn by a Flea; a Chain, Flea, Padlock, and Key,
weighing but one third of a grain ; Furniture of a Dining
THE CITY OF DURHAM.
In an ancient Saxon poem, the city of Durham is
described as follows :—
This city is celebrated
In the whole empire of the Britons.
The road to it is steep :
It is surrounded with rocks
And with curious plants.
The Wear flows round it,
The river of rapid waves ;
And there live in it
Fishes of various kinds
Mingling with the floods.
And there grow
Great forests ;
There live in the recesses
Wild animals of many sorts ;
In the deep valleys
Deer innumerable.
There is in this City
Also well known to men
The venerable St. Cuthbert ;
And the head of the chaste king
Oswald, the lion of the Angli;
And Aidan, the Bishop ;
^Edbert and ^Edfrid,
The noble associates.
There is in it also
yEthelwold, the Bishop;
And the celebrated writer Bede,
And the Abbot Boisil,
By whom the chaste Cudberth
Was in his youth gratis instructed ;
Who also well received the instruction.
There rest with these saints
In the inner part of the Minster
Relicks innumerable,
Which perform many miracles,
As the Chronicles tell us,
And (which) await with them
The judgment of the Lord.
AND. INNO, Heaton.
"WATERLOO WETHERAL."
Haugbton-le-Skerne, a little country village about a
mile from Darlington, was the residence of an old soldier
who went by the name of "Waterloo Wetheral."
Wetheral was present in the field on the memorable 18th
of June, 1815. Many were the stories he told my com-
panions and me as we quitted school and assisted him to
" knap diamonds," he being, although he had a pension
from the army, a stonebreaker and roadman.
I can still picture to myself his rough and haggled face
and broken nose as he grasped his hammer, and showed
us how he slaughtered the long-moustachioed French-
men ; but, whatever his animosity towards the French
may have been, and however rough and uninviting his
outward appearance was, I can only say that he had
a gentle heart and a forbearing spirit, for many were
the pranks we played upon him. Let them be ever so
unpleasant to himself, he always received us with the
same good humour nightly. About thirty years ago he
May 1
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
235
was taken, I think, to Chelsea Hospital, where he soon
afterwards died at a ripe age.
The following note occurs in Fordyce's "History of
Durham," published in 1857 : — " Weatheral, one of
the Waterloo heroes mentioned by Haydon the painter
in bis autobiography, is still living, and is em-
ployed in working on the road which passes through
Haughton-le-Skerne. A recent writer says : — ' He has
eighteen holes in his jacket, corresponding to the
eighteen wounds in his chest. His head and neck are
cut to pieces, and he has holes and cuts by sword, spear,
and ball all over his body. His nose was cut off and held
by a "tag of skin," and as he lay on the field bleeding,
and unable to move, holding his nose up by his hand, he
called to one of the 42nd, who was hurrying past, to get a
bit of rag to put up his nose. The 42nd man found a
piece of rag and bound it round his head. The unfor-
tunate feature adhered. As the burly figure of the
brave soldier stands before you, no one would sup-
pose for one moment that his body is patched up,
healed and stitched as it is all over; for his
hearty laugh, his fire and enthusiasm in describing the
deeds of Waterloo, are as fresh, youthful, and vigorous
as when detailing to Wilkie, Haydon, and Scott
the feats of June 18th, 1815.' "
THOMAS WILKINSON, Houghton-le-Spring.
" JESSAMOND MILL."
Having in my possession a few numbers of the "Ladies'
Own Memorandum Book," which was published in New-
castle, and printed by S. Hodgson, and is now probably
very rare, I have copied the following from the year
1772 :—
To sing of some nymph and her cot
Each bard will oft flourish his quill ;
I'm glad it has fall'n to my lot
To celebrate Jessamond Mill.
When Spring hither winds her career
Our trees and our hedges to fill.
Vast oceans of verdure appear,
To charm you at Jessamond Mill.
To plant every rural delight
Here Nature has lavish'd her skill ;—
There fragrant breezes unite
And wanton round Jessamond Mill.
When Silence each evening here dwells,
The birds in their coverts are still,
No music in sweetness excels
The clacking of Jessamond Mill.
Reclin'd by the verge of the stream,
Or stretch'd on the side of the hill,
I'm never In want of a theme
Whilst peering at Jessamond Mill.
Sure Venua some plot has design'd,
Or why is my heart never still
Whenever it pops in my mind
To wander near Jessamond Mill ?
My object, ye swains, jou will guess,
If e\er in love you had skill :
And, faith, I will frankly confess
'Tis Jenny at Jessamond Mill.
The writer hides his identity under the nom de plume of
"Primrose," Newcastle. The verses have little literary
merit, but they are certainly a curiosity, and show that
then, as now, Jesmond Mill was a favourable subject for
the poet's pen. GEORGE .T. BELL, South Gosforth.
A REMARKABLE VILLAGE.
Whilst walking along a strange country lane, a gentle-
man came in contact with a pit lad, and accosted him
thus : — •" Is there any village hereabouts, my fine fellow?"
"Thor is, sor," responded the lad, "aboot half a mile
farther alang the road." " And what might be the name
of the village?" the gentleman further asked. "Aa
divvent ken that, mistor ; but thoo cannot varry weel
misteck it, for thor's oney yen hoose !"
A STOBY OF A FIG.
A village not a hundred miles from Bellingham is
blessed with a very zealous policeman, who on one occa-
sion wished to find out the owners of some pigs that were
occasionally allowed to stretch their legs on the village
green. Meeting a youngster, he commenced : " D'ye
keepapig?" " Yes, " was the reply. " Aawant tosee't,"
says Robert. "Come on then," said the youngster, and,
leading the way into the house, he pointed to the ceiling,
saying, "Thor's yen half, and t'other yen's eaten !"
A REASON FOB VOTING.
Some years ago, when Mr. Alderman Temple first
appealed to the municipal electors of Newcastle, a friend
of his asked a boilersmith, noted for his predilection for
dogs, for whom he was going to vote. " Wey," was the
unhesitating reply,' " aa's gannin' te plump for Temple. "
" Well, if it is no offence, you might tell me why you are
voting for him." "Oh, aa'll tell ye, reet eneuf. Ye see,"
said the boilersmith, pointing to his canine companion,
" Mr. Temple's dog an' ma dog's brother and sistor !"
COLOUR BLINDNESS.
A well-known Northern professor (so says a writer in the
Oldbe) is very fond of relating the following incident, the
truth of which he asserts solemnly :— He had been lectur-
ing one evening upon colour blindness, and at the con-
clusion of his remarks a pitman, who had evidently not
grasped his lucid explanations, came to him and asked if
he would solve the mystery. "Certainly," said the pro-
fessor. "What is this culor blindness, then?" asked
Geordie. "Well," replied the learned gentleman, hold-
ing up a piece of red coloured glass, "supposing that
when you looked at this you imagined it was green, that
would be an instance." "That's culor blindness, de ye
say ?" replied Geordie, with a look of disgust. " If ye
ax'd me, aa wad caall it d d ignorance !"
IN CELESTIAL REGIONS.
An old gentleman, who resides in a Tyneside village,
one night stayed rather long at the ale-house, with the
result that when he ventured into the open air about
eleven o'clock he found things considerably mixed. It was
not far to his domicile, but it was necessary to cross a
single-plank bridge over a stream. The night was clear
and the moon shone brightly. His progress was not
236
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
marked by incident until he reached the plank. When
attempting to move along the plank, he fell across
it, but did not touch the water. At this moment his
daughter, who had been on the look-out for her parent,
and was standing at the cottage door, shouted : — " Whor
are ye, fethor? Aa cannot see ye onnywheres." "Aa
divvent knaa, aa divvent knaa," exclaimed the old man,
gazing into the stream and seeing the lunar reflection,
" but aa's somewhere above the moon !"
Mr. George N. Cairns, an old Customs officer, died on
March 10th at Berwick -on-Tweed, of which he had been
constituted a freeman thirty -six years ago.
On the 13th of March, the death was announced, as
having taken place at Crystal Brook, near Adelaide,
South Australia, on the 22nd of January, of Dr. John
Taylor Parkinson, a native of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and a
son of the late Mr. Parkinson, chemist, in that city. The
deceased, after practising the medical profession for eight
years at Brotton-in-Cleveland, emigrated to Australia.
As an example of longevity in the Alston district, the
death was recorded on the llth of March of Mrs. Phillis
Teasdale at Foreshields Grains, in her 98th year.
Mr. John Beekwith, considered to be a member of one
of the oldest families in the district, died at Consett on
the llth of March, at the age of 71 years.
On the 14th of March, Mr. Thomas Pallister Dods,
land agent and valuer, died suddenly at his residence,
Eilan's Gate, Hexham. The deceased gentleman, who
was the son of a former Presbyterian minister at Belford,
and a brother of the Rev. Professor Marcus Dods, of
Edinburgh, was a distinguished agriculturist, and was
prominently identified with several local public bodies.
Mr. Dods was 68 years of age.
On the 15th of March, Mr. George Garry Taylor-Smith,
J.P., died at his residence, Colpike Hall, Lanchester, in
the 57th year of his age. He evinced a deep interest in
agricultural pursuits, and assisted in all philanthropic
movements in the district. The deceased gentleman was
a member of one of the most distinguished Catholic
families in the county of Durham, one of his brothers
being the newly invested Canon Taylor-Smith, formerly
of Tow Law, and now of Wolsingham.
Mr. Gerrard Robinson, one of the best wood-carvers
the North of England has ever produced, died at the age
of 57 on March 18, in Pine Street, Newcastle. The son
of Robert Robinson, a blacksmith in the employment of a
firm of coach-builders in Newcastle, he was apprenticed
to the late Mr. Tweedy, of the same town. While in that
gentleman's service, he superintended the carving of the
Shakspeare and Robinson Crusoe Sideboards that were
shown at the Great Exhibition of 1862. Indeed, it has
been stated that " all the great character carvings which
were produced at Mr. Tweedy's, including the famous
scenes from 'Tarn o' Shanter,' were mainly his ideas and
the result of his work." Mr. Robinson left Mr. Tweedy
in 1872, set to work on his own account, and produced
the Chevy Chase Sideboard. Not meeting with the
encouragement he deserved in Newcastle, he removed to
London, where he started business in Duke Street, and
where he had for one of his pupils Mr. Seymour Lucas,
the well-known Associate of the Royal Academy. Re-
turning to Newcastle, he was commissioned by Earl
Manvers to execute a magnificent mantel-piece for
Thoresby Hall, representing scenes in Sherwood Forest,
cut out of timber grown in the forest itself. Many other
elaborate and masterly carvings were produced by Mr.
Robinson — notably "The Boar Hunt," "The Scissors
• Grinder," "The Derby Day Sideboard," besides a large
number of handsome lecterns that now adorn churches in
various parts of England.
Mr. James Sutherland, formerly quartermaster of the
3rd Battalion Northumberland Fusiliers, who had seen a
service of nearly forty years, died at Alnwick.
Mr. John Peel, a well-known horse dealer, died at his
residence, Barras Bridge, Newcastle, on the 22nd of
March, at the age of 53 years.
On the 21st of March, the death was reported of
Richard Stamp, of Widdrington, a somewhat eccentric
character, who was for many years a successful farmer.
He had reached the advanced age of 93 years.
On the same day the death was announced of Mr.
Alderman Dresser, of Darlington, at the age of nearly'
84 years.
The death occurred, on the 22nd of March, of Mr.
Alexander Allen, one of the oldest and most respected
inhabitants of South Shields. He was one of the pro-
moters of the Swimming Club in that town, and held the
position of honorary swimming master until old age com-
pelled him to retire. Mr. Allen was in his 85th year.
On the 24th of March, Mr. Edward Tomsett, master
painter, died at his residence, Salem Street, Sunderland,
aged 72. The deceased left a wife and three daughters,
one of the latter being Madamo Tomsett, the well-known
soprano vocalist, of Newcastle.
The death was announced on the 24th of March, of Mr.
Lionel Winship, of Benton West Farm, Northumber-
land, a descendant of an old North-Country family.
On the same day was reported the death, at his resi-
dence, Boldon, of Mr. R. H. Potts, J.P., at one time a
well-known builder of wooden ships at Sunderland. The
deceased gentleman was 70 years of age.
Mr. John James Hunter, the Northern representative
of a large sugar business, and a son of the late Mr. George
Hunter, a town councillor of Newcastle, died at Tyne-
mouth on the 25th of March.
On the 27th of March, the death was announced of Mr.
Thomas Crawhall, an old and respected inhabitant of
Stanhope, and a representative of an ancient local family.
He was 75 years of age.
An intimation appeared on the 28th of March of the
death, at the age of 63, of Mr. A. K. Davison Moffatt, of
Beanley, a well-known Northumbrian agriculturist, and
a descendant of a family who had farmed in the county
of Northumberland for centuries.
On the 30th of March, Mr. George Morson, a gentle-
man largely interested in the coal, coke, and iron trades
of the county of Durham, died at Castle View, Bishop
Middleham, at the age of 75 years.
Mr. Frederick Ravenscroft, formerly manager for
Messrs. Maling and Co., potters, Newcastle, died at
Hanley, Staffordshire, on the 31st of March.
On the 1st of April, the Rev. Robert Hopper William-
son, M.A., a grandson of Robert Hopper Williamson,
who was for many years Recorder of Newcastle, died at
Whickham, aged 78.
On the same day, the death occurred, somewhat sud-
Mnv 1
Wai. ;
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
237
deuly, of Mr. William Coor Parker, of Darlington, who
was for a long period the manager of Mesbrs. Henry
Pease and Co.'s woollen mills. He was a very active
man in connection with the advancement of education,
and for some time he was chairman of the School Board.
The deceased gentleman was 68 years of age.
Mr. John Dawson, who for twenty-five years had been
connected with the commercial department of the New-
castle Chronicle, and who had taken considerable interest
in the co-operative and other social movements, died after
a short illness on the 3rd of April, aged 50.
On the 4th of April, Mr. John Marley, C.E., long
known as one of the leading mining engineers in the,
county of Durham, died at Darlington. The deceased,
who was 68 years old, was with the late Mr. John
Vaughan when the latter first discovered ironstone near
Eston.
Mr. Ralph Sanderson, contractor and builder, and a
member of the Durham Town Council, died on the 5th of
April.
On the 6th of April, the sudden death was announced,
at the age of 66, of Mr. David Gallon Pinkney, one of
the largest owners of steam shipping in the port of
Sunderland.
Mr. Richard Charles Symonds, a gentleman well
known in Quayside commercial circles, and a prominent
Freemason, died suddenly at his residence in Grosvenor
Road, Newcastle, on the 6th of April. The deceased,
who was 48 years of age, was one of the chief supporters
of the Newcastle Bowling Green.
Mr. William Milburn, postmaster of the village of
Greenside, died on the 7th of April.
On the 8th of April, Mr. Jonathan Hodgson, master of
the Stanhope Union Workhouse, died suddenly at the
age of 64 years.
On the same day, Mr. John TVeddell died at Blyth, of
the Local Board connected with which town he was a
member. The deceased was brought up as an architect,
but having had a fortune left him, he did not follow his
calling.
The death was announced, on the 9th of April, of Mr.
John Rutherford, Monkwearmouth, at the ripe age of 90
years. The deceased was believed to be the oldest ship
captain residing in the town.
at
©crarrences.
MARCH.
11. — The Rev. A. F. Riley was elected chairman, and the
Rev. W. Moore Ede vice-chairman, of the Gateshead
School Board. Mr. Charles Richardson was at the same
time cbosen a member of the Board in succession to Mr.
G. T. France, resigned.
— A woman named Dorothy Sinclair stabbed her
husband, Thomas Sinclair, at Coldside Farm,' near
Morpeth, inflicting such injuries that he died almost
instantaneously. The couple, who were farm-servants,
were reported to have lived on good terms ; and the woman
was in a state of great distress after the occurrence. On
being taken into custody, she stated that, after they had
returned from a hiring market, her husband was making
game of her, when, seizing a table-knife, she threatened to
stab him if he did not desist, never intending, however, to
do him any harm. The deceased was 50 years of age, and
his wife six years younger. The coroner's jury returned a
verdict of wilful murder, and the woman was committed
for trial on the same charge by the magistrates.
12. — Mr. Henry Noel Mallan, inspector of fisheries, held
an inquiry at the Moot Hall, Newcastle, in reference to a
by-law made by the Local Fisheries Committee, prohibit-
ing fishing by trawlers in the Northumberland sea fisheries
district.
13. — Sergeant McQueen, of the Tynemouth borough
police, was examining a gun at the window of his house,
when it exploded, and a boy named Thomas Hewett,
eight years old, received a shot in the back of his head. The
lad died from the effects of the wound on the following
day, and McQueen was taken into custody on the charge
of having caused his death. The coroner's jury, however,
found that the occurrence was purely accidental, and the
magistrates being of the same opinion, the sergeant was
eventually discharged.
— It was announced that the will of the late Mr. Thomas
Richardson, M.P. for the Hartlepools, had been proved,
the amount of the personalty being £290,000.
— A successful conversazione was held in the Natural
History Museum, Newcastle, under the auspices of the
associated artistic, literary, and scientific clubs and
societies of the city.
14. — It was reported that the curious isolated mass of
rock on the shore at East Hartlepool, popularly known
as "The Elephant Rock," had suffered greatly from the
late storm. It was severely shaken by the violence
of the waves, and part of it had fallen. (See Monthly
Chronicle, 1889, page 526.)
— A Miners' Hall, erected at a cost of £1,400, and the
gift of the owners to the men, was opened at New
Brancepeth Colliery.
15. — A strong south-easterly gale, accompanied by
heavy rain, prevailed in Newcastle and off the mouth
of the Tyne. In the evening, the schooner Ploughboy,
of Shorebam, ran ashore at South Shields, but the crew
were rescued by the Life Brigade. On the same day,
the brig Union, of Christiania, stranded near Alnmouth,
the crew, in this instance, being saved by the rocket
apparatus.
17. — There being no cases for trial at the South Shields
Police Court, Mr. W. R. Smith, the magistrate in atten-
dance, was presented with a pair of white kid gloves.
— The enthronement of Dr. Magee as Archbishop of
York took place in York Minster. The Bishops of Derry,
Wakefield, and Newcastle took part in the service. The
ceremony was performed by the Dean of York in the
presence of about 600 clergymen.
— Mr. James Coltman, grocer, was elected, after a
contest, member for Heaton Ward in the Newcastle
City Council, the vacancy having been created by the
elevation of Mr. William Temple to the bench of alder-
men.
—St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in Newcastle by a
meeting and concert in the Town Hall, under the pre-
sidency of Mr. Bernard McAnulty. The principal
speaker was Dr. Tanner, M.P.
18. — The Earl of Ravensworth presided at the annual
meeting of the Institute of Naval Architects in London.
19. — Colonel John A. Cowen, of Blaydon Burn, was
elected a member of the River Tyne Improvement Com-
238
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
mission, as representative of th« traders, in the room of
the late Mr. William Dickinson.
— An exhibition of pictures was opened in the Odd-
fellows' Hall, Saville Street, North Shields, under the
auspices of the Tynemouth Fine Arts Association.
—At St. Charles's Catholic Schools, Tudhoe, the Very
Rev. Joseph Watson was presented with an illuminated
address and a purse of gold, in honour of his elevation
to the Provostship of the diocese.
—A handsome illuminated address was presented to
Mr. Alderman Thomas Richardson by the members of
the class of which he had been leader for twenty years
in connection with the Brunswick Wesleyan Chapel,
Newcastle.
20. — The long-continued strike at Silksworth Colliery
was brought to an end, the men having, by a majority of
288 to 143, resolved to return to work on the masters
undertaking that no influence should be brought to bear
on the deputies to remain outside the association of the
men. Work was fully resumed on the 31st of March.
21.— The fourteenth annual dinner of the Hotspur
Club, an association of North-Countrymen resident in
the metropolis, was held in the London Tavern, Fen-
church Street, London. There were nearly a hundred
gentlemen in attendance, and the chair was occupied by
Mr. G. J. Haggis.
— A fire, which proved to be very destructive, broke
out in the shop 81, Ormonde Street, Jarrow, occupied by
Messrs. Wardle and Cochrane, clothiers.
— Th« last of the series of People's Concerts for the
season was given in the Town Hall, Newcastle.
22. — John Smart, a boy about 15 years of age, was
accidentally shot dead by another lad, named Hedley, at
Seaton Lodge Farm, near Seaton Sluice. The two
youths had been using the gun, which was the cause of
the occurrence, for the purpose of scaring rooks from
the farm.
— Special services were held in Bath Lane Church,
Newcastle, on the occasion of the first anniversary of the
death of Dr. Rutherford ; and during the day a number
of floral offerings were placed upon the late pastor's grave
in Elswick Cemetery.
23. — Mr. John Morley, M.P., was elected president of
the Newcastle Liberal Club.
24. — A meeting was held in the Guildhall, Newcastle,
under the presidency of the Mayor (Mr. J. Baxter Ellis)
in furtherance of the objects of the Royal Alfred Institu-
tion for Sailors. An influential local committee was
appointed.
— Mr. C. B. Hodgson, brother of the late Clerk of the
Peace for Cumberland, was elected to the offices of Clerk
of the Peace, Clerk to the County Council, and Clerk to
the Standing Joint Committee.
25. — Messrs. Palmer and Company launched from their
shipyard at Howdou the cruiser Rainbow, built to the
order of her Majesty's Government. The christening
ceremony was performed by Mrs. C. B. McLaren, of
London.
26. — It was announced that, on the nomination of the
Technical Education Committee of the Northumberland
County Council, Dr. William Somerville, lecturer on
forestry in Edinburgh University, had been appointed
Professor of Agriculture and Forestry in connection with
the Durham College of Science in Newcastle. A few
days afterwards, on the recommendation of the Council
of the North-East Coast Institution of Engineers and
Shipbuilders, Mr. R. L. Weighton, M.A., was chosen as
first professor in the department of Mechanical and
Marine Engineering and Naval Architecture, which had
also been established in connection with the College.
Mr. Weighton is a graduate of Edinburgh University,
and had latterly been employed as chief-draughtsman at
Messrs. R. and W. Hawthorn, Leslie, and Co.'s Works,
St. Peter's, Newcastle.
— At a special meeting of the Berwick Town Council, a
gold chain and medallion, together with a wand decora-
tion, were handed in trust to the Corporation for the use
of the present and future Sheriffs of Berwick, who had
hitherto had no insignia of office.
— Mr. T. P. Marshall was elected a member of the
Gateshead Town Council, in the room of Mr. Dunn,
promoted to the rank of alderman.
27. — Good Friday, which occurred to-day, was, according
to custom, observed as a general holiday, but the weather
was very cold and windy, detracting from the pleasure of
outdoor recreation. The weather was also very disagree-
able on Easter Monday (30th).
— A new Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, erected at a cost
of nearly £2,800, was opened at Amble.
29. — Three stained glass windows, provided by Lord
Northbourne in memory of his wife, were unveiled in
the chancel of Christ Church, Jarrow.
— The Rev. J. Page Hopps, a well-known Unitarian
minister, of Leicester, preached anniversary sermons in
the Church of the Divine Unity, Newcastle. On the
following evening he was present and spoke at the annual
soiree of the congregation.
30. — The annual conference of the School Attendance
Officers' National Association was held in Newcastle. The
morning proceedings were presided over by Mr. Usher, of
Liverpool, and those in the afternoon by the Rev. W.
Moore Ede, Rector of Gateshead. The details of a super-
annuation scheme were discussed and adopted.
— Mr. Arthur Pease presided over the annual con-
ference of the Young Men's Christian Associations of the
North-Eastern district. The members afterwards pro-
ceeded to Auckland Castle, where they partook of
luncheon at the invitation of the Bishop of Durham.
31. — A stained glass window was about this time com-
pleted for the Parish Church of Alston, as a memorial of
the late Rev. E. L. Bowman, who was for upwards of
fourteen years vicar of the parish.
— The Hon. J. B. Patterson, late Postmaster-General for
Victoria, was entertained at a banquet given in big
honour at the White Swan Hotel, Alnwick, his native
town.
— Mr. Thomas Burt, M.P., as English president, inau-
gurated the proceedings connected with an international
congress of miners at Paris.
APRIL.
1. — The foundation stone of a new Masonic Hall was
laid at Wallsend by Sir M. W. Ridley, M.P.
— A representative meeting of the showmen who had
been located in the city over the Easter holidays, was
held in Newcastle under the presidency of Mr. Alderman
W. D. Stephens. Speeches were delivered antagonistio
to what was known as the Movable Dwellings Bill, and
a resolution protesting against its provisions was adopted.
— There were unveiled in St. Luke's Chapel, Royal
Infirmary, Newcastle, three stained glass windows, the
gift of Mr. John Hall, J.P., Newcastle.
2. — At a wedding which took place at Whitbum Parish
May 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
239
Church, a curious and very ancient custom was observed.
What were described as "hot pots" were brought by
several of the residents of the village, and, as the party
were leaving the church, the bride and bridegroom were
invited to taste the liquid contained in them. The
mixture consisted of various ingredients, and looked and
tasted something like brewers' yeast. The villagers
claimed that the custom prevailed only in Whitburn, and
that it was so ancient that the origin of it could not be
traced.
— Mr. Alderman Boyd was presented with his portrait,
painted by Mr. C. Burlinson, in the Town Hall, Durham.
3. — The men employed at the various works connected
with the Cleveland iron trade received a fortnight's
notice of a reduction to the extent of 12£ per cent, in
their wages. The matter was, however, subsequently
arranged by the adoption of a sliding scale.
— The seventeenth annual meeting of the Newcastle
Branch of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals was held in the Central Hall, Hood Street,
Newcastle. The Mayor of Newcastle (Mr. J. Baxter
Ellis) presided. The various speakers, among whom was,
as usual, Colonel Coulson, were warm in their praise of
the Dicky Bird Society of the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle,
and of the good work in the inculcation of kindness being
done by Uncle Toby.
— An adjourned meeting of the Governors of the
Wellesley Training Ship was held in Newcastle, to take
into consideration proposed new rules for that institution.
The Mayor of Newcastle presided. It was resolved that
the management of the vessel should be vested in a
committee consisting of not more than twelve governors.
On rule 15, which treated of the religious instruction the
boys should receive, Mr. James Hall moved an amendment
to the effect that the day should be begun and ended
with simple family worship, and that the religious
instruction should be given from the Holy Scripture. It
also provided against any boy being required to learn the
catechism or tenets of any persuasion other than that to
which he was stated to belong. The amendment was
carried by a large majority.
*•— A quarryman named William Fraser, 61 years of
age, committed suicide under most extraordinary circum-
stances in one of the workmen's cottages near Addy-
coinbe, Rothbury. Taking one of the ordinary dynamite
cartridges used in his every-day vocation, he placed it in
an opening in his soft felt hat, applied a light to the fuse,
and calmly stood awaiting the dread result. The man,
when discovered, was quite dead, the body being in a
shockingly mutilated condition.
5. — The tenth decennial census was taken in Newcastle
and district, in common with every other part of the
United Kingdom, the papers being collected on the
following day.
— A stained glass window was unveiled and dedicated
in Tanfield Parish Church, to the memory of the late Mr.
Robert Clark, of Lintz Green House.
6.— Mr. N. G. Clayton laid the foundation stone of new
schools and parochial buildings in connection with the
parish of St. Nicholas', Newcastle, on the site of the
old family town house of the Cooksons, of Whitehill, in
Hanover Square.
7.— A new Seamen's Bethel and Reading Room was
opened in the old offices of the Sailors' Union, High
Street, Sunderland.
— Mr. J. C. Stevenson, M.P., addressed his con-
stituents at South Shields, and received a vote of con-
fidence.
—An inquest was held in reference to the death of Joha
Jackson, aged 63, one of the overseers of Thornley,
who had been found dead in a water-gup between that
place and Haswell, on the 5th. The poor man had lost his
way, and died from exposure.
8.— A small screw steamer, named the Black Watch,
arrived in the Tyne, with a cargo of coal from Cardiff!
The explanation was that the war vessel 25 de Mayo,
which has been built on the Tyne for the Argentine
Republic, required Welsh coal for her bunkers.
10.— It was announced that Messrs. Sissons and
Winter, the accountants appointed by the churchwardens
of St. Mary's Church, Gateshead, to go through the
books and other documents of that ancient structure, had
found the tirst register of births, deaths, and marriages
connected with the church. It went back to exactly
600 years ago. The records were in a good state of
preservation.
— A Life of Admiral Lord Collingwood, by Mr. W.
Clark Kussell, with illustrations by Mr. F. Braugwyn,
was published by Messrs. Methuen and Co., 18, Bury
Street, London.
—Mr. T. Burt, M.P., Northumberland Miners' Asso-
ciation ; Mr. David Dale, ironmaster ; and Mr. Edward
Trow, secretary of the North of England Iron and Steel
Trades Board of Conciliation, were among the gentlemen
appointed members of a Royal Commission on Labour.
©cneral ©eeurances.
MARCH.
10. — An extraordinary sensation was caused through-
out the country by the report of the forcible capture of
his wife by a gentleman named Jackson at Clitheroe.
The couple had been married a year or two before, but-
had parted on their wedding day. After visiting Aus-
tralia, the husband returned to England, though Mrs.
Jackson refused to meet him. An order from the High
Court of Justice for the restitution of conjugal rights was
obtained, but she declined to comply with the order.
Mr. Jackson, then, with the help of some friends, captured
the lady as she was leaving church, conveyed her to a
house at Blackburn, and there kept her a prisoner, al-
though repeated attempts were made by her relatives to
effect a rescue. On the 19th, after hearing arguments in
support of a rule nisi for a writ of habeas corpus
directing Mr. Jackson to produce his wife before the
Lord Chancellor, the Master of the Rolls, and Lord
Justice Fry, the Court directed Mr. Jackson to set his
wife at liberty. Mrs. Jackson, who was present, there-
upon left the court.
— The Irish National Confederation was inaugurated
by the followers of Mr. Justin McCarthy, M.P.
12. — A French peasant named Sylvain Dornon, a
native of Arcachon, commenced a journey on stilts from
Paris to Moscow. He had previously walked on stilts
from his native place to Paris.
13. — Severe snowstorms prevailed in the South, .South-
East, and South-West of England, accompanied by violent
gales. The casualities to shipping were very serious,
many persons being drowned or frozen to death. Rail-
ways were blocked and numerous trains wer°e embedded
in the snow in Somersetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall,
the passengers in several cases suffering great hardships.
240
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
fMaj
1 1891.
13. — On the acquittal of a number of Italians, who
were members of a secret society called the Mafia, and
were charged with the murder of Mr. D. Hennessy, chief
of the police of New Orleans, U.S., a mob of citizens
stormed the prison and slaughtered nine of the prisoners.
This affair led to diplomatic complications, and the
Italian Ambassador to the United States presented his
letters of recall.
15. — Death of Dr. Windthorst, German statesmen.
17. — Prince Napolean (Jerome Napoleon Joseph
Charles Paul Bonaparte), second son of Jerome Bona-
parte, brother of the
first Napoleon, died in
Rome, aged 69. The
deceased gentleman
was not an entire
stranger to the North
of England. While
on tour round the
British Islands in
1856, be paid a short
visit to Newcastle.
On the 18th of June
in that year, he ar-
rived off the Tyne in
his yacht, the Reine
Hortense, at an early
hour, and, disembark-
ing with his suite,
proceeded to New-
castle by the earliest train. After breakfasting at
the Queen's Head Inn, the visitors departed for Seghill
Colliery, where, having clothed themselves in the custo-
mary dresses used in the mine, they were taken down the
shaft and conducted into the workings. The party after-
wards visited Hartley and Seaton Sluice, and then re-
turned to Tynemouth, whence, under a royal salute from
the Castle guns, they took their departure in the after-
noon.
— The British steamer Utopia, with 813 Italian emi-
grants on board, bound from Naples to New York, collided
with the English warship Anson, which was anchored near
Gibraltar, and sank in five minutes. Of the passengers
and emigrants, only 292 were saved out of 830.
20. — The Lord Chancellor delivered judgment in an
appeal against the decision of the Westmoreland magi-
strates by Miss Susannah Sharp, owner of the Low Bridge
Inn, Xentmere, owing to their refusal to renew the license
to that house to sell strong drink. The High Court up-
held the opinion of the court below. The case was known
as Sharp i. Wakefield. The pronouncement established
the doctrine that magistrates have power to refuse licenses
at their discretion.
— An election for a parliamentary representative took
place at Aston Manor, Birmingham, with the follow-
ing result :— Captain Grice Hutchinson (C.), 5,310; Mr.
Phipson Beale, Q.C. (G. L.) 2,332; Conservative
majority, 2,978.
27.— M. Baltcheff, Bulgarian Minister of Finance, was
assassinated in the streets of Sofia. It was supposed that
he had been killed in mistake for M. Stambuloff, the
Premier of Bulgaria.
— During the hearing of the trial of several persons
for rioting at Tipperary, the court-house at Cork, in which
the proceedings were being conducted, caught fire and was
destroyed. The court adjourned, and the jury finally
acquitted the prisoners.
30. — News was received that a British force numbering
about 500 men had been defeated at Manipur, on the
borders of India, several Europeans being massacred,
including Mr. Quinton, chief commissioner of Assam.
31. — Death of Earl Granville, late Foreign Secretary,
aged 77.
— An international congress of miners was opened in
Paris, Mr. Thomas Burt, M.P., delivered the inaugural
address.
APRIL.
2. — Eleven men on strike were killed, and twenty-
seven wounded, during an attack upon the works of the
Frick Coke Company, Morewood, Pennsylvania, U.S.
— Ten men were killed by a colliery explosion at the
Gladderhill mine, Chesterton, Staffordshire.
3.— A coroner's jury at Warboys, Huntingdonshire,
returned the following verdict on the death of a young
man who bad assaulted a woman and then destroyed
himself : — " Committed suicide at the instigation of the
devil."
5. — The census was taken throughout the United
Kingdom. The collection of the papers took place on
the 6th.
7. — Death of Mr. Phineas Taylor Barnum, the famous
American showman, aged 81.
9. — News was received that the Manipuris bad been
defeated with heavy loss by the British forces.
Jlecorbjs.
The following rare birds have been observed during the
past month :—
A lesser grebe and a spotted woodpecker seen near
Easingwold, Yorkshire.
Female pheasant with male's dress reported by Mr. J.
Jackson, of the Natural History Museum, Newcastle.
A large number of hooded crows seen at Hebburn,
Durham.
A pied pheasant captured near Lambton, Durham.
A ringed guillemot, now in the Natural History Museum,
Newcastle, captured off Tynemouth.
A white-necked blackbird seen near Reedsmouth.
A red-necked grebe taken at Mill Hill Farm, near
Dinnington, Northumberland.
A pied blackbird, a red-breasted merganser, and a great
spotted woodpecker seen near Wylara, Northumberland.
Pied wagtails observed on several occasions near New-
castle.
Two cream-coloured larks seen at Tynemouth.
Pintail and shoveller ducks on sale in Newcastle.
Black-headed gulls seen on the Tyne in their summer
dress on March 10.
Scaup ducks and a red-breasted merganser visited the
lake at the Marine Park, South Shields.
A blackbird's nest containing five eggs was found at
Middle Ord, near Berwick, on March 3.
Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling-on-Tyne,
jpTvr
X i Xl
Chronicle
OF
NORTH-COUNTRY*LORE»AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 52.
JUNE, 1891.
PRICK 6n.
atrtr tftr
JDNAM is only a small village in Roxburgh-
shire, but it has acquired world-wide fame.
To many it is known only as the birth-place
of the author of " The Seasons," and that is
no mean honour. The village, however, is famous for its
age, not that the houses which now form the habitations
of its little community bear upon them "the hoar anti-
quity of eld," but no place can be traced further back by
written documentary evidence.
The charter room at Durham contains the deed of King
Edgar (1096-1107), granting to Thorlongus ("Thor the
Long," so named on account of his stature), a Danish
colonist from the North of England, a portion of the
territory of Ednam which he had been instrumental in
reclaiming from the condition of a desert (as it is desig-
nated in the deed) and had helped to people. Thor-
longus also built a church on his property in honour of
the good St. Cuthbert, and this church he afterwards
made over to the monks of Durham. To this gift he
attached certain conditions, stating that it was made for
the good of the souls of the king who granted him the
territory and of several of his kin, for the redemption
of "my dearest brother Lefwin, and for the weal of
myself, both my body and my soul." Thorlongus seemed
to have had an eye to a safe and enduring bargain when
he made this gift. The document thus concludes : —
" And if any one by force or' fraud presume to take
away this my gift from the saint aforesaid, and the
monks his servants, may God Almighty take away from
him the life of the heavenly kingdom, and may he suffer
everlasting pains with the devil and his angels ! Amen."
Thorlongus was regarded as a rather forceful and re-
doubtable personage before he " went over to the
16
majority"; but he must have become a quiet spirit
after that event happened, for it is long since all
monkish rights and titles ti the church at Ednam were
set at naught, and there is no record of bis ever having
disturbed by a visit from the spirit land the heretical
usurpers of his gift. They go about their daily business
without the least dread of bis dire denunciations.
The village is named Ednaham in the deed of gift, but
is more strictly Edenham, from the small, but sweet and
troutful, river Eden intersecting the parish. The neigh-
bourhood must have been greatly the better for the
vigorous and improving hand of Thorlongus, as any
place must be which is transformed from a waste to a
fruitful and healthful condition, where man and beast
may find subsistence. During the feuds between England
and Scotland, Ednam frequently suffered at the hands
of English invaders both in the way of destruction by
burning and by the impoverishment consequent on the
food carried off. It has been the scene of much agri-
cultural improvement since that time, and the parish is
now noted for its fertility and beauty. Well nigh a
century and a half ago it was th« scene of the opera-
tions of an agricultural pioneer, William Dawson by
name, who is reputed to have been the first to sow
turnips in drills, thereby making them a practicable
and profitable crop, for otherwise they would hardly
have been worth cultivating.
Ednam, which belongs to the Earl of Dudley, owes
much of its modern fame to the fact that Thomson the
poet was born there. It was this circumstance that
brought William Howitt to the spot when he was
visiting the "Remarkable Places" which he after-
wards described in his interesting volumes under that
212
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/June
\ 1891.
title. Howitt was, however, somewhat unfortunate in
hia visit. He did not meet the right kind of people of
whom to make his inquiries. Besides, his visit was paid
on the Sunday, and the preaching of the parish minister
was not to his taste, which was for the time perhaps
a little soured by the disappointing character sf his
inquiries regarding Thomson. While about the place he
made up to the village blacksmith, who was a bit of a
character in his way, and not destitute of a sprinkling
of waggishness in his composition. The smithy was bis
by inheritance, and it is now occupied by the second
generation from birm He had no great knowledge of
poets and poetry, and it was hardly the right kind of
introduction for a nameless stranger from the other side
of the Border to go on the Sunday on the somewhat idle
errand of asking questions on altogether secular subjects.
The testy blacksmith, therefore, pretended to have less
knowledge than he really possessed, and this gave the
rather credulous William excuse for chiding and cen-
suring him in his book on account of his ignorance
and dulness. Had William Howitt met him over a
"cheerer," after working hours on a week day, he
would have left Ednam in a happier mood, and with a
better filled note-book.
There are other names known to fame besides that of
Thomson of which Ednam can boast. The village gave
another gifted son of song to the world in the person of
the Kev. Henry Francis Lyte, most widely and familiarly
known for the hymns which he composed, and which are
now found in the hymnology of all the Churches. Lyte
was, however, of English parentage, and was removed
from the place while still a youth. Another son of
Ednam, who lived and died there, was William Wight,
crippled from his youth, but having a power of song
which made many of his pieces welcomed on all hands
in his lifetime. They are still preserved in a modest
volume, which is not known, however, beyond the
district. Then, for a good many years the village had a
schoolmaster, Mr. John G. Smith — still alive in New
Zealand — who kept pouring into the local press pieces
"grave and gay, lively and severe," the best of which
were collected into a volume, and will not soon go into
oblivion in the district. There is reason to believe that
James Cook, the famous circumnavigator, had a con-
nection with the village through his father having been
born and living there till manhood, afterwards migrating
to Yorkshire. Ednam is but a small spot of earth, the
parish being only about four miles square ; but it must
be admitted that it has contributed its fair share of the
celebrities whose names are inscribed on the world's roll
of honour, or remembered amongst local notabilities.
Thomson, the author of "The Seasons," was born in
the village on the llth September, 1700, his father being
parish minister there at the time. Some have contended
that he was born at a place called Wideopen, not far from
Yetholm, where his mother (whose maiden name was
Trotter, not Hume, as many biographies of the poet have
it) had friends and property, but the claim is not well
supported. His father having been appointed to a better
living at Southdean, near Jedburgh, James Thomson was
removed thither when he' was an infant about ten or
twelve weeks old. While of tender years, he came under
the notice of the Rev. Robert Riccalton, minister of the
parish of Hobkirk, and himself addicted to paying court
to the Muses. This gentleman, whose parish adjoined
that of Thomson, senior, made young Thomson something
of a foster-son, superintending his education and directing
his studies, no doubt also training his eye to detect the
beauties of nature, and inciting him to cultivate his
descriptive and imaginative powers. When the parish
school had carried the youth as far as possible, he was
transferred to the Grammar School of Jedburgh, but the
distance would allow him to feel the home-ties of
Hobkirk manse from Saturday till Monday. Then came
his transference in 1715 to the University of Edinburgh,
his purpose being to " take orders " in the Presbyterian
Church of Scotland, and thus to follow his father's
footsteps. In 1718, while still a student, he lost his
father in rather a singular manner. The supernatural in
those days was rather more of a common belief than in
ours, for not a few dreaded the intervention of evil spirits
in their every-day affairs. A place named Wolfelee, not
far from the reverend gentleman's dwelling, was reputed
to be the haunt of a ghost, and the elder Thomson
resolved to make an attempt to exorcise it from the scene
of its escapades. While in the act of prayer, he was
suddenly struck on the head by a ball of fire, and
instantly fell down, stunned and insensible ! He was
carried home and revived a little, attributing the blow
during this time to diabolic interference. But the shock
proved too much for his recuperative powers, and he sank
under it — an event which deeply impressed itself on the
mind of his student son. James got the length of writing
sermons, and delivered one or two before his professor
and fellow -students by way of "trial," as other aspirants
to the pulpit are required to do. The criticism of his
preceptor, indulgent and good-natured in its way, proved
severe and unpalatable, in dealing with the performance
in some respects, though it does not follow that it was
unjust. The exercise which had come under the pro-
fessor's displeasure was on one of the Psalms which
descant on the power and majesty of God, and Thomson
had treated his subject in a strain so puetical and high-
pitched, as a youth of his temperament and caste of mind
would be prone to do, that it would have gone over the
heads of any rustic audience in a country church. Not
only did the professor point out this mistake, but there is
a tradition that the budding cleric's fellow-students were
not so sedate and respectful during the delivery of his
oration as they ought to have been, and that gentle
ripples of laughter saluted his ears. The consequence
was that young Thomson took into his head the
June
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
243
relinquishment of the clerical profession, and wooed the
Muse.
His friend Riccalton may have had some share in this
result. The scene around Hobkirk Manse in the winter
season would often be of a most impressive kind, and when
the tempest raged, the snow wrapped hill and valley in
its folds, and the frost king held stern sway and made
strange silence by day and night, the imagination which
had the poetic element to direct and quicken it would seek
for fit expression. It is understood to have been so with
Riccalton, who had composed a poem descriptive of one
of the snow-storms which often raged in those parts.
This is held to have been so filled with inspiration and
suggestion to Thomson that he took for his theme the
characteristics and beauties of winter. He himself owns
his indebtedness in this way to Riccalton ; and though
it may be that he commenced and completed the under-
taking there and then, it does not follow that the composi-
tion was the poem as it finally left his hands. He was
. given to write, obliterate, and re-write. Before pro-
ceeding to London, it was his custom, every New Year's
Day, to burn all his poetical productions of the previous
year, and the version of "Winter," as we now have
it, differs considerably from that which formed
the first edition in print, so much was he given to
alter, while most of his alterations were improvements.
It became known to a few of his friends that his poeti-
cal gifts were above the average, and his shorter pieces,
and perhaps portions of his "Winter," were handed about
among those likely to appreciate them or be able to form
a fair estimate of their quality.
On the strength of a rather slender encouragement or
invitation of a female relative, Thomson set out for London
with a light purse, uncertain prospects, hopes and fears
struggling for the mastery, and a great poem not yet known
to fame- or accepted by a publisher ! He was destined
to experience the distressful and depressing influences of
hope deferred. He was able to make acquaintanceship
with several individuals of standing and experience,
through whom he soon widened his round of friends
among the patrons and pursuers of literature in the great
metropolis. But poverty haunted his footsteps, and so
stern did fortune become that he hardly knew he had
shoes on his feet. In the course of time he was appointed
tutor to the eldest son of Lord Binning. This was in
1725. Still the want of money was pinchmgly felt ; but
Thomson's indolent disposition needed a spur, and this
scarcity of current coin drove him to the task of putting
" Winter" into such a finished condition as to be fit for
publication.' An early friend of his, David Mallet, who
was private tutor to the Duke of Montroae and his
brother, helped him with criticism and revision, and then
to find a publisher, and in 1726 it was given to the world ;
but all that he got for the copyright was the sum of three
guineas, or about three-farthings a line ! It was dedicated
to Sir Spencer Compton, who seems, if he at first read it,
not to have been able to appraise its merits ; but, on
reading in the newspapers a poetical encomium on the
genius of the author, he sent Thomson twenty guineas.
Its reception was at first chill as the season it described,
but after a while a thaw seemed to set in. It was spoken
of and praised by three persons of influence, and it was
soon its fate to be the success of the year, the theme of
encomium on every unprejudiced lip, and admired by all
who could appreciate work of genius, as well as by many
who only did so because it was the correct thing to do
at the time. Three editions appeared in the year of
publication, and the change to its author was great, for
his acquaintanceship was sought on all hands, and
especially by persons of rank and fashion. Yet it did
not become to him a mine of wealth, for what would
now earn a guinea a line would then be counted well paid
with sixpence — mayhap a penny !
Thomson shortly after became teacher in an academy,
but still applied himself when in the mood to poetical
composition. The fruit of this labour was that "Summer"
appeared in 1727 and "Spring" in 1728. These were
received with welcome, and added to the reputation of
their author. In 1730 " Autumn" first saw the light in a
quarto volume, which contained the other three seasons,
the whole being crowned by that noble hymn which one
of his critics characterizes as the "essence of their beauty
collected in a cloud of fragrance, and, by the breath of
devotion, directed upwards to heaven." That hymn
deserves to be ever had in remembrance, and wherever it
is known Thomson's powers as a poet will never be
reckoned mean or mediocre. Thus : —
These, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God. The rolling year
Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring
Thy beauty walks, Thy tenderness and love.
Wide flash the fields ; the softening air is balm ;
Echo the mountains round ; the forest smiles ;
And every sense and every heart is joy.
Then comes Thy glory in the Summer months,
With light and heat refulgent. Then Thy sun
Shoots full perfection through the swelling year :
And oft Thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks,
And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve,
By brooks and groves in hollow-whispering gales.
Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfmed.
And spreads a common feast for all that lives.
In Winter awful Thou ! with clouds and storms
Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled,
Majestic darkness ! On the whirlwind's wing
Riding sublime, Thou bid'st the world adore,
And humblest nature with Thy northern blast.
Should fate command me to the farthest verge
Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes,
Rivers unknown to song ; where first the sun
Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam
Flames on the Atlantic isles, 'tis nought to me;
Since God IB ever present, ever felt,
In, the void waste as in the city full ;
And where He vital breathes there must be joy.
When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey ; there with new powers
Will rising wonders sing. I cannot go
Where universal love not smiles around.
244
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/June
\ 1891.
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns ;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in Him, in light ineffable !
Come, then, expressive silence, muse His praise.
In 1729 Thomson appeared as a dramatist. His mental
force was not of the dramatic order, and though the pro-
duction was not destitute of merit, it was not destined to
be much of a success, but was rather the victim of the
success of ridicule. It bore the title of " Sophonisba,"
and one line read :
Ob, Sophonisba I Sophonisba, oh 1
which was at once thus paraphrased and turned into
mocking and laughter —
Oh, Jimmy Thomson ! Jimmy Thomson, oh !
In later reprints the author did not allow the unfor-
tunate line to stand, but the damage had been done, and
the mischievous parody has achieved a fame wider far
than the drama itself.
Next year the poet made a tour of the Continent as
companion of the eldest son of Lord Chancellor Talbot—
an event which yielded him exceeding happiness. He
saw much, though he never seemed to have his eyes mere
than half open, and he came home many times wiser than
most would have done who flitted from place to place and
gallery to gallery in a constant buzz of excitement.
During his travels he had been meditating upon a great
poem on "Liberty," and the first parb appeared in 1734,
the second and third in 1735, and the fourth and fifth in
the following year. This poem is in many parts quite
worthy of the genius of Thomson, yet his phlegmatic
temperament failed to rise to the stir and trumpet calls of
hosts in battle array, and the attempt to bear aloft the
" flaunting flag of liberty" failed to answer to the public re-
quirements and tastes, and accordingly it has never taken
the place it deserves.
About this time he obtained the post of Secretary of
Briefs, which carried a salary sufficient for his wants, and
which he held till the death of Lord Chancellor Talbot (to
whom he was indebted for it) in 1737. He does not
appear to have been of a saving disposition, for not long
after this source of income ceased he was arrested for
debt, and was only redeemed from what was called the
" spunging house " by the intervention of Quin the actor.
In 1738, "Agamemnon," and in the following year,
" Edward and Eleonora," two dramatic pieces, were the
products of his pen. The former was produced on the
boards ; but it was coldly received, greatly to the
mortification of the author, who sat first in a state of
extreme suspense and then in deep chagrin at its want of
success ; while the latter was not accepted by any
theatrical manager on account of the political elements
which he had introduced into it. At the request of
the Prince of Wales of his day, the poet, in 1740,
wrote a masque entitled "Alfred," but it was not acted
till three years afterwards. The piece itself is now deep
in the land of forgetfulness ; but it contained "Rule,
Britannia," which will never be forgotten. One comfort
came to him about this time— the conferring upon him of
a pension of £100 a-year by Prince Frederick ; and then
he won the friendship of Lord Lyttelton, whose patronage
he enjoyed till the end of his life. Through that
nobleman he obtained the surveyorship of the Leeward
Islands — an office which brought next to no duties, but
yielded the comfortable salary of £300 a-year. In 1745
he produced the drama of "Tancred and Sigismunda,"
which was not one of his successes; but in 1748 was
issued his "Castle of Indolence," in which he seems to
have had a congenial theme. It was at once successful,
and has ever held a conspicuous place among his works.
The tragedy of " Goriolanus " followed next, and it seems
a pity that he had laboured so much at this kind of work,
in which he met with so much dissappointment, and by
which he was destined to be so little known. His gifts
lay in the quieter and purer region of imagination, and
the fresh and healthy fields of nature. The complexities
of life, the passions and plots of men, were not within the
range of his powers and knowledge, and it is not a matter
of regret or misfortune that Thomson's fame rests rather
upon his descriptions and interpretations of the moods
and mysteries of the seasons than upon the power of ex-
. hibiting the hollowness of the human heart.
Thomson died early, only reaching his 47th year. One
night he walked hastily homewards from London (he
was then residing at Richmond), taking a boat on
the Thames towards the end of the journey. The
night air caused a chill, which resulted in fever.
This was so far overcome, and recovery promised to be
complete ; but, the patient venturing out too soon, a re-
lapse came on, and he died on August 27t h, 1748. His re
mains were interred in Richmond churchyard, and there
his grave is often visited by those who admire his
genius. His merits received national recognition, a monu-
ment being erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey,
at which shrine of the mighties his name is often pro-
nounced with reverence and his works recalled with a
feeling of admiration and homage.
"The Seasons" and "The Castle of Indolence" have
been often re-published, sometimes in sumptuous volumes
with high-class illustrations, these productions of Thom-
son's pen ranking as British classics ; but the author him-
self does not receive the prominence in the biographical
and critical attentions of writers and publishers to which
many men not more eminent, though perhaps more
romantic or eccentric in their lives and opinions, have
been promoted. The void thus existing may yet be
discovered, and Thomson may find a place in some
"Eminent Writers" series, where he will be no un-
worthy company among those thus already honoured.
The house in which Thomson was born still stands.
June!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
245
though it is now dishonoured by being converted into an
out- house. His birth ought to have taken place in the
Manse ; bub it was undergoing repair at the time, and
the minister and his establishment were accommodated
in the best house near at hand, believed to be that of bis
parents at the time. Subsequently the dwelling became
the parish school, but it has been on " the down grade "
since it was vacated by that institution. It deserved a
better fate and a kindlier care, for Thomson saw the
seasons of the year as no other ever saw them before, and
he opened the eyes of succeeding generations to see all
their grandeur and meaning as he did, thereby making
myriads his debtor.
The poet's memory was kept green in the district by an
annual dinner held at Ednam, and attended by men of
the finest taste, education, and position in the district ;
but these meetings were discontinued after 1819, the last
being held in September of that year. It was for one
of these dinners that Burns, who had been invited to be
present, sent his poem on Thomson, when his bust
was crowned with laurel. The Earl of Buchan, who
had been the moving spirit at some of these meet-
ings, had conveyed the hint to Burns that an ode
appropriate to the occasion would be acceptable, and
<the poet, with some show of diffidence, produced the
subjoined : —
While virgin Spring by Eden's flood
Unfolds her tender mantle green,
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,
Or tunes Eolian strains between ;
While Summer, with a matron grace.
Retreats by Dryburgh's cooling shade,
Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade ;
While Autumn, benefactor kind,
By Tweed erects his aged head,
And sees, with self -approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed ;
While maniac Winter rages o'er
The hills whence classic Yarrow flows.
Rousing the turbid torrent's roar,
Or, sweeping, wild, a waste of snows ;
So long, sweet Poet of the Year,
Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won :
While Scotia, with exulting tear,
Proclaims that Thomson was her son.
It was at one of these meetings that the idea was first
publicly thrown out that a monument in honour of the
•author of "The Seasons " should be erected in the parish
of his birth, and not long afterwards the idea was real-
ized. Accordingly, upon the highest piece of ground in
Ednam parish, not far from the road thither from Kelso,
there stands an obelisk to the memory of Thomson, 52
feet in height. It bears upon its western front the simple
inscription :— "Erected to the memory of James Thomson,
author of The Seasons. Born at Ednam, llth September,
A.D. 1700." Though not greatly admired as a work of art,
it is seen from many surrounding points of vantage, and
serves to show to present »s it will to future generations
that this poet at least was honoured among his own
People- THOMAS TWEED.
STiu fJcrrtft=€uimtri> (SavlatrtJ
erf
DANCE TI THY DADDY.
lHE air and refrain of this carol are of much
greater antiquity than the song itself, which
was written about the year 1820 by William
Watson, who also wrote "Thumping Luck to Yon Toon,"
"Newcassel Races," and many other Tyneside songs
popular in their day.
Watson was a shoemaker to business, and, like many of
the trade, an active politician. At election times his pen
was always ready to do service for his party by writing
election songs, political squibs, &c. Some of his songs
appeared in Marshall's collection of Newcastle songs
published in 1827, and his later pieces in Fordyce's
collection, published in 1842. It is, of course, not possible
to commend the effusion now given on the ground of
either good taste or poetical excellence.
The tune has been claimed for both sides of the Border,
but the evidence of publication is clearly on the Scottish
side, although the form and phrasing of the melody
favours English modes. It has long ago been relegated,
like many other beautiful airs, to the limbo of the nursery.
Come here, my lit • tie Jack • y ;
R
V
Now I've smoked me back * y, Let's
have a bit o' crack - y Till the boat comes in.
Dance ti thy dad-dy, Sing: ti thy mam - my,
*=F=g=E
Dance ti thy dad - dy, Ti thy mam - my sing.
I • • P* N . 1 _jr--f f • g \
;=^=5=* j ^Mr^fa<iz^Ea=fc
Thou shalt have a flsh-y On a lit -tie dish-y,
-y — ¥ — r
^
-f--=f=-
-v — IK-
/
Thou shall have a fish - y When the boat conies in.
Come here, my little Jacky ;
Now I've smoked my backy,
246
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{June
1891.
Let's have a bit o' cracky
Till the boat comes in.
Dance ti thy daddy, sing ti thy mammy,
Dance ti thy daddy, tithy mammy sing;
Thou shalt bev a 6shy, on a little dishy,
Thou shalt hev a fishy when the boat comes in.
Here's thy mother hummin'
Like a canny woman,
Yonder comes thi father
Drunk — he cannot stand.
Dance ti thy daddy, sing ti thy mammy.
Dance ti thy daddy, ti thy mammy sing;
Thou shalt hev a 6shy, on a little dishy,
Thou shalt hev a haddock when the boat comes in,
Our Tommy's always fuddling,
He's so fond of ale,
But he's kind to me,
I hope he'll never fail.
Dance ti thy daddy, sing ti thy mammy,
Dance ti thy daddy, ti thy mammy sing ;
Thou shalt hev a fishy, on a little dishy,
Thou shalt hev a codling when the boat conies in.
I like a drop mysel'.
When I can get it sly,
And thou, my bonnie bairn.
Will lik't as weel as I.
Dance ti thy daddy, sing ti thy mammy,
Dance ti thy daddy, ti thy mammy sing;
Thou shalt hev a fishy, on a little dishy,
Thou .shalt hev a mack'rel when the boat comes in.
May we get a drop
Oft as we stand in need ;
And weel may the keel row
That brings the bairns their breed.
Dance ti thy daddy, sing ti thy mammy,
Dance ti thy daddy, ti thy mammy sing ;
Thou shalt hev a fishy, on a little dishy,
Thou shalt hev a salmon when the boat comes in.
united.
j|N important change took place in the charac-
ter and condition of the inhabitants of the
counties on both sides the Tweed after the
crowns of England and Scotland were
Instead of living in a constant state of petty
warfare, they laid aside their coats of mail, hung up
their spears, and became a quiet, pastoral, and religious
people, thankful for a repose which had never been
enjoyed by their forefathers. The devotional and moral
feelings of the Borderers, under these circumstances,
became strongly marked, and it would almost seem as if
the wives and maidens of that particular period developed
a spirit of heroism, a purity of mind, and a strength of
purpose never before observed. Quiet and unobtrusive,
they neither sought nor wished for fame or notoriety, and
and it is only by searching the by-ways of history that we
are enabled to discover 'little streamlets of information
and quaint and curious stories relating to these nuble
spirits of the past.
Such a woman was Lady Grisel Baillie, the eldest
daughter of Sir Patrick Hume. Born at Polwortb, in
Berwickshire, in the troublous times of Charles II., she.
by reason of her wisdom, courage, tenderness, devotion to
duty, and cheerful self-sacrifice, deserves to be considered
a fitting type of a class called into existence by the
singular circumstances of their surroundings. Apart
from her moral qualities, she has another claim on our
regard. In spite of, or perhaps in consequence of, the
hardships and adventures of her early life, she developed
strong poetic genius, and was the earliest of that gifted
band of Border ladies who have so largely contributed to
Scotland's lyric fame. Her father, a gentleman of note
among the persecuted Presbyterians, wns a man of con-
siderable ability and restless energy, actively engaged in
the great struggle for civil and religious liberty which
then convulsed the kingdom. His daughter was conse-
quently brought up amongst persons whose constant topics
of conversation were persecutions and wars and rumours
of wars, and whose most heartfelt wish was the downfall of
Popery and the triumph of the Covenanters.
After the battle of Bothwellhaugh, Baillie of Jervis-
wood an intimate friend and neighbour of Sir Patrick
Hume, was taken prisoner, conveyed to Edinburgh, and
imprisoned in the Tolbooth. It then became a matter of
importance to communicate with him. Great difficulty
was experienced in obtaining a suitable messenger, and in
this emergency Grisel, at the age of thirteen, made her
first appearance on the historic scene ; for, failing to
secure any other reliable emissary, it was, after some
hesitation, decided to send her with a letter, as so
youthful a messenger was not very likely to be
suspected of conveying any treasonable correspon-
dence. The undertaking was one full of danger;
the country swarmed with soldiers ready to arrest
and search anyone unprovided with a pass ; the journey
was a long one, and the whole fifty odd miles had to be
traversed on horseback. Partly on account of the bad
roads, and partly for the purpose of evading observation,
the way was lengthened by the many detours she had to
make, and the quick-witted girl, ever on the alert, was
put to many straits to avoid the searchers. On one occa-
sion, when sore beset, she took refuge with a tribe of
gipsies, to one of whom she had previously shown some
kindness. They treated her in a friendly manner, con-
cealed her and her horse in their tents during the night,
and conducted her the next morning, by little known
paths, to the neighbourhood of Edinburgh.
After many escapes and alarms, Grisel at the close of
the third day reached her destination, but even then must
have experienced considerable difficulty in accomplishing
the object of her journey, which was to gain admission to
the prison unsuspected, slip the letter of advice and infor-
mation into Baillie's hand unseen, and bring back what
intelligence she could. Difficult as the task was, she
managed to do it ; how is not exactly known, but tradi-
tion tells us that she played about the neighbourhood of
the Tolbooth, formed the acquaintance of the turnkey's
children, and, seizing an opportunity when the sentry
June\
in./
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
247
was changed, slipped into the prison and delivered her
precious missive.
She succeeded so well that a second time she was sent
on the perilous expeditiou. A second time she was suc-
cessful, and one can imagine the stout-hearted girl, too
innocent for fear, loyally carrying out her father's in-
structions, proud and flattered that she was the one
chosen to convey words of comfort and consolation to the
honoured patriot and martyr.
A long imprisonment was followed by a hasty trial.
Jerviswood was condemned, and by a final touch of
cruelty executed in the presence of his son. After his
death, the Covenanters were more severely persecuted
than before, and it was thought necessary for Sir Patrick
Hume to go into hiding. His own house was not safe,
parties in search of him coming continually to Redbraes
Castle, to the terror of all the inmates. No other place
of concealment being available, he took refuge in the
family vault under the church at Polworth, whither
Grisel trudged every night by a lonely road, more afraid
of meeting the King's Dragoons than of encountering the
shadowy inhabitants of the other world, whom her imagi-
nation conjured up as she stumbled over the graves in the
darkness.
At this juncture Lady Hume, a delicate woman, greatly
engrossed with the care of her numerous family, was .
perfectly useless. The servants, like those of other
suspected persons, were so often and so strictly examined
that they lived in a constant state of fear, so could not be
trusted ; and Grisel had no one on whom she could rely,
except a carpenter who lived near. With his asssistance
a bed and clothes were conveyed to the burial place,
which was about a mile from the castle. Everything else
needful for her father's safety she did alone, unaided.
Each evening she went by herself, generally about mid-
night, to the dismal hiding-place, carrying provisions and
other things needful, and remained, cheering her parent
and talking to him, as long as she dared, for she was
obliged to be home before the household awoke.
There was often a difficulty in procuring food withont
rousing the suspicions of the servants. The only way it
could be done was by stealing from her own plate, and
her appetite at this time grew very large. Her father
was fond of sheep's head, and one day, when the children
were at dinner, she conveyed the greater part of one to
her lap. Her brother, afterwards Lord Marchmont,
looked up with astonishment, and said, " Mother, will
ye speak to Grisel ? While we have been supping our
broth, she has eaten up the whole sheep's head."
After many tedious weeks spent in this gloomy
abode, Sir Patrick determined to attempt to escape.
Grisel accordingly altered his clothing, dressed him up like
a small farmer, and sent him away with a trusty grieve who
was understood by the servants to be taking a horse to
Morpeth fair. In a few weeks he reached Holland
safely ; but, as soon as it was known he had left the
kingdom, the Government took possession of his estates.
In this extremity Grisel arranged business matters at
home, went with her mother and the children to London,
solicited an allowance for the family, and with difficulty
obtained a grant of £150 a year. It was then resolved to
join Sir Patrick at Utrecht, and hrte, once more united,
they passed their time of exile happily and contentedly
among the friendly Dutch while King James blundered on
to his own undoing in London.
During this momentous time it is pleasant tc see what a,
bright and cheerful life these so-called stern Calvinists
led, notwithstanding their poverty. Their only extrava-
gance was a good house, for which they paid the fourth
part of their income. They could not afford to keep a
servant, except a little girl to wash the dishes : so Grisel,
as usual, took up the heaviest part of the burden. She
went to market, took the corn to be ground at the neigh-
bouring mill, as was the custom of the place, cooked the
dinner, cleaned the house, mended the linen, got up
early in the morning to light her father's study
fire, dressed the children, and took them to his room,
where he taught them everything that was fit for their
age; and when she could find time she gladly took a
lesson in French or Dutch herself. Her father and
mother were fond of music, and managed to buy for little
money a small harpsichord, which was a great amusement
to them. But Grisel, though she loved to play on it as
well as the others, was forced to drudge, and many jokes
used to pass between the sisters about their different
occupations.
A book of songs she wrote at this time was treasured for
many years by one of her descendants. Several of the
verses are interrupted half written, others broken off in
the middle of a sentence ; but the ballad on which her
poetic fame must depend was then intact. Those who
expect to find pretty sentiments and polished language in
" Were nae my Heart licht, I wad Dee," will probably be
disappointed, for the words and ideas are homely ; but it
is original and characteristic of the fine free spirit of the
rustic poetry of Scotland, while its simple story and
artless imagery will always render it a popular favourite.
Sir Patrick Hume, though his income was small, ex-
tended a generous hospitality to other banished folk, and
a frequent guest at his table was the son of his old friend
Jerviswood, who had also forfeited bis estates and been
driven into exile. It is said that Grisel had seen George
Baillie at the time of her romantic journey to visit his
father in prison. Be that as it may, when thrown
together in Holland, they grew greatly attached to each
other, and it became an understood matter they should
marry when better and more prosperous days arrived.
After a time, young Patrick Hume and Baillie got com-
missions in the Guards of the Prince of Orange, and
Grisel showed the greatest care and anxiety that both
brother and lover should be attired in a manner befitting
248
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{June
1881.
their station. They wore little point cravats and cuffs in
those days, and many a night did she Bit up to dress their
laces in order that they might appear as gentlefolks
should.
At last came a happy change. William and Mary
were declared king and queen in place of the bigot James ;
Sir Patrick had his estates restored, and was created a
peer ; while Lady Grisel was nominated maid-of- honour
to the princess. This appointment she declined, having
always her union with George Baillie in view. She was
married two years after the Revolution. Her husband
rose to high office, being made Chancellor of Scotland and
King's High Commissioner, the greatest office in the king-
dom.
From this time Lady Griael's life was ideally perfect
Her duty and affection as a wife and mother were
only paralleled by her devotion as a daughter. She
and her husband passed neatly fifty years of married
life together without oue jar or misunderstanding, feeling
to the last the same ardent affection which had charac-
terised their first days of wedded bliss. Lady Grisel was
blessed with a numerous offspring, and her children rose
up and called her blessed.
To her daughter, Lady Murray, we owe the following
loving description of this brave, true-hearted woman
towards the close of her life : — " She was middle-
sized, well-made, clever (that is, active) in her person,
very handsome, with a life and sweetness in her
eyes most uncommon, .... and to the last had the
finest complexion, with the clearest red in her cheek, that
could be seen in one of fifteen." Time did not lessen the
energy of Lady Grisel Baillie's character. Clothed in
strength and honour, she lived to an age greatly exceed-
ing the allotted span ; and at last, beloved and venerated
by all, she peacefully passed to her eternal rest in 1746.
This brief sketch may be fitly concluded with a sentence
from the inscription eneraved on her tomb at Meller
Mains, which tells us, with greater truth than is common
in epitaphs, that she was a " pattern to her sex and an
honour to her country." M. S. HABDCASTLE.
tn
(|HE increase of the population of Newcastle
during the last ten years has necessitated
considerable changes in the Newcastle Post
Office. In 1881, when Mr. Thomas Hunter, the present
postmaster, came to Newcastle, the accommodation was
insufficient to meet the public demand, and steps were
then taken to induce the authorities at St. Martin's-
le-Grand to enlarge the Newcastle office. The matter
received prompt attention ; but, in view of the adoption
of the Parcels Post, action was postponed. When, how-
ever, the Parcels Post was established in 1883, it was
found absolutely necessary to proceed with the enlarge-
ment of the Newcastle Post Office, and the extensions
have taken the ferm of a handsome building in Westgate
June!
1891./
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
249
Road, the exterior portion of which is shown in the
accompanying drawing.
The necessity for a large extension of the premises will
be obvious when it is mentioned that in 1881 the staff
employed at the Newcastle Post Office was 560, all told ;
whereas at the end of 1890 the staff was 738. The num-
ber of letters dealt with in 1880 in one week was about
6*6,362 ; the number dealt with in one week in 1890 was
1,104,607. The number of telegrams dealt with in 1880
was 1,530,868 ; in 1890, the number was 3,383,697. No
Parcels Post business was transacted in Newcastle in
1880, for the reason that this branch of the service had
not been established ; but in 1890 no fewer than 1,105,413
parcels were dealt with at the Newcastle Post Office. In
1880 there were no telephone transactions ; at the present
time the telephone transactions average about 6,000 in
one day. In 1880, 12 suburban offices were all that could
be found in Newcastle ; in 1890 the number was 32. In
1880 there were six telegraph offices ; in 1890 there were
sixteen. The number of pillar boxes in 1880 was 70 ; in
1890 there were 189.
The additions in Westgate Road are really the back
part of the Newcastle Post Office ; the main entrance will
be, as hitherto, opposite St. Nicholas' Cathedral. Nine of
the windows on the ground floor represent the width of
the sorting office, and five windows on the first floor show
the width of the instrument room. The other windows
represent private rooms, lavatories, &c. On the next
floor the telegraphic engineer and his staff are accommo-
dated, and the rooms at the top of the building are for the
returned letter officials, porters, &c. Some 90 women
are employed at the Newcastle Post Office ; but the exten-
sions are so designed that the males and females are com-
pletely separated, and the young women are under the
charge of a lady superintendent. The cooking rooms in
both departments are fitted up with all modern appliances,
and nothing has been left undone that would minister to
the comfort of the officials and their subordinates.
in
j|N important change has recently taken place
in the aspect of Collingwood Street, New-
castle. The famous Turf Hotel has entirely
disappeared, and its site is now occupied
by a building which, besides forming an agreeable
addition to the architectural features of the city, will,
ere long, be a centre of commercial activity, having been
erected as a banking-house for the well-known firm of
Messrs. Hodgkin, Barnett, Pease, Spence, and Co.
The new bank is in the Italian style of architecture,
with a frontage of about 100 feet, and a height of
53 or 54 feet. As the street is of no great width,
and the building faces north, it was decided that the
design must be broad and simple in its general lines, and
not encumbered with elaborate detail. The wings are
lower than the main block, and are thrown slightly back,
so as to allow the main cornices to be returned at the
ends, and this arrangement materially enhances the
general effect of the building. The principal entrance is
250
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/June
1891.
in the centre, through a door case of dark red granite. All
the rest of the front, except the plinth, which is also
granite, is of Gunnertpn freestone. There are large square
windows on the ground floor with rusticated quoins, and
above a string course of nine windows on the first floor
with architraves and pedimented heads. The windows
of the second floor are plain rectangular openings with
architraves. Above there is a large cornice with swags of
flowers in the frieze. A parapet with vases at the angles
finishes the front. The building has been erected by Mr.
Walter Scott, from designs by Mr. Robert J. Johnson,
F.S.A., of Newcastle and York.
A few notes on the history of the banking firm of
Messrs. Hodgkin, Barnett, Pease, Spence, and Company,
may not be out of place here and now. The occasion for
its establishment was the failure of the Northumberland
and Durham District Bank on the llth November, 1857,
an event which will long be remembered in the North of
England, and which left a void in the banking accommo-
dation of Newcastle. For a short time it appeared as if
this void would be filled up by the establishment of a
private bank under the style of Hawks, Grey, Priestman,
and Co., all the parties in which were shareholders in the
old concern. But when the report of the liquidators
was presented, showing that a heavy call would be made
on each of the shareholders, it became impossible for
Hawks, Grey, and Co. to carry on their business. Under
these circumstances, the late Mr. Jonathan Priestman
(who was one of the partners in the temporarily formed
firm) recommended the formation of an entirely new
bank, and opened communications with Messrs. Hodgkin
and Pease on the subject. Mr. Thomas Hodgkin
was the son of Mr. John Hodgkin, a well-known
barrister of Lincoln's Inn, London, and Mr. John
William Pease is now the only surviving son of
the late Mr. John Beaumont Pease, of Darlington.
The preliminary arrangements occupied a considerable
time, and the consequence was that the new bank was
not opened until March 14, 1859. The partners were Mr.
Thomas Hodckin ; Mr. William Edward Barnett, who
was connected with the firm of Barnett, Hoares, and
Co., bankers, London ; Mr. John William Pease, of
Pendower ; and Mr. Robert Spence, of North Shields,
who had been for a considerable time manager of the
Union Bank, Newcastle.
Messrs. Hodgkin, Barnett, Pease, Spence, and Co.
commenced business in the premises at the corner of St.
Nicholas' Square and Mosley Street, which are now occu-
pied by Franklin and Co., booksellers. In 1862, they
took the premises at present occupied by them in the
Town Hall Buildings on lease from the Corporation of
Newcastle, which premises, it may be explained, had
been built for a bank, and had for a short time been occu-
pied by the before-mentioned firm of Hawks, Grey,
Priestman, and Company.
The principal changes in the firm of Messrs. Hodgkin,
Barnett, Pease, Spence, and Co. have been these :— Mr.
W. E. Barnett died, after a very short illness, from
scarlet fever, in March, 1869. His place was filled by Mr.
Robert Gurney Hoare, son of the late Mr. John Gurney
Hoare, who was at the time senior partner of the firm of
Messrs. Barnett, Hoares, and Co. Mr. Robert Spence died
in August, 1890, leaving a son, Mr. Charles James Spence,
who has been for many years a partner in the firm. Mr.
Howard Pease, son of Mr. John William Pease, joined
the firm in 1888.
Men at JWarft
atttt
5Belfor.li.
!o*q>b ©limn, /#.£.,•
ENGINEER AND AUTHOR.
[JOSEPH GLYNN, one ot the elder sons of
James Glynn, ironfounder and engineer,
and brother of Edward Glynn, was born in
Hanover Square, Newcastle, on the 6th of
February, 1799. Being a precocious child, and exhibiting
at a very early age an unusual taste for mechanics, his
father determined to give him a superior education, and
with that object in view placed him under the care of Mr.
John Bruce. He was one of the first pupils to enter the
far-famed Percy Street Academy at its opening in Mid-
summer, 1806, and he left it about the time that George
Stephenson took his son Robert there. When his school
days were over, young Glynn went into the Ouseburn
factory 'as assistant to his father, and acquired a know-
ledge of the theory and practice of mechanical engineering
that qualified him, when he arrived at man's estate,
to undertake important operations on his own
account. Assisted by two young mechanics, Peter
(afterwards Sir Peter) Fairbairn and William Hawthorn,
he executed, in 1820, his first engineering work—
the erection of a steam engine for the Earl
of Carlisle to pump the water out of Talkin Colliery,
near Brampton. In the following year he designed and
carried out the works required for lighting the town of
Berwick with gas, and prepared plans for a similar under-
taking at Aberdeen. Shortly afterwards he accepted the
appointment of engineer to the Butterley Iron Company,
in Derbyshire, and left Newcastle.
During his early days at Butterley, the railway fever
raged, and Mr. Glynn's services as an engineer were in
frequent requisition. From his association with the
Stephensons and their experiments at Newcastle, he had
become interested in railway enterprise, and an ardent
supporter of its extension throughout the kingdom. Pro-
moters engaged him as a witness on behalf of their pro-
Jnnel
1891.1
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
251
jects while undergoing the ordeal of Parliamentary Com-
mittees; directors and administrators consulted him as
to extensions, routes, expenditure, and the infinite details
of management. He gave evidence to the Royal Com-
missioners on the Use of Iron in Railway Structures, and
reported upon the Overland Route to India, and the
competing scheme of the Euphrates Valley line. When
it was proposed to unite the railway from York to Dar-
lington, known as the Great North of England line, with
the section that extended from Darlington to Newcastle,
he was one of the committee appointed to negotiate the
purchase and effect the amalgamation. In like manner,
when a committee was elected to investigate the affairs of
the Eastern Counties, now1 the Great Eastern, line, he
was appointed secretary to the investigators, and subse-
quently, when a satisfactory adjustment had been com-
pleted, he became deputy-chairman of the Eastern
Counties Board.
Mr. Glynn died in London on his sixty-fourth birth-
day, February 6, 1863.
£ir; f,eonarb (gmnroell,
A DISTINGUISHED SOLDIER.
About the beginning of the eighteenth century, two
brothers GreenwelJ, descendants of the ancient Durham
iainily of that name, married sisters, co-heiresses of
William Aubone, a Newcastle alderman. One of the
brothers, John Greenwell, settled in Newcastle as a
merchant ; the other, Robert Greenwell, lived upon his
maternal estate at Kibblesworth. William Greenwell,
son of Robert, caine, like his father, to Newcastle for a
wife, and found one in the person of Mary, daughter of
Joshua Twizell. A son of this union, Joshua Greenwell,
of Newcastle, marrying the heiress of the Rev. Thomas
Robinson, rector of Wycliffe, had among other issue two
sons. One of them, Robinson Robert, became the head
of a large commercial firm in Newcastle, and at his death
in Ridley Place, November 1, 1840, aged 63, was consul
for Hanover, and vice-consul for Denmark. The other
son became a distinguished soldier, known to a past
generation as Major-General Sir Leonard Greenwell,
K.C.B., K.C.H., aide-de-camp to George IV.
Sir Leonard was born at Kibblesworth, in 1781, and
passed his boyhood at the Royal Free Grammar School
in Newcastle, under the head mastership of the Her.
Edward Moises. He entered the army on the 7th of
August, 1801, as an ensign in the 45th Foot, and remained
with that regiment throughout his career. Very early in
lite he was employed in active service. He accompanied
the expedition to South America, and was present at the
attack upon Buenos Ayres in 1806, and again in 1807,
where he was severely wounded. In most of the battles
of the Peninsular war he served with distinction, and, it
is said, received wounds in almost every part of his body.
He commanded his regiment during Massena's retreat
from the lines at Fuentes d'Onor; at the siege of
Badajos, he was the first officer to scale the walls ; at
Orthes, he commanded the light troops of the 3rd
Division, under Sir Thomas Picton, and bore himself
throughout with great gallantry and determination.
For his services during the Peninsular campaign be
received a medal and two clasps, was appointed aide-de-
camp to the king, created a Knicht Commander of the
Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order and of the Military
Order of the Bath, and rewarded with a grant out of the
distinguished service fund. In recognition of his bravery
at Badajos the king authorized him to add to the family
arms (or, two bars azure, between three ducal coronets
gules) a representation of Badajos, with a jacket of the
45th floating from one of the towers. Retiring on half
pay in 1827, he obtained, four years later, the appoint-
ment of Commandant at Chatham, an office which he
held till 1837. He died unmarried in London on the llth
November, 1844, aged 63, and his body being brought to
Newcastle was interred among his kindred within the
walls of St. Nicholas', where a handsome mural monument
records his achievements
3Ipma>s Jttieljael @«enljot»,
DOCTOR OF MEDICINE.
Towards the close of last century, Edward Martin
Greenhow, a native of Stirling, who had served as an army
surgeon under General Elliott during the protracted siepre
of Gibraltar, established himself as a general practitioner
on the north side of the harbour of Tyne. With the
reputation which attached to all the brave men who for
years had held the key to the Mediterranean against the
combined fleets of France and Spiun, Mr. Greenhow
worked his way to a lucrative practice. Married at
Tynemouth in 1786, he became the father of sons who
afterwards distinguished themselves in various depart-
ments of public usefulness — Conrad H. Greenhow, ship-
broker, who took a leading part in the discussions which
preceded the repeal of the Navigation Laws ; Edward
Henry, who followed his father's profession at North
Shields ; and Thomas Michael, who became a prominent
surgeon, and an active public man in Newcastle.
Thomas Michael Greenhow was born at North Shields
on the 5th of July, 1792. Brought up as a boy in his
father's surgery, he was sent to Edinburgh University,
where he passed his examinations and obtained his
diploma. Obtaining, shortly afterwards (November 5,
1814) the membership of the Royal College of Surgeons,
he entered the army as assistant surgeon ; but life among
soldiers not being to his taste, he returned to the North,
after a couple of years' service, and commenced practice
on his own account in Newcastle. His first professional
appointment in the town was that of surgeon to the
Lying-in Hospital in Rosemary Lane. About the same
time he received the appointment of co-surgeon to an
affiliated organization, the Charity for Poor Married
252
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/June
"I 1891.
Women Lying-in at their own Houses. In 1822 he
joined Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Fife in the establish-
ment of an Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye.
At the time when the Eye Infirmary was opened there
were discussions in the town respecting the proper
method of remunerating medical men for their profes-
sional services. General practitioners, compounding
their own medicines, charged heavy prices for their drugs
and little or nothing for attendance. The practice was
condemned as hurtful alike to doctor and to patient.
Mr. Greenhow ventured into print on the subject. In a
pamphlet which he issued in 1824, he argued that the
system had a tendency to degrade medical men in the
eyes of the public into mere traders in medicine, anxious
to dispose of the largest possible quantity, and he pro-
T.M.C-T-eenJiow.MD.
posed that they should charge a fair and moderate fee
for attendance and receive for medicine only a bare re-
muneration, or else send the patient with a prescription
to a competent apothecary. The year following he went
to press with a work of a more pretentious character— a
treatise on vaccination (then becoming fashionable) as a
security against small-pox.
Being now thoroughly established in Newcastle, he
found time to interest himself in other matters than those
which pertained exclusively to his profession. The edu-
cation of the young was one of the subjects which
attracted him at this time, and it continued to interest
him to the end of his days. At a town's meeting held
in the Guildhall on the 25th of February, 1825, under the
presidency of Henry Cramlington, the Mayor, it was
resolved to establish infant schools in Newcastle, and
when sufficient funds were obtained, schools were opened
in the Wesleyan Orphan House in Northumberland
Street, the Sallyport Chapel in Causey Bank, and a house
in the Castle Garth. Of this excellent movement, Mr.
Greenhow and Mr. Jonathan Priestuian were co-secre-
taries.
Towards the close of 1827, No. 1 of the fine range of
mansions known as Eldon Square was completed, and
Mr. Greenhow removed into it, retaining his surgery in
Biackett Street, adjoining. When, in the winter of
1831-32, an outbreak of cholera occurred, he laboured with
great assiduity among the worst slums of Newcastle,
and, as soon as it was over, published a book of 162 pages
on the subject. His exertions during that dreadful
visitation procured for him, the year after, a coveted
distinction— one of the four honorary surgeonships of the
Infirmary of Newcastle. In the spring of 1834, he helped
to establish the "Newcastle Medical and Surgical
Society," the objects of which were to form a library of
professional works, and to hold meetings from time to
time for the reading of papers and the discussion of sub-
jects connected with the profession. Of this useful insti-
tution he was elected secretary and treasurer.
During the agitation which preceded the Municipal
Reform Bill of 1835, Mr. Greenhow was an occasional
speaker on the side of the Reformers. When the bill bad
become law, the voters in North St. Andrew's Ward put
him forward as a candidate for election to the new Town
Council. Although not successful on that occasion, yet,
in the following year, upon the occurrence of a vacancy in
South St. Andrew's, he was returned at the head of the
poll. His stay in the Council was but brief. In June,
1839, the magistrates nominated him for the office of sur-
geon to the gaol, the Council, by 23 votes to 17, confirmed
the nomination, and his seat in the Coun'cil Chamber
became vacant.
While a member of the Council, Mr. Greenhow had not
curtailed his interest in other public matters, nor
neglected his professional duties. He assisted, in 1837, to
establish the " North of England Society for the Promo-
tion of the Fine Arts, "and became, with the late Alder-
man Lockey Harle as his coadjutor, hon. secretary of the
organisation. During the visit of the British Association
to Newcastle in 1838, he read a couple of papers in the
medical section — one '• On the Beneficial Action of
Mercury rapidly introduced in certain cases of
Neuralgia," and the other "On a New Sling Fracture
Bed." The following year he promoted the series of
entertainments long remembered in Newcastle as the
"Saturday Evening Concerts and Lectures." His con-
tributions to the series were two lectures — the first,
delivered July 13, 1839, on "Education," and the
second, read January 18, 1840, on "Slavery." The
subject of the first lecture seems never to have been
absent from his mind. In season and out of season,
he urged the necessity of providing collegiate educa-
tion for the youth of the rapidly increasing in-
June\
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
253
dustrial community of which Newcastle was the centre
and the capital. Through the press, in a pamphlet (pub-
lished in 1831), by discussions at the Literary and Philo-
sophical Society, and through the medium of a town's
meeting, held in the Guildhall, he had endeavoured to
rouse his fellow-townsmen to a due sense of the benefits
of scientific training. Such was his zeal in this direction
that the writer of the " Supplement to the Corporation
Annual for 1836" satirically described him as being
" most strenuous in his endeavours to have the Council
better versed in Old English by the establishment of an
University in the Darn Crook." But, like many other
enthusiastic educational reformers, Mr. Greenhow found
himself far in advance of his time. His idea was that
Newcastle possessed the nucleus of a collegiate institution
in its Grammar School, Literary and Philosophical
Society, Natural History Society, School of Design, Fine
Arts Society, and School of Medicine, and that out of
these materials might be moulded "an Academy of
Science and Literature of incalculable value." Newcastle
people listened and applauded, formed themselves into
committees, and passed resolutions, but they did not pro--
vide the funds necessary to bring the scheme into opera-
tion. It was not until about the period of the first great
Exhibition that Mr. Greenhow, after twenty years' un-
wearied advocacy, saw his projects realised, and the
"Newcastle College of Practical Science" started, on a
modest scale, in Barber Surgeon's Hall, Rye Hill.
Mr. Greenhow's surgical career was exceptionally
brilliant. He frequently practised major operations, and
was eminently successful in conducting them to a happy
issue. It is upon record that in August, 1848, he per-
formed the operation of complete excision of the oscalcis,
for caries of the bone, and "at that time he was unaware
that the late Mr. Hancock had performed the same
operation two months previously, so that the credit of its
invention belonged to him equally with Mr. Hancock. '
He acquired a considerable reputation in ophthalmic cases
from his long connection with the Eye Infirmary, and dis-
played remarkable inventive skill in designing instru-
ments and adapting surgical appliances to modern re-
quirements.
In the early days of sanitary reform he was an energetic
and watchful leader of the movement. His warnings
after the cholera visitation of 1832 were unheeded, but he
abated none of his zeal in the cause. In 1852, he foretold
that the United Kingdom would again be visited by the
pestilence. Addressing himself to the Mayor of New-
castle, he called attention to the unpreparedness of the
town to resist such a visitation — a warning which the
dreadful mortality of the succeeding year too truly
verified and vindicated." The Royal College of Surgeons,
recognising his special abilities, elected him to an original
Fellowship in 1843, and in 1855 the University of
Durham conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of
Medicine. He retired from practice in 1860, and left
Newcastle to live in the neighbourhood of Leeds, where
he died on the 25th of October, 1881.
Dr. Greenhow married, in 1820, Elizabeth, elder sister
of Harriet Martineau, the authoress, and granddaughter
of Mr. Rankin, of Newcastle, sugar refiner in the Close.
With his celebrated sister-in-law the doctor continued on
terms of affectionate intimacy for many years. She was
a frequent guest at his house, and it was to be near him
that, when stricken by illness in 1839, shortly after her
visit to the British Association in Newcastle, she took
the lodgings at Tynemouth in which, confined for five
years a helpless invalid, she wrote her "Life in a Sick
Room." (See Monthly Chronicle, i., 416.) Into the estrange-
ment that followed it is unnecessary to enter here. Miss
Martineau, writing her "Autobiography" many years
afterwards, refers to it in the following regretful terms : —
"Her home at Newcastle [Mrs. Greenhow's], with all
possible kindness from her hospitable husband and her-
self, was always at our command, without hindrance or
difficulty, until my recovery from a hopeless illness in
1844 by Mesmerism proved too much for the natural pre-
judice of a surgeon and a surgeon's wife, and caused by
the help, or the ill offices, of another relation, a family
breach as absurd as it was lamentable. " Mrs. Greenhow
died on the 10th February, 1850.
Among other issue Dr. Greenhow left a son — William
Thomas Greenhow, B.A. and LL.B., Recorder of Ber-
wick, County Court Judge of Leeds and Wakefield, a
member of Convocation, London University, and author
of "A Manual of Shipping Law"; born Feb. 6, 1831;
married, -May 20, 1857, Marion, eldest daughter of Charles
Martineau, Esq., of Tulse Hill.
SSRUliam ©rag,
AUTHOR OF THE " OHOROGBAPHIA."
Ten years ago it would not have been easy to write a
biographical sketch of the first historian of Newcastle,
for local history afforded but slender clue to his identity.
From a signature attached to an annotated edition of
his book, owned by the late Lady Northbourne, it was
known that the initials "W. G.," by which he modestly
concealed his authorship, indicated William Gray. From
the fact that the volume had been in the possession of her
ladyship's ancestors, the Ellisons of Hebburn, for many
generations, it was suspected that he might have been
connected by ties of business or relationship with that
ancient local family. From evidence afforded by the
book itself it was believed that he was a native of the
town, and that he had been engaged in some commercial
enterprise which the outbreak of civil war had frustrated.
And that was all. Bourne, the next historian of New-
castle, knew nothing, or, if he did, he wrote nothing,
about his predecessor. Brand dismissed him in a couple
of lines. Subsequent historians quoted him and passed
him by. Neither Sir Cuthbert Sharp, who made local
254
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/June
\ 189L
registers a special study, nor the two Richardsons, whose
voluminous collections of local genealogy form a chaotic
mass in the archives of the Newcastle Society of Anti-
quaries, were able to identify him. So he rested, named,
but unknown, till the year 1884, when the Kegistry of
Wills at Durham — that vast treasure bouse of the dead —
yielded up the secret of his life. A copy of a will made
in 1656 by one William Gray, of Newcastle, was dis-
covered there, and, upon examination, it proved to be
that of the historian. Further investigation enabled
local antiquaries to collect together details of bis birth
and parentage, family connections, business relationships,
and final ending, and to embody them in papers contri-
buted to the eleventh volume of the " Archseologia
-•Kliana,." Since then it has been easy to write about the
earliest historian of Newcastle.
William Gray was the first-born child of a marriage
which, on the 9th of December, 1600, was solemnized in
St. Nicholas' Church, Newcastle, between Cuthbert
Gray, merchant adventurer, son of John Gray, draper,
and Elizabeth, daughter of Alderman William Huntley.
In the church where his parents had been united, on the
21st of September, 1601, he was baptized, his sponsors
being " Mr. Willm. Huntley, marchant and Alderman ;
Willm. Gray, draper ; and the wife of Robert Ellison,
marchant, or in her place Margaret Gray, Widow, being
grandmother."
Cuthbert Gray, the father, carried on his business of a
merchant in the Side, and, like other mercantile adven-
turers of the period, dealt in an infinite variety of com-
modities. The household books of Lord William Howard
("Belted Will" of history) show that he supplied the
family of that nobleman at Naworth with claret and coal-
shovels, hops and hats, lint and lemons, muscadine and
malaga, shoes and sprats, oil, sack, and vinegar. They
show further that he was largely interested in coalmining
adventures round about Newcastle, in some of which
Lord William was his landlord. When he died, carried
off in the prime of life towards the end of April, 1623, he
left a flourishing business and much property behind him.
He had houses, lands, and mills outside Pandon Gate ;
two "mansions "in the Side; five burgages in Hillgate,
Gateshead ; a share with his wife's relations of pits at
Dunstle and elsewhere, and an interest in mines at New-
biggen (near the Cowgate), East Denton, Higham Dykes
(Ponteland), Newham near Whalton, Whitbie (or Fit-
bawe) Moor, in the Manor of Kenton, and Bellasis near
Stannington. He was a shipowner, 'too, holding three-
sixteenths of the Diligence, a twelfth of the Unity, and
an eighteenth of the Mary Susan, all of Ipswich ; a
quarter of the Prudence, and six keels. And besides his
own mills outside Pandon, he had a lease of a mill in
Painter Heugh, while at his house in the Side was a
miscellaneous stock-in-trade, with plate, linen, and ample
household gear.
Eleven children had been born to Cuthbert and Eliza-
beth Gray, of whom nine were living at the date of their
father's decease. William, the eldest, had attained the
age of manhood, the rest were minors. He, no doubt,
assisted his widowed mother to manage the diversified
undertakings in which the father had been engaged.
Both their names appear in the "Howard Household
Book " for 1634 as rendering to the Howard family ser-
vices which indicate a business relationship, while the
name of the widow is entered in the Naworth rent roll
of the sama year as tenant of the coal mines of which her
husband had been lessee. Between them they brought up
the younger branches of the family in affluence. Besides
William, there was only one son, named John, and he
appears to have died early, for local history contains no
trace of him, and in the parish registers he cannot be
identified. Five of the daughters made good marriages.
Marearet became the wife of Robert Proctor, and their
son, named William after his uncle, was possibly the
William Proctor who was Sheriff of Newcastle in
1684-85. Ellinor married Robert Harle, merchant
Elizabeth was united on the 29th March, 1635, to
Robert Ellison, M.P. for Newcastle during the Com-
monwealth. A few months later Rebecca became the
wife of William, brother of Sir Lionel Maddison, while
Deborah married, January 1641-42, Robert He, merchant
and apothecary.
How long the mother of William Gray lived to assist
him in the affairs of the family cannot be accurately
ascertained. In the " Archseologia," before mentioned,
it is assumed that she died in 1636, although note is
taken of an entry in the Journals of the House of Com-
mons which favours a suspicion that she was living in
November, 1664. Since that paper was written the sus-
picion that she lived longer than the year 1636 has been
strengthened. In a deed which, through the kindness of
Mr. F. W. Dendy, has been presented to the writer by
Mr. George Handyside, William Gray, conveying to Geo.
Bulman, in December, 1643, some of the family property
at Gateshead, inserts his mother's name in a covenant for
peaceable enjoyment, and this could hardly have occurred
if the old lady had been dead nine years. But, be that as
it may, there came a time when neither the abilities of
William Gray, nor the experience of his mother, if she
lived so long, were able to stem the torrent of misfortune
which overwhelmed the commerce of Tyneside. Civil
war broke out ; Newcastle became the theatre of military
operations, which crippled local industry, and, for some
time, practically suspended the coal trade. William
Gray's collieries were shut up ; commodities for the shop
in the Side were unprocurable ; nothing was left to him
but houses and land, the revenues of which were pre-
carious and uncertain. These, bearing their share of
military impositions, he was able to retain, for we find
him in July, 1647, making an agreement with the
Corporation to permit the conveyance of water from a
conduit upon his property in Pandon Bank to Sandgate,
June!
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
255
and receiving as recompense a part of the waste there
called the King's Dykes. The change from a position of
opulence to comparative poverty weighed heavily upon
him. For consolation he turned his thoughts to litera-
ture, seeking to drown his sorrows by writing a book.
And what more suitable subject for a book than that
which lay nearest to his heart, the history and deplorable
condition of his native town ? Printed by Stephen
Bulkley, and dedicated to the burgesses and good men of
Newcastle, the volume — a modest quarto of thirty-four
pages — was issued in 1649, with the title : —
CHOROGRAPHIA,
OR
A SVRVEY
OF
NEWCASTLE
UPON TINE.
The Estate of this Country under the Romans.
The Building of the famous Wall of the
Picts, by the Romans.
The Ancient Town of Pandon.
A briefe Description of the Town, Walls,
Wards. Churches, Religious Houses,
Streets, Markets, Fairs, River and Com-
modities ; with the Suburbs.
The Ancient and present Government of the
Town.
AS ALSO
A Relation of the County of Northumberland, which
was the Bulwark for England, against the Inrodes
of the Scots. Their many Castles and Towers. Their
ancient Families and Names. Of the Tenure in Cor-
nage. Of Cheviot-Hills. Of Tinedale and Reeds-
dale, with the Inhabitants.
Potestas omnium ad Csesarem pertinet, proprietor ad
iinguloi.
Newcastle, Printed by S. B. 1649.
Sometime after the publication of his book William
Gray appears to have made a family arrangement with
his brother-in-law, Robert Ellison, M.P. for Newcastle.
The nature of that arrangement is not clearly expressed,
but it is open to conjecture that his property, rescued
from the wreck and ruin of civil war, passed into the
hands of Mr. Ellison, upon conditions which relieved the
historian from the cares of business, and enabled him to
spend his declining years in his old home in the Side,
which the Ellisons occupied. This we gather from his
will, dated December 8, 1656, seventeen years before he
died. In that document he states that he has been " very
much engaged and beholden " to his brother-in-law and
sister " upon all occasions and straights whatsoever," and
had found " much comfort and contentment in dwelling
and cohabiting with them." He, therefore, bequeaths to
Mr. Ellison his house in the Side, " now in the tenure
or occupation of the said Robert Ellison, or his assigns,"
another house in the same street, lands and houses in
Pandon, and outside Pandon Gate, and all other his
" lands, tenements, and hereditaments in any place what-
soever, within the Nation and Commonwealth of Eng-
land." The full text of the will is printed in volume
xi. of the " Archseologia jEliana," before quoted, and
as he made no other, there seems to be good reason for
the supposition that it formed the basis of an under-
standing with the hospitable brother-in-law. The in-
ventory of his goods and chattels favours this view, for,
apart from his purse, apparel, and library, he had barely
£15 worth of household gear, and most of it was in two
rooms — " his owne chamber " and "the next chamber."
William Gray died in February, 1673-74, aged 72, and
was buried among his ancestors in the great church under
the shadow of which he was born, and baptised, and lived
his troubled life. The register of burials at St. Nicholas'
records his interment in the following brief line — "Feb.
7, 1673. William Gray, mchant., bur."
No portrait of the author of the " Chorographia " is
known to exist, but, if we may judge from his hand-
writing, he was a man of firmness and resolution. Three
of his autographs have been preserved, and clearness and
boldness of outline are the characteristics of all of them.
One is written in the volume at Gateshead ; the others
are in the possession of the present writer. These latter
are attached to two deeds— (1) dated 1643, the conveyance
to Bulman before- mentioned ; (2) dated loSS'-oO, the
marriage settlement of his niece, Elizabeth, daughter of
Robert Ellison, and her affianced husband, William Fen-
wick, of Stan ton. When the nuptial agreement was
signed, he was approaching his sixtieth year. The in-
tended bride was reared under his own rooftree, and it
must have been a happy moment when he handled the
"gray goose quill," and wrote at the head of his relatives
and friends, witnesses to the compact, the bold and
legible signature —
ftuton*.
[HE approach to the old village of Warkworth is
by a bridge of many angles crossing the
Coquet. This structure, which was rebuilt in
1379, bears few traces of the wearing hand of time. But
a pillar, with the Percy arms on it, which was once an
interesting feature, has long since disappeared. A small
square tower and gateway, anciently forming part of the
outworks of Warkwurth Castle, stand at the south end
of the bridge. Owing to its many attractions. Warkworth
has become a popular holiday resort, and it will have to
be conceded that few places in the North can vie with it
in historical and romantic associations. The antiquary
delights in the ruins of the old castle ; the student dwells
anew on the sorrows of poor Bertram, and cons once
more Bishop Percy's description of the recluse's home in
the ballad, " The Hermit of Warkworth " ; the disciple of
256
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/June
\189L
Izaak Walton finds rare sport with the famed Coquet
trout ; and the artist fairly revels in the lovely and
varied views that he can obtain within the distance
of a hundred paces. Indeed, the knight of the pencil may
at any time be found in some quaint nook recording the
broken outline of the castle against the azure sky. It
would be vain to conjecture how many times the place
has been sketched and photographed. Suffice it to say
that the greatest of all landscape painters, J. W. M.
Turner, found here all that satisfied the aspirations of his
mighty genius. Old T. M. Richardson, too, and, at a
later period, John Storey and John Surtees, have pro-
duced many a fine drawing in the vicinity of Warkworth.
For further historical particulars of the locality, with
views of the castle, &c., the reader is referred to tbe
Monthly Chronicle, 1890, page 23.
Churdt,
fcn'latttr.
JOODHORN is one of the bleak sea-board
parishes of Northumberland. The name
means the wooded horn or ness of land jut-
ting out into the sea, whereof the pro-
montory on which the ancient church of Newbiggin is
built forms the apex. The " forest primeval " has
vanished, and is now only represented by a tew meagre-
looking elms and other trees. The village of Woodhorn
has been outgrown by its dependent chapelry of New-
biggin. It is a place of somewhat uninviting aspect, and
its generally bare and dreary appearance is not relieved
by the gaunt sailless windmill which forms the most pro-
minent object in the landscape.
The church, however, is an interesting edifice, and will
well repay a visit. Many years ago it fell into the hands
of an unmerciful and unscrupulous restorer, and no one
can contemplate its present mutilated, incongruous, and
inharmonious condition without experiencing a feeling of
sincere regret that, in this as in so many other oases,
deplorable ignorance and despicable taste have been per-
mitted to interfere with an ancient structure of which the
destroyed features, judging from what is left, muat have
been of the highest possible interest.
There was a church at Woodhorn before the Norman
Conquest. It has been claimed that considerable remains
of that so-called Saxon structure still exist, but it is
certain that portions which have been ascribed to this
early period are, in reality, of much later date. It is
probable that the jambs of the tower-arch and the west
wall of the nave, on the south side, are of pre-Conquest
date ; but, if this be granted, no further claim to such
remote antiquity can possibly be sustained on behalf of
any other portion. The tower-arch itself has certainly
been rebuilt, and there can be little doubt that this was
done when the earliest part of the existing south arcade
was erected. Turning for a moment to remains of
another kind, we find a number of interesting evidences
of the pre-Conquest church of Woodhorn. These consist
of early sepulchral monuments. Here, as in almost every
other case, we are indebted for the preservation of these
Jnnel
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
257
ancient memorials of the dead to the fact that the dead
are soon forgotten amongst the living. Men have
always ceased to care for the monuments of the
departed when the tradition of the men themselves,
their virtues and their vices, had departed also. And
so the grave-stones of one century are unscrupulously
taken to build the new churches of the next. When
Woodhorn church was restored, or, to be more correct,
partly re-built, nearly fifty years ago, several grave-stones
of pre-Conquest date were found embedded in the walls.
These are now preserved in the church. Six of them are
of comparatively late date, and probably belong to the
first half of the eleventh century. They are plain, round-
headed head stones, adorned only with a Latin cross in
relief. In one instance, however, the cross is incised.
Several fragments of an earlier and more elaborate type
of monument were also found. These are more or less
covered with the well-known interlacing designs known as
"knot-work." Three of these fragments are still preserved,
but others, within recent years, have disappeared, doubtless
to augment the treasures of some private collection. One
piece is safely but most injudiciously walled into the modern
porch, with the result that only one side can be seen. There
is also a large slab with the knot-work on its edges. But
the most interesting fragment is the head of a cross, covered
no every side with the usual mysterious interlacings.
i The original church of Woodburn consisted of a chancel,
an aisleless nave, and a tower at the west end. The
latter would unquestionably approximate to the usual
type of North-Country pre-Conque»t tower, now repre-
sented by the existing examples at Ovingham, Bywell.
Corbridge, Warden, and Bolam, in Northumberland, and
at Billingham, in the county of Durham. This early
church appears to have remained untouched and unaltered
until about the beginning of the twelfth century, when a
north aisle was added. Of this north aisle, two bays of
the arcade still exist. The arches are of the plainest and
simplest possible character, consisting of one plain un-
chamfered order. They rest on massive cushioned capi-
tals, and extremely short and heavy piers. About fifty
years later, a south aisle was added. Of this, again, two
bays exist. The arches are as plain as those on the north,
but consist of two orders. The capitals, which have square
abaci, are extremely plain, suggesting the need of some
such relieving feature as was soon afterwards introduced
in the Transitional volute. The piers, like those on the
north, are plain cylinders, but are both less stunted and
less massive. Contemporary with the south aisle was a
new tower. For some reason the original arch
was taken down ; but the jambs appear, as
I have already said, to have been allowed to
remain. Whether this view be accepted or not, it is per-
fectly certain that the present arch is not contemporary
with the jambs on which it rests. Of the tower built
about the middle of the twelfth century, the two lower
stages still retrain. There is a newel stairway in the
south-east angle, which has been described as baxon,
but which must be seen, by anyone having the most
superficial knowledge of early architecture, to be nothing
of the kind. Nothing less like Saxon work could be found
258
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f June
1891.
in the length and breadth of England. About this stair-
way there is nothing noticeable except its extreme
narrowness. On the west side of the exterior of the
tower is a curious male effigy, with the hands raised in
the attitude of prayer. In the deplorable restoration of
this church, the upper stages of the tower appear to have
been taken down and replaced by one of the most extra-
ordinary architectural monstrosities which could possibly
be conceived. In other ways the church has been terribly
deformed, but the modern part of the tower is the crown-
ing barbarism, the ne plus ultra of architectural absurdity
and ugliness, destroying most lamentably the whole char-
acter of the building.
The first half of the thirteenth century witnessed the re-
erection of the chancel, and a series of remarkable changes
in the eastern half of the nave. The chancel is now the
least altered part of the whole church. In the east gable
is a triplet of equal sized lancets. There are two original
small round-headed windows in each of the side walls.
There is a priest's door in the middle of the south wall,
but, in its present state, it is entirely the 'work of the re-
storer, and what it replaces I am unable to say. In the
same wall, at the east end there is a very curious window,
of four lights. The tracery, if tracery it can be called, is
of the most extraordinary character. On the outside,
over the centre, is a heraldic shield, bearing three crowns,
the seal of the priory of Tynemouth, to which the rectory
of Wood horn had been appropriated. At the west end
of the same wall is a small pointed window, which might
be described as a "low-side window," except that it is
not low at all, but unusually high. The chancel arch in of
two plain chamfered orders, and is rather lofty, but is not
of good proportions. It rests on brackets in the side
walls.
About the time when the chancel was built the eastern
halves of both north and south arcades were taken down,
and their place supplied by two wide and lofty arches.
These seem to me to indicate the existence of north and
south transepts, of which, however, it is almost needless
to say, all other traces have disappeared. These arches,
though almost, if not quite, contemporary in date, differ
greatly in character. The one on the south is as plain as
possible. It is a pointed arch of two chamfered orders.
It rises awkwardly from the abacus of the original arcade
on the west, and dies into the wall of the nave on the
east. The arch on the north is a remarkable piece of
architecture. On the outer, or north side, it presents two
plain chamfered orders ; but on the inner side, or towards
the nave, these orders are richly and elaborately moulded,
the hollows being very deeply undercut. On the west
side it also rests on the abacus of the original arcade, but
on the east side it comes down to a bracket, formed of
three shafts, which rest on a carved head, and are sur-
mounted by well-developed conventional Early English
foliage, the whole, however, being very rudely sculptured,
the execution falling far short of the design.
On coming towards the church from the village, our
attention is first drawn to the atone churchyard stile.
Every country churchyard, in the days of our grand-
fathers, had its stile. I am sorry to say they have
almost universally disappeared. Long may the church-
stile of Woodhorn be preserved ! May it be jealously
watched and guarded by present and future parishioners !
Though we should probably find the wooden gate close
beside unfastened, yet, for the respect we bear to the days
of long ago, we prefer to enter the churchyard by mount-
ing the stile. Over these stone steps our grandfathers
and grandmothers went to church. Those were picturesque
times, and the lives, nay, the very costumes of the people,
were picturesque also. We may rejoice, as we ought, in
the advantages of our own day, but it is worse than
folly to forget to respect, and even reverence, times and
people that have parsed away. The past of English life
and history is full of poetry and romance to every true
Englishman ; but I dare say the time that to most of us
seems richest in associations that we love to cherish is
the time of which the living memory of the aged has
spoken in our own young days. Pictures of those times
are kindled in our imagination by the sight of a church-
yard stile.
Over the porch doorway we find a sun dial. It is
not an ancient one, but it bears an old inscription :
Soles pereunt et imputantur,
which may be rendered, though not very literally, " The
days pass by, and yet account is kept of them." The
initials inscribed on the dial, "T. R. S.," are those of one
of the vicars of Woodhorn, the Rev. Thomas Shipperdson,
during whose incumbency the fatal restoration took place.
Mr. Shipperdson was a man of considerable scholarship
and ability, but also full of eccentricities. Many racy
stories are told of him at Durham, where he lived for
June!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND ^LEGEND.
259
many years as rector of the church of St. Mary, in the
North Bailey. Probably he is similarly remembered at
Woodhorn.
The architectural features of the interior of the church
have already been described. Besides the early sepulchral
memorials which I have mentioned, there are others
which deserve to be examined. Some of these are in-
serted in the walls of the porch. One grave cover bears a
«hort sword or dagger, in a very unusual position, i.e.,
over the head of the cross, which is carved in relief. In
the south aisle is a grave cover of a child, of early date,
bearing a cross carved in very bold relief. Besides these
there are several fragments, and though they are of types
which are more frequently met with, yet two or three of
them deserve especial attention on account of the beauty
of their designs.
In the chancel there in an early fourteenth century
effigy of a lady. She has, with reckless disregard to her
costume, been described as an abbess. She wears a large
veil, which is thrown back from her face. She is attired
in a long loose gown, which descends in ample folds to
her feet Over her head is a canopy, and on the top of this
is a group, of which the Virgin and Child form the centre,
with a kneeling female 6gure in an attitude of adoration
on each side. Beneath the feet of the effigy is a lion,
•whilst each foot is clasped by a praying female figure.
On the vestry mantel shelf the visitor will find a loose
brass plate which ought to be at once fixed to the wall of
some part of the church. If this is not done, it will sooner
or later be carried off by some collector. It bears the
following inscription : —
An Aerostick
Epitaph on a vertuoue Gentle-
woman, who died on Palm Sunday,
March 24th, 1699.
A.skest thou Reader who lyes here
N.o common Corps, then List £ you shall hear
G.oodness, rare meekness. Zeal, pure Ghastitie
I.nterred together in this Qround do He.
Kehold her acts whilst here she made abode.
& he liv'd belov'd ol men & died lov'd ol God
Mrs. Ann Railston.
Ann Gibbs was no doubt the maiden name of the lady.
J. R. BOYLE, F.S.A.
i.
JlNNOCENT amusement is one of the neces-
saries of healthy human life ; and he who
can provide it does the world good service.
No better servant of this kind ever flourished
in the North-Uountree than our old acquaintance Billy
Purvis, whom everybody from the Tweed to the Tees
knew, whom everybody liked, and whom nobody ever
was, by any chance, the worse for seeing or hearing.
His booth was the great centre of attraction at fairs, and
hoppings, and feasts, and even races, all over the district
Nobody ever wearied of hit) funny pranks. All that he
said and did was racy of the soil. And in the ages to
come we may have a thousand first-rate funny fellows
— perfect in their several lines — but we never, till
doomsday, shall see another Billy Purvis.
William Purvis was born on the 13th January, 1784, at
Auchindinny, a village about seven and a half miles from
Edinburgh, on the road to Peebles, in a romantic dell
through which flows the North Esk, and within a mile or
two of Roslin and Hawthornden, the favourite haunt of
the Scottish muse. Billy was a twin, the mother having
had five children at three births. His father, who was a
tailor, consoled himself with the philosophic apophthegm,
that "where there's bairns there's brose." In Billy's
autobiography, written for him by J. P. Robson, the
local poet of Newcastle, he tells us he "very soon
commenced to laugh, craw, and dance, and showed
evident proofs of experiencing the greatest pleasure and
delight " — meet prelude to his free-and-easy after life.
When he was about two years old, his parents left
Auchindinny, and settled in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. His
father took a house in the Close, and in that same house
Billy resided ever after, making it during a period of
sixty-four years the central point round which all his
movements turned. In speech, manners, sympathies,
and soul, he was a devoted Novocastrian, and, though he
was constantly on his travels, " canny Newcassel " was
ever his haven of rest when he was not engaged on the
sea of adventures elsewhere.
Billy served his apprenticeship in the Bigg Market
to a joiner and house carpenter named Chapman, after
imbibing the rudiments of knowledge at a school in what
was then called the Mount, in the Castle Garth. But his
partiality for the stage was exhibited from his earliest
years. He became " call boy " at the Theatre Royal
whilst it was under the management of Stephen Keinble,
and he joined the corps of the Newcastle Volunteers as
drummer boy in 1794. After the expiry of his seven
years' apprenticeship to Mr. Chapman, he worked for
several years at his business ; but he continued to have a
strong hankering for the sock and buskin, and he soon
made himself locally famous as the manager of a corps of
amateur performers at the sign of the St. George and
Dragon, Gateshead, kept by a person named Greenwell.
On a certain occasion it was proposed by the members of
this Thespian society to get up the tragedy of " Venice
Preserved." Here is Billy's account of how they
did it :—
I remember the circumstances as if they happened
yesterday. The cast, you may imagine, was very heavy.
Robert Youdal was the Pierre, and your humble servant
Billy was the Jaffier of the night. We prepared to dress
in the costume proper for the occasion, and, mind, it was
none of your tag-rag and bobtail dresses ; they were
grand as wor Mayor's or Lord Judge's claes. I began to
feel very queer as the time came on for the rising
of the curtain ; but Youdal, who, like myself, was
not a teetotaller (though, by the by, I never was
an intemperate man in my life), walks up to
me — " Bill ! by gox, let's have a glass of brandy,
260
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{Jure-
1891.
man! It'll make us speak better." " Wiv a' my heart
and pluck," said Billy, and off we sallied, and we each
got a glass of the potent cognac. Bless your souls,
hinnies, it ran through us and warmed us all over. I
cared for nowt then. It made new men of both. Still
the curtain did not rise. "Hoots, Bob, let's hae another
glass apiece ; man, it's splendacious ! It'll put fresh
pluck int' us !" "Agreed," said Youdal, and the glasses
were filled, and drunk on the premises in (juick time.
And let me tell you we did not forget Belvidera. She
got her share, you may depend, and she was as funny as a
tiddler. The first act was finished, and the second just
commenced, when all of a sudden I turned as dumb as a
cuddy wi' a lockjaw. I could not speak a single word.
My tongue stuck hard and fast to the roof of my mouth ;
and there you might have seen poor Jaffier gaping like a
" raw gol " in the middle of the stage. It was just like as
if my jaws had been glued together with gutta percha.
I could not proceed, and in consequence the play could
not go on. Belvidera, poor thing, was as bad as I was.
So we made a mess on't. The audience, however, en-
joyed the joke amazingly, and we did not make ourselves
bad about it. The farce of "Raising the Wind " followed,
and the wind certainly was raised to some perfection. In
the tea scene we substituted pieces of chalk for loaf
sugar; we had hard boiled eggs with the shells off,
and bread and butter. Bob Youdal played Jeremy
Diddler. The grand display of bolting the provisions
commenced. Youdal crammed his mouth with the hard
boiled eggs : away they went. In be stuffed the lumps of
chalk, with a huge piece of bread. His jaws workea like
a pump. But, all of a sudden, his face went red, and his
eyes stared like a mad dog. Bob was choking, by
George ! The audience was delighted with the exhibi-
tion, but we, who were now beginning to think that it
was all dicky with poor Jeremy Diddler, took him by the
shoulders and pushed him off the stage ; and as good luck
would have it, we succeeded;in getting the lumps of chalk
out of his throat.
Billy soon began to be a person of great consequence in
the theatrical profession, though he was still following his
trade as a carpenter. Seldom, he tells us, did he absent
himself from the bench to be present on the stage. Per-
haps, when a party "hard up, "and soliciting his assist-
ance, came in his way, he might sacrifice a few hours for
the purpose of affording to the poor player what relief he
could ; but, generally speaking, he attended to his work
as a regular man. On one occasion, when he had been
asked to assist in getting up a benefit for somebody or
other, and permission had been obtained to use the Turk's
Head long room as a theatre, the following farce was
played : —
The play waa Douglas. I played Young Norval. The
performance went on beautifully till I appeared with
my sword by my side, and the shield, "round as yon
moon," on my left arm. "My name is Norval — on the
Grampian Hills my father feeds his flock." A voice from
the gallery : " Ye're a greet leer ! Yor father an" mother
sells apples an' peers in Denton Chare." That completely
spoiled poor Billy's speech. But I commenced again,
and proceeded without any particular interruption till the
last scene ends Douglas's strange eventful history, which
is marked by the death of Young Norval. I was lying
" dead as mutton " on the stage. The scene had to fall to
enable me to rise. But, smash ! if the hang'd thing
didn't stick hard and fast. "Whaat are ye dein" ye
fyule?" whispered I. Still the cords were sticking. I
lay for a while swearing to myself. Hinnies, I never
knew till a heavy shower of grey peas rattles about my
lugs. Ah ! Geordy Angus was the artilleryman, and
fired the grape. Now thinks I for a bit spree ! Accord-
ingly, I slowly lifted up my right leg to a considerable
height, then let it fall again. A general burst of laughter
was the consequence. Slowly and sadly rises the left leg
and down it goes again. Increased laughter followed the
performance. Up went both legs at once, then down,
again. Then I sat "bolt upright on my head's antipodes."
Next I turned my head from side to side, and rolled my
eyes about like the Grand Turk in the German locks.
grinning at the same time like the head of an old fiddle.
At last L got on my feet, and stood for a while staring at
the folks. The effect seemed to take the place by storm.
Roars of laughter, shouts of '"bravo," clapping of hands,
thumping with sticks, and all the other P< ccteras of an
uproarious congregation followed this display. But when
Billy stretched his leg out, and, taking a prodigious step,
cleared the stage, the confusion was tremendous, The
finest scene of Edmund Kean never elicited greater
applause.
But while the amateurs were getting some refreshment
in the Nag's Head, after the labours of the night, the
gentleman for whose benefit the play had been got up
ran away with the proceeds, leaving his friends to pay
his reckoning. Poor Billy was responsible for fifteen
shillings, as payment for some baize he had ordered and
received to make his grateful friend's green curtain of a
breadth suitable for the size of the long room. Our hero
was often deceived in this way. But it never taught him
to button up his pocket while there was anything in it, or
to turn a deaf ear to the voice of such charmers as wanted
to make use of him in a professional way. Mr. Robert
Sutherland, in an obituary notice of Billy which he con-
tributed to the Northern Tribune in 1854, says : —
There never was a case of distress brought to his notice,
but, as long as he had shot in the locker, he contributed
to its relief. The district was never visited by a great
calamity, whether a shipwreck on the treacherous ocean
or an explosion in the bowels of the earth, but Billy
threw open the doors of his pavilion for a benefit for the
widows and orphans : and the old chap was never more
importunate in asking people to " walk up, walk up !"
Who ever heard of Billy's sending a castaway sailor
from his booth unheard ? Before Shipwrecked Mariners'
Societies were instituted, when poor sailors wrecked on
the coast of Norfolk or down in the North Countree had
to beg their way home, how oft has Billy's show, in a
town they were passing through, been to them as the
oasis in the desert to the weary traveller !
A scene at Sunderland, where be had gone by express
invitation of the lessee of the North Shields Theatre, Mr.
I'oxhall, who had got a bespeak from the colonel and
officers of the Usworth Legion, then on permanent duty
there, is as laughable as anything of the kind : —
I made my appearance amid general applause ; but,
for some reason or other which I was at a loss to define
precisely at the time, there was considerably more merri-
ment among the audience than was consistent with the
great gravity of the tragic scene. And what was my as-
tonishment to find that the actors themselves were actually
giggling and laughing on the stage. There was Mr.
Glenalvon grinning, and Lord Randolph in a very merry
mood smudging ever and anon ! By George, thinks I,
but this is queer work, my bucks ! When I got off the
stage and had an opportunity, I began to blow the gentle-
men up. "Sirs, "said I, "don't you think this is very
fine behaviour, now ? Here have aa cum from Newcassel
'on purpose te de a good turn, and am I to be laughed at ?
Aa dinnet confess to be first-rate in the business, but aa's
nor to be laughed at for all that, and aa'll be hanged
if aa'll stand it, se aa tell ye plump te yor cheeks. Mind,
if ye gan on agyen smudgin' and snortin' at me, dash me
if aa dinnet run ye through." They saw I was serious.
They very politely begged my pardon, and promised
different conduct for the future. But I saw it was all a
Junel
18S1. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
261
parcel of nonsense. I had scarcely been on the stage
with the customers a minute or two when they started the
game worse than ever. Billy's blood was up. I could
stand it no longer. We were playing at the time before a
back scene, which had been painted, to save canvas, on
the bare wall. Drawing my sword with great theatrical
effect, I walked up to the vagabonds, and forgetting for
the time the magnanimous character I was acting, I
broke out with—" Didn't aa tell ye before, that if ye wor
determined te gan on gurnin' and laughin' and makin'
game o' everything aa said, aa wad run ye through ?"
And, by George. I began to put my terrible threat into
execution. With my drawn sword in my hand I made
a spring at them. Thej- cut like scalded cats, and Billy
after them round and round the stage. Now they ran to
the front, and then to the back, and so on, till at last
they found an opportunity to escape from the sword of
the conquering chief. By gox, Geordie, aa spoiled their
grinnin' for a while. Aa nearly freetened them oot o'
their wits. Smash ! aa ga' them such a corker ! But the
spree was not finished yet. Thinks I, now these cbeps
hae been making a fine time on't wi' me ; I'll just hae
a bit fun te mysel'. It came tc the dying scene in the
play. Mrs. Stanfield, a very excellent and accomplished
actress, played Lady Randolph. When the business
came to the fall of Young Norval, which creates such sad
feelings and expressions for his mother, I suddenly took
it into my head that I would not die. Mrs. Stanfield,
poor body, was at a loss what to think, and, no doubt,
imagining I must have forgotten my cue, she whispered
hastily, "Lie down, lie down, and die !" I just looked up
in her face, and shouted out at the pitch o' my voice,
"No, aa'll be very sorry te de owt o' the. kind. Noa,
aa'll not dee ! If aa want te dee, aa can gan hyem an'
dee; aa'll not dee te please ye!" Lady Randolph was
completely astonished. She stood like Patience on a
monument, grumblin' tiv hersel'. And there I left her
standing, while I walked very composedly off the stage,
amid peels of laughter that were fit to pull the place
doon.
Mr. Ord, whom many of our older readers will remem-
ber as one of the most famous equestrian performers in the
Ducrow line that England or Scotland ever bred, hearing
of Billy's renown, asked him to play clown for him in his
booth on the Town Moor at the Newcastle Races. He
could not decide immediately what course to pursue, as
family considerations weighed against his own inclina-
tions. He was by this time a married man, and had
domestic felicity to consider. He knew that not onlyjhis
wife, but his father and mother, were decidedly opposed
to any of his exhibitions in public. So his answer was
neither he would nor he wouldn't. Mr. Ord afterwards
sent one of his men to speak to him on the matter.
When the messenger made his appearance, he found
Billy's father seated on his board, stitching away, poor
man, at somebody's upper coat. A rumpus soon ensued.
"Mr. Purvis within, sir?" "My name's Purvis," said
the old gentleman, lifting his spectacles and fixing them
properly on his nose. "I beg pardon, but it's your son
I wish to see, sir." " An' what's your business wi' him,
if it's a fair question?" The man began to smell a rat.
"Oh, my business, sir, is merely to deliver a message for
Mr. Ord, the equestrian." "An' what may the message
be ?" dryly inquired Mr. Purvis, senior. " Mr. Ord, sir,
desired me to call upon your son to see if he will play the
fool for him during the Race Week." The tailor jumped
from his seat in an instant, and, snatching up the lap-
board that lay near him, cried out, "Ye moontebank
deil, aa'll fyetil ye ! What ! ma son a fyeul, ye hallan-
staker scoundrel ? Be off wi' ye ! Be off in a minute or
awll be the dyeth o' ye !" The poor fellow, thinking it
better not to aggravate the old man's wrath by arguing
the point, made a precipate retreat downstairs. But
before he could get to the bottom the lapboard came
thundering after him, accompanied by a voice exclaim-
ing, "There's for ye, ye ugly deil's buckie ! a fyeul
indeed !" and so on.
But the temptation was too strong to be resisted. So,
after he had partaken of several glasses of grog at Mr.
Ord's expense, Billy engaged to play the fool at the races.
It caused a terrible storm in the household, but that
could not be helped. The guinea that he got for his first
day's performance his wife threw indignantly under the
bars. But he had crossed the Rubicon, and was not to be
let or hindered from marching further. After playing
the fool to admiration for some time, he commenced as a
dancing master, and was equally successful in this new
branch of industry, though he had never in his life
attended a dancing school.
Billy's next step was to take the place of drum-major in
the Hexham Militia, which happened to be vacant. At
Hexham he fell in with a professor of the arts and
mysteries of hydraulics, whose exhibition was a failure,
and who ran away, leaving his apparatus behind him.
Billy undertook to work the machinery himself, and he
did it successfully. Then he turned dancing master again,
and introduced a series of novel exercises, such as the
" Countryman's Dance," 'which, being performed in
character, accompanied by smock frocks, pitchforks, and
other agricultural appendages, amused his audience
greatly.
tit
j N the spring of 1743, less than twelve months
after John Wesley's first visit to the North,
class organisation came into existence, the
newly-made rules being drawn up by the great propa-
gandist whilst in Newcastle, and first printed by John
Gooding in the Side.
At Wesley's first Conference— June, 1744— Newcastle
was reported as one of four centres from which it was
hoped to gradually diffuse the Gospel over the whole
land. At the following Conference it was made one of
the three book centres, Bristol and London being the
other two. This ypar— 1745— we have the first record
of Wesley's assistants, when they numbered fourteen,
exclusive of clergymen.
Newcastle and district was brought prominently before
the Conference of 1748. It is recorded in the following
manner :— " Q. 2. We are again pressed only to preach
in as many places as we can, but not to form any societies.
262
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
(June
1891.
Shall we follow this advice ? — Answer : By no means. We
have preached for more than a year without forming
societies, in a large tract of land, from Newcastle to Ber-
wick-upon-Tweed,'and almost all the seed has fallen by
the wayside. There is scarcely any fruit of it remaining."
At this Conference the societies were divided into nine
sections, Newcastle being the head of the ninth, and
composed of the following places : — Newcastle, Os-
motherly, Sunderland, Biddick, Burnopfield, Spen,
Swalwell, Horsley, Plessey, and Berwick-upon-Tweed.
Since that date its divisions and sub-divisions have
been numerous.
It was in May, 1753, that the first quarterly meeting
was held in Newcastle. The meeting was composed "of
all the stewards round Newcastle," the object being to
" thoroughly understand both the spiritual and temporal
state of every society." Hexlium had by this time been
added to the Newcastle circuit, which was in charge of
three preachers.
Charles Wesley composed several of his most popular
hymns in Newcastle. Preaching on one occasion to an
immense congregation, the blazing fires from some ad-
joining collieries gleamed upon the people. Seizing hold
of the circumstance, he applied it to the rapid spread of
religion from small beginnings. The hymn begins as fol-
lows : —
See how great a flame aspires,
Kindled by a spark of grace ;
Jesu's love the nations fires,
Sets the kingdoms in a blaze.
In 1765, when the first list of the stations was given in
the minutes of the Conference, four preachers were
appointed to the Newcastle circuit : — Joseph Cownley,
Christopher Hopper, Matthew Lowes, and Moseley
Uheek. The appointment of Mr. Hopper as one of the
first ministers of the circuit showed the importance Mr.
Wesley attached to it. Mr. Hopper was a native of
Coalburns, near the Spen, and had been engaged as one
of Mr. Wesley's preachers for nearly twenty years
prior to the date mentioned above. In 1759 he attended
the London Conference, where he was regarded aa " a
burning and shining light," and at the particular request
of Mr. Wesley, he visited Canterbury and Dover,
where we are told he "left his mark behind him."
At the Conference of 1780, Wesley was temporarily
absent, for some cause or other, and the preachers made
Mr. Hopper president. Such was their respect for him.
He was, therefore, the first lay preacher so honoured.
He also "travelled " in Newcastle in 1772 and 1783.
John Murlin and Thomas Hanby, who were in this
circuit in 1769, were the two first unordained preachers
who were set apart by Mr. Wesley to administer the
sacraments. Mr. Hanby was a native of Leeds, where
he received bis religious training, and began to preach.
Being appointed to Leeds in the year 1765, he painted
the chapel with his own hands. He died in 1797,
and the record in the minutes is : — "His temper was
remarkably mild and gentle. His qualifications for the
ministry were very great, and his character unex-
ceptionable. His praise is in our societies, and his
memory will long be precious to thousands." He is said
to have been "a man of mark and mould"; and,
though known as "the benevolent and meek Thomas
Hanby," he bore with indomitable courage persecu-
tions of almost unexampled brutality. He became
President of the Conference in 1794. Peter Jaco, who
succeeded Mr. Hanby in Newcastle, was subsequently
sent to London, to supply in Mr. Wesley's absence.
William Thompson, the first president after Wesley's
death, " travelled " Tyneside in 1771. He was succeeded
by Joseph Benson, the well-known Wesleyan divine and
Commentator. Mr. Benson was also stationed in New-
castle in 1775 and 1776. He was twice President of the
Conference— 1798 and 1810. It was to Benson that
Wesley gave such stringent directions " to cut off from
the society " all who would not relinquish the sin of
smuggling — a very prevalent sin in the district at that
time. Thompson had a second appointment to New-
castle m 1774, and a third in 1778. Benjamin Rhodes,
the author of the familiar hymn, "My Heart and Voice
I Raise," was superintendent of the circuit in 1776.
In 1782, Sunderland was separated from the Newcastle
circuit, and made the head of a circuit with places ad-
jacent. In that year the Newcastle ministers were
Duncan M'Allum, Alexander M'Nab, Thomas Ellis, and
John Pritchard. M'Nab is said to have been "very
useful until he yielded to a spirit of self-assertion." John
Pritchard was noted for his natural timidity and self-
distrnst. This, however, he eventually overcame, and he
became the first Chairman of the Newcastle District. In
1786, Joseph Saunderson was second minister in Newcastle.
He is described as "a prince of a preacher for ease,
grace, voice, matter, manner, point, pathos, and beautiful
imaeery," He was related to the famous blind mathema-
tician, Dr. Nicholas Saunderson, Professor of Mathe-
matics at Cambridge, and the intimate friend of Sir Isaac
Newton. The next year — 1787 — the superintendent of
the circuit was James Wood, who was President of the
Conference in 1800, and again in 1808. In 1879, Charles
Atmore, who had only been in the ministry eight years,
was appointed superintendent, which position he held at
John Wesley's death. He was President of the Confer-
ence in 1811. It was Mr. Atmore who formed the first
Methodist Sunday school in Newcastle.
Such is the group of men who assisted Wesley to
establish Methodism in Newcastle — a picturesque group,
with hair smoothed piously over the forehead (when they
were fortunate enough to have any hair), or rigidly
brushed back and tied together in a pig-tail, or perhaps
hidden altogether under a wig. They were clean shaven ;
for beards, and even whiskers, were tokens of worldliness
that had not yet crept in to mar their simplicity ; though
a change might have been urged on the ground of
June!
1891./
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
263
economy, for William Sbent's account for shaving the
preachers during the Conference of 1775 was three
guineas. Their dress was the coat of high collars and
tight sleeves; the breeches and stockings of varied
character, from black silk to coarse grey homespun.
When they went forth to their appointments, it was
generally on horseback, with broad-brimmed hats, long,
heavy coats, and the inevitable saddle-bags with their
multifarious contents — linen, books, and that then very
important article, now obsolete, a tinder-box with its
appurtenances. The " circuit horse " was perpetually on
the trot, taking a round with one or other of the
preachers. As an institution, the circuit saddle-horse
baa, it is true, joined other extinct species ; but it
deserves, at the least, honourable mention in a notice of
early Methodism. MABK NOBLE.
antr
tfte
Qtstrtct,
HERE are two chief resorts for tourists in
the English Lake District — Ambleside in
the south and Keswick in the north. During
the summer months, thousands of people
from all parts of the world flock to these places, with the
object of visiting the scenes immortalised by Wordsworth
and other poets, or, as in the case of the younger portion
of the community, of climbing the mountains for the sake
of the extended views that may be obtained from the sum-
mits. Within recent years the number of visitors has
considerably increased, the accommodation of the hotels
and private lodging-bouses being frequently taxed to the
uttermost. The greater portion of the pleasure-seekers
approach "England's playground," as the Lake District
has not inaptly been termed, by way of Ambleside, for
the reason probably that this town is nearest to London,
Liverpool, Manchester, and other of the great centres of
population. The season extends fioin the beginning of
June to the middle of September, all which time the
incoming and outgoing of visitors never seem to cease.
A hasty glance at the map of the district soon discloses
the circumstance that Ambleside occupies an advan-
tageous position for visiting all the popular sights in the
southern half of the Lake Region. Coaches start from
the Market Vlace for Keswick, Coniston, and Langdale,
and omnibuses to Grasmere, Rydal, and other parts of the
district. Before electing to take a seat beside the driver
of one of the coaches, we will pay a visit of inspection to
the attractions of the town. They are not numerous.
There is the famous Stockgill Force, some half a mile
away. Having proceeded a short distance along the
1 anks of the stream called the Stock, we climb to the
rocky station in full view of the waterfall, or descend to
the water's edge. As will be seen from our engraving,
the fall is divided by projections of the rock into four
parts, the total height being about seventy feet. The
form which it assumes is symmetrical, and the cliffs are
tufted with foliage, the whole presenting a very pretty
picture that has been painted and photographed times
out of number. Retracing our steps down the glen, we
soon come in sight of the old church— only called old
because the date of erection, 1812, is antecedent to that of
the more pretentious edifice that was built in 1854 nearer
the centre of the valley. The latter is a spacious building
in the mediaeval style, but its form and style do not
commend it to those who appreciate chaste architecture.
One of the stained-glass windows, a memorial to Words-
worth, was erected by a number of English and American
admirers of the poet, and bears a Latin inscription.
At the north end of Ambleside, embosomed in syca-
more trees, and for this reason often passed unnoticed, is
the Bridge House, a curious erection that has puzzled
many. Approached by steps from the turnpike road, and
having an antiquated aspect, it might be supposed to
have possessed a history. But it turns out to be of no
greater importance than a summer-house to a neighbaur-
ing mansion. It has engaged the pencil of the artist
so frequently that local guides will tell you that no
picture exhibition is reckoned to be complete without a
sketch of it. The present tenant uses it as a storehouse
for ferns and rare plants — so that, although detached
from any garden of importance, it has returned to its
original uses. A short visit may be paid to the old mill
at the <:ther side of the road, with its waterwheel and
weir, and the old bridge in the background. It, too, is a
favourite subject with the sketcher, though it cannot
claim such honours as the Bridge House. Our drawing
is taken from the top of the weir, only one of the props at
the right being shown.
Two mountain eminences are ever present m views of
Ambleside — Loughrigg Fell to the west, and Wansfell to
the east. From the top of either of these hills the views
are very fine. Looking towards the town, we find spread
out before us an agglomeration of cottages and residences.
Villas, surrounded by gardens, lawns, and woods, are
numerous, amongst them being The Knoll, once the
residence of Harriet Martineau. But the grandest view
of all is that down Windermere, as shown in our illustra-
tion. After watching the skilful manner in which the
collie and his master keep the flock of "mountain skippers "
together, we may proceed to examine the scene. A
meadowy expanse extends from below to the waters of
the lake. To the left is a small bay, with a hotel and
dwelling-houses lost amongst tall trees. This is Water-
head, where the steam yacht, seen in the distance, finds a
berth and discharges its living cargo. Here, too, is a quay
for pleasure boats. The village of Bowness peeps over the
promontory to the left, and the eye, ranging along the
borders of the lake, is met in the extreme distance by
JS-J.M
266
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{June
1891.
the low-lying hills around Cartmell. Occupying a
bluff to the right is Wray Castle, a modern castel-
lated mansion of huge proportions, built in imitation
of a baronial fortress. Opinions may differ as to
whether it is in harmony with the soft beauty of the
lake, but it must be conceded that it forms a striking
feature in all the views from the northern shores. The
river that winds its way towards the broader expanse of
water is the Brathay, which, after coursing down the
Langdale valley, absorbs the Rothay, with its pleasant
echoes of Rydal and Grasmere, near to Ambleside. Near
the mouth of the Brathay was the Roman station Dictis,
not many indications of which are now visible. It was of
an oblong form, and was defended by a fosse and vallum.
The ancient ceremony of rush-bearing is still observed
at Ambleside. On the eve of the last Sunday in July,
the young girls of the village walk in procession to the
church with garlands of flowers (formerly rushes), with
which the sacred edifice is decorated. After service the
day following, all the flowers are removed, and a sermon
with special reference to the event is preached. The
observance of rush-bearing probably dates as far back as
the time of Pope Gregory IV., who recommended to the
early Christians in this country that, on the anniversary
of the dedication of churches wrested from the Pagans,
the converts should build themselves huts of the boughs
of trees, and celebrate the solemnities with religious
feasting. Rushes were in the early days spread on the
floor, while the garlands were allowed to remain until
they withered. Long after the origin of the practice had
been forgotten, rushes continued to be placed on the
floors; but it is conjectured that the motive was to
absorb the moisture, and so make the churches more
comfortable for the worshippers.
Cfltf* of arftrrntfld
j]ANY a remarkable career has been cut short
on the gallows, but seldom has a criminal
produced evidence of literary attainments
and a philosophical mind when the judge was
about to assume the black cap to pronounce sentence of
death upon him. That distinction, however, was earned
by Thomas Fury on April 27th, 1882, before Mr. Justice
Williams, at Durham Assizes, when he was convicted on
his own confession of having murdered Maria Fitzsiramons
at Sunderland thirteen years before. The trial made a great
sensation in the North of England, but no one was pre-
pared for the singular revelation of a criminal's views
upon cri me, its cause and effect, which Fury had written
in his cell when, after thirteen years of prison life, he
resolved to give himself up for the murder which till
then had been a mystery. This extraordinary document
the convict threw into the reporters' box at the assizes on
being stopped by the judge in the reading of it.
It is necessary to explain that Maria Fitzsimmons, the
unfortunate woman who met her death on the afternoon
of February 20th, 1869, was well known to the Sunder-
land police as a disorderly character, having appeared 23
times before the borough justices. On the night of the
19th of February an unknown man, attired as a seaman,
accompanied the woman to her room in Baines's Lane —
a low locality demolished about twelve years ago to make
way for James Williams Street — and remained with her
until next day. Then the wretched pair quarrelled, the
man accusing the woman of having robbed him, and
about ten o'clock the same night Maria Fitzsimmons was
found murdered under circumstances of peculiar savagery.
A keen knife had been plunged ten times into the
woman's breast, five of the stabs penetrating the heart.
Strict search was made for the sailor in whose company
the victim was last seen on the 20th of February, and it
was ascertained that the murderer was one of the crew of
the Lollard, a small schooner, belonging to the late Mr.
Candlish, and engaged in carrying bottles between Sun-
derland or Seaham Harbour and London. The man was
known as Fury, alias Wright or Cort, the cook of the
schooner, and he was singled out as the perpetrator of
the deed ; but he disappeared altogether for a period of
ten years, and when, in 1879, he was identified with
a criminal convicted at Norwich of robbery and at-
tempted murder, the Baines's Lane tragedy had become
so difficult to unravel that it was not thought
desirable to charge him with the commission of the
crime. But the suspected man came forward himself.
The prisoner, convicted and sentenced to fifteen years'
penal servitude at Norwich in 1879, was under confine-
ment at Pentonville Prison ; and on the slate left in his
cell he wrote a detailed confession of the murder of Maria
Fitzsimmons, demanding that he should be placed upon
his trial for the offence. It was recollected that a pocket
book containing a confession of the crime was found by
chance floating in the Serpentine, and the statements
in the pocket book, being compared with those on Fury's
slate, were found to correspond wonderfully both as
regards the handwriting and the facts. The pocket
book was traced to the possession of Fury, who
had stolen it from a companion named Lawrence when
he deserted from the Lollard. It was further discovered
that Fury was the person who procured the arrest of an
innocent man Connor in London for the very crime
which he had himself committed, and that he decamped
when he learned that Detective Inspector Elliott, of
Sunderland, had arrived in the metropolis to see the
accused. Altogether it was considered that there was
sufficient confirmation of Fury's confession to warrant
his being placed upon trial, and he was accordingly
committed to Durham Assizes upon the charge of having
murdered the woman Fitzsimmons.
At the trial. Fury, on being introduced into the dock,
coolly looked towards the Grand Jury g.-.llery and the re-
June)
1891, j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
267
porters' box, and as the occupants of the latter place came
under his observation an inclination to smile was
apparent on his face. He conquered the impulse in a
moment, and having given his attention, at the request of
the Clerk of Arraigns, to the swearing of the jury, betook
the seat provided for him in the dock. In addition to the
facts already narrated, it waa pointed out by the
prosecution that a wound on the little finger was
mentioned in both confessions, and that the prisoner
showed the mate of his vessel a severe wound on his
little finger on the night of the 20th of February.
The jury having returned a verdict of guilty, Fury
requested to be allowed to make a statement. Permission
was granted, and he took from his pocket a bundle of blue
paper, closely written. Replacing a sheet or two in his
pocket and unrolling the remainder, he flattened the
sheets out and commenced to read. He had evidently
committed the matter to memory, as he only glanced at
the sheets in his hand, while he entered into a strong
exordium on the sin and vice of drunkenness, interpolat-
ing freely, and giving some painful and startling passages
from his own life. The judge, interrupting, said he was
very sorry to stop the prisoner, but he felt bound to point
out that the statement he was reading had no bearing
upon the question then before the court. Fury there-
upon threw the manuscript to the reporters, and sentence
of death (afterwards carried out in the usual manner)
was pronounced. The prisoner heard his sentence with-
out showing the slightest sign of trepidation or feeling of
any kind, and when the judge ceased to speak, he took
the remaining sheets of blue paper from his pocket, and
sent them also over to the reporters' box.
It is from this remarkable document, which was pub-
lished in full at the time of the trial, unique in the annals
of crime, that we take the extracts which appear in the
following pages.
I stand charged with the most serious crime which it is
thought possible for a man to commit against that society
of which you, gentlemen of the jury, form a part.
This charge is preferred against me chiefly upon my
own confession, and although I knew that for many years
past the police have had me marked and watched as the
suspected person, yet until about three years ago 1
thought it fit to put on a bold front, and to appear uncon-
scious of their suspicions. Upon my apprehension
for the offences for which I am now undergoing penal
servitude, I gave a person an idea of who I was, and what
I was wanted for, which he does not appear to have fully
availed himself of.
The murder, gentlemen, was committed with such re-
volting and horrid accompaniments that you would natu-
rally suppose the murderer would have done his utmost
to avoid the presence of those who were likely to identify
him, and that he would not, on more than one occasion,
draw the attention of the police and the public to it
again, and that the longer he remained unnoticed, the
more he would have wished to avoid the apprehension,
exposure, shame, and penalty, as well as the shame he
might occasion to his relatives who might still be living
and hear of it.
Gentlemen, every cause must have an effect, and every
effect an antecedent cause, or series of causes.
What, then, can be the cause or reasons that a man,
only just in the prime of life, and after escaping so many
years the penalty due by the laws of this country for the
crime he committed, should voluntarily yield himself to
suffer that penalty ? Self-preservation is the first law of
nature ; to this all other laws are subservient. How strong,
then, must be the causes or reasons which can make a
man, in his sober senses, forego or altogether reject this-
law ! And if, as asserted by one of the clearest intellects
this country has produced, I mean the *' Judicious
Hooker," it be true that "a law of nature is the will of
God," how great must be the responsibility of those who
have caused me to break that law ; and not only so, but
who cause others, thousands, every day to break other
laws of nature, and punish them if they do not, and even
expect thanks for compelling them to violate those laws.
By speaking thus, I do not attempt to lay the blame of
my own acts upon others, for it is perfectly clear that the
will and acts of a man in his senses are really his own,
and that he is responsible for them ; otherwise the laws of
society would be an intolerable tyranny to a few, instead
of a means of safety to the many.
Before I speak of the murder of this unfortunate woman,
I wish briefly to draw your attention to (1st) the circum-
stances which led to it; and (2nd) to the reasons which
have induced me to give myself up for it. Gentlemen,
I have pleaded guilty ; and although my past career, as
both a thief and a liar, would not, under ordinary
circumstances, entitle me to receive any credit in re-
gard to my statements, yet, as I now stand before you
for the last time as a dying or rather a dead man, I beg
your attention to the few words I now address to you —
not for my own benefit, but for your own, and for the
benefit, perhaps, of many others of every class of society ;
at the same time assuring you that, if I state anything
you may think strange, I do it not under the influence of
any passion, either of fear or hate, nor from a morbid
desire of being spoken of by that sickly class, the
devourers of the Police News and other like trash.
" Habits are soon assumed, but when we strive to strip
them off, 'tis being flayed alive." This has passed into a
truism. But there are some habits to overcome which, to
some natures, is worse than death itself. One of them is
the habit of indulging excessively in strong drink. This
is not the place, neither am I the proper person, to argue
upon the good or evil of the liquor traffic ; much can,
and has been, said upon both sides, by these better
qualified than I am to argue those points. I do not
for a moment suppose you are men who generalise from
a few facts. Let me state one or two from my own ex-
perience.
I have been in prisons more than thirteen years, extend-
ing over a period of eighteen years. During that time I
have spoken to many hundreds of prisoners, and only met
with one who had been an abstainer previous to his con-
viction. I have also spoken to some hundreds of re-con-
victed men, and nearly all of them ascribed their recon-
victions to crimes committed under the influence of
drink. Doubtless prison chaplains and magistrates can
say the same. And. far from wishing to bring discredit
upon my own relatives, I do not know, nor have I heard
of, but one member on either side of our family that was
not strongly addicted to drinking. As I said before,
every effect is the result of a cause or force. I stand
before you now as the resultant of the forces of per-
suasion, example, and compulsion. And Maria Fitz-
simmons, whom I murdered thirteen years ago, was
another of those terrific results.
Gentlemen, my father was a drunkard ; my mother was
forced to become one— held down by her nearest relatives
while they poured rum down her throat, until she pro-
mised to be sociable. Queer sociability in a Christian
land ! And as regards myself, I know that I was raving
drunk before I was eight years old, and several times
before I was ten years of age. On one occasion the very
cure for the measles given to me was saffron and as much
brandy as I could swallow, the effect of which was to
create an undying love for spirits — a constant craving for
spirits or liquors— and that craving has been the means of
making me commit all kinds of crime to satisfy it. Even
at the present moment, although I know its effects and
results to myself and others, that craving for drink would
268
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/June
1891.
almost make me commit another murder to satisfy it.
Gentlemen, one of the effects of drink upon me, I mean
when I have been drinking for some time, is an irresis-
tible desire to do injury, either by word or deed, to others,
even though they may have given me no provocation
whatsoever — in one instance, threatening my mother with
a knife ; shame being the only cause of not executing the
threat.
I have already related how early I was initiated into
the accursed habit. It was more fully developed during
four years spent ainoo^c seamen, who, as you all know,
seem to think that drink is the "summum bonum" of
human life. After this it was my fate to have to spend
more than four years in prison. Upon my discharge, and
obtaiuing another ship, I determined not to drink. The
vessel left London, and stopped at Grays to take in
ballast. The captain, going to London, left orders for the
crew to be allowed a quantity of beer while trimming
ballast. Upon the mate offering me my share I civilly
declined it, receiving a storm of abuse in return, accom-
panied with an order to leave the ship and go ashore if I
did not like to drink. At the same time the mate told
me to excuse his forcing me, that I could not do my
share of work if I did not drink, and that he was master
on board while the captain was in London. Thirty miles
from home, without a penny in my pocket ! What was I
to do ? I saw the good ; the evil I had to follow. I drank
the beer, was praised for being a man, and the result there-
from, as if human blood had been given to a tame tiger,
was that drink was all that I lived for. For this only did
I work ; for it I neglected my duty to myself, my mother,
and my employers ; for it I became again a thief by using
money entrusted to me by my shipmates : for to obtain it
I went on board the Lollard ; for, by, and through it, I
now stand before you at this bar as the murderer of a
woman.
It would be only a waste of time, and almost an insult
to the patience of the bench, to detail all the other crimes
I have been guilty of since February, '69, while under the
i nfluence of drink ; mostly crimes of violence. I have no
doubt they are already known to you ; but allow me to
state that one of the reasons for giving myself up is to
get rid of that craving — a craving which no words are
adequate to express, and for which, in my case at least,
extinction is the only cure.
These are a few of the reasons which led to the crime I
am indicted for. Another and a principal cause was my
connection with the police. Lest it should be thought
that I speak from passion, I will not enter into details,
but merely state the general facts of our relations. Upon
my return from China in the year 1863, and after having
squandered the remains of my wages, chiefly in drink, I
was reduced to a state of the most extreme poverty. I
then fell in with some habitual criminals, who, perceiving
my necessities and inexperience, and how likely I was
to be useful to assist them, by means of drink easily
persuaded me to join them, using Romeo's arguments to
the apothecary, viz., that "The world was not my friend,
nor the world's law."
With them I was concerned in several burglaries, each
of which was marked out previously by a man in the
employ of .* commonly called a "putter up" and a
" nark." This man induced me to bring part of the pro-
ceeds of one of the burglaries upon me into district.
When apprehended me, by threats of imprisonment,
and promises of obtaining employment for me that I
might live honestly, he induced me to entice my com-
panions with their tools upon them into his district, where
they were apprehended. did not fulfil his promises
to me, but rather insulted me on several occasions for
reminding him of them. He, however, gave me every
inducement to draw other criminals into his district in
order to profit by their crimes, in which honourable em-
ployment I was encouraged by this "nark" or "putter-
up" of . I avoided them, and tried to obtain work,
* Fury's document contained, of course, the real names of the
parties ; but they were omitted in the newspaper report for obvious
easons.
but unsuccessfully, and at last took to burglary on my
own account, which I should not have done if had
kept his promises or if I could have obtained employ-
ment. Being at last detected, and sentenced to penal
servitude, when my time was expired, to avoid the
police, I again went to sea ; and thus I was led to
Sunderland to meet and murder Maria Fitzsimmons.
These are but the brief outlines of my convictions so
far. But after my leaving the Lollard in London, and
wasting the money I had earned and won as detailed in
my first statement. I met again in Fleet Street.
After some remarks as to my state and prospects, he told
me tilings were very dull with him, and asked me if I
could not make, or get up, a little business for him again,
in the style of Jonathan Wild. Remembering how grossly
he had deceived me before, and still resentful, being also
under the influence of drink, I thought this a capital
chance of bringing him into discredit by humbugging
him ; and at the same time to indulge in my desire for
drink at his expense. Knowing better than any one else
the particulars of this murder at Sunderland, I, to use a
slang term, "Got it up for him," he promising, according
to his old system, that I should be kept out of sight in the
affair. It was thus a man came to be apprehended,
having come with me believing we were going to injure
others. Here were two biters bitten.
I might enumerate a few more of the causes which lea
to the commission of this crime, but will leave them, and
come to some of the reasons why I have given myself up
to be condemned here, when I had so many opportunities
to deprive myself of life elsewhere if I had chosen. You
have heard me describe my unnatural thirst for drink,
and the desire to do injury if that thirst was appeased.
In June, 1878, just after my discharge from Portsmouth
Prison, I was taken seriously ill, one of the symptoms
being diarrhoea and vomiting, and for eleven months I
was unable to retain anything upon my stomach in the
shape of solid food, not eating on an average 1 Ib. of solids
per week. Diarrhoea continued all that time. Until
after being in Norwich Goal some time awaiting trial, I
thought to destroy myself by eating a large quantity of
carboiate or chloride of lime. This had no other effect
upon me than to stop all the diarrhoea, and to produce in
me a raving appetite for food, which kept me awake, on
an average, six hours a night, and which I see no hope of
ever appeasing in a prison. Sooner than suffer this
hunger any longer I have preferred to come here, for
any day or night these last two years I would have done
anything short of murder for a loaf.
Another reason is that about two years ago, wishing to
bring before the Government a cheap and abundant sub-
stitute for coal, I applied for books to assist me in making
out the statement relating to the subject, which books I
knew were in the prison. My applications were met with
contempt and neglect at first, then direct petty annoyance
and oppression ; but when I had made a statement of
some of the advantages of this fuel to the director. I
received promises that I should have whatever books there
were in the prison bearing on the subject. I, however,
only received two, although I gave the titles of many
which were in the library ; and not being able to obtain
them since, I became disgusted, and said to myself,
" Why should I think to fight against Fate any longer,
by trying to do good to those who only study how best
to injure me ?" 1 have not the slightest doubt that, if I
could have obtained those books at the time I applied
for them, I should now be at liberty and out of this
country, or, at least, have had a large portion of my
sentence remitted. But "What must be will be."
"There is a Providence that shapes our ends." "And
God gives to every man the wisdom, understanding,
temper, talents, tastes, that lift him into life, and let him
fall just in the niche he was designed to fill." The temper
and tastes He has given me have caused to be all through
my life that which I expressed before, i.e., "an example."
His will be done, if my being made an example proves of
any utility to those I leave behind me, utility being
the best definition or expression of His will that I can
conceive of.
Another reason is to get rid of for ever of the unnatural,
inhuman brutality, the indignities, and the unnecessary
June!
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
269
punishments to which prisoners, as a general rule, are sub-
jected.
When I reflect upon the inhuman treatment experienced
by prisoners every day, I can well understand the truth
of Sir William Hamilton's dictum that "Medicine is a
science founded upon conjecture, and improved by mur-
der." He might have added, if he had had any know-
ledge of prison life, "cold-blooded and systematic
murder." When I look back at what I have endured
these last twelve months, and especially during the last
five, and consider my own naturally irritable temper, and
how I tried to bear calmly my share of the evils allotted to
every man in some form or other (waving hope, for I was
concerned in procuring them), I stand astonished at my
own moderation and forbearance, that I did not add one
more crime of violence to the others I had already com-
mitted. But '"Tis Heaven each passion sends: and
different men direct to different ends," whether those
passions are passive or active.
at
j]MTJGGLING is now a very paltry affair— a
few pounds of tobacco or perhaps cigars
concealed by a poor sailor somewhere
about the ship. But within the recollection
of many persons still living, it may be said to have
ranked among the skilled professions. The higher the
duty imposed upon foreign articles, the greater of course
in every land is the temptation to smuggle.
All along the Border between England and Scotland
preventive men were stationed, in the early part of the
present century, to overhaul every carrier's cart and
every passenger's luggage to see that they contained
nothing contraband. Lamberton, Mordington, and Pax-
ton Tolls (lying on the March boundary) were notorious
depots for smuggled goods ; and many bladders-full of
whisky used to be carried by the sturdy fisherwomen
under their ample skirts from these tolls into Berwick
town. Spittal was specially notorious for its smuggling.
"Many an old cruiser, " says Frederick Sheldon, writing
in 1848, " laid up in comfort by hiu fireside, owed his
wealth to his midnight excursions with contraband
goods." The Spittal fishermen were all smugglers, and
very expert in landing forbidden cargoes from the Dutch
luggers. The houses in the village — as indeed in all the
sea coast towns and villages, including Shields and
Sunderland — contained secret holes and nooks made
to stow away smuggled goods. In some instances, the
soil under the kitchen floors had been entirely removed,
so as to form places of deposit not likely to be suspected.
Boulmer or Boomer, near Alnmouth, had long a
more than local fame as a smuggling centre. Indeed,
the staple of its industry, apart from the open honest
harvest of the sea, was smuggling. The place was
commonly resorted to, as a regular mart, by dare-devil
desperadoes from Yetholm, Morebattle, Crailing, Jed-
burgh, and others towns in Roxburghshire, as well as
from all parts of Bamborough, Coquetdale, and Glendale
Wards. Anecdotes are innumberable of the frays, often
bloody, between the doughty smugglers and the
stalwart gaugers, as the revenue officers of all denomlna
tions were commonly styled. Wull Bahner, Jock
Melvin and Rutbor Grahamslaw, of Jedburgu, and Wull
Faa, of Kirk Yetholm, the gipsy king, did deeds in this
vocation which would have earned them Victoria medals
in the legitimate t-ervice of their country.
Early in the century it was no unusual circumstance for
twenty or thirty smugglers on horseback to sally forth in
company to Boomer for giu. Each horse carried its
casks, and, the spirit being of first-rate quality, the
dealers found a ready sale for it all over the Borders.
Once when a party of this description from Yetholm and
the vicinity were returning with their complement, they
were met at Bewick Bridge by a body of armed soldiers,
who took possession of the full casks, but had, however
the liberality to return the horses to their respective
owners. A waggon and long cart were first loaded with
the booty, and what remained was removed to a barn or
granary, in which it was locked up, with the king's seal
for security affixed to the entrance. The impoverished
smugglers, in the meantime, waited at a respectful
distance till the red coats disappeared ; and then, getting
intelligence from some compassionate witnesses of what
had taken place, they returned all together, broke into
the barn, and regained a part of the spoil. An equal
division, of course, was afterwards made, when the
smugglers found they had recovered about ten ankers of
gin out of the quantity they brought that morning from
Boomer.
The excise officers were necessitated to hunt in couples,
as few of them would have dared to encounter singly a
desperate and athletic smuggler. Jedburgh in those days
— that is to say, seventy or eighty years ago — boasted of
several habitual violaters of the law, notorious for their
doughty deeds. Such a one was Blind Will Balmer,
who, as a popular song made in his honour ran —
Felled half the gaugers o' Jethart,
When coming frae Boulmer wi' gin.
A family of the name of Gages, or Geggie, re-
sided once in the neighbourhood of Coldstream or
Wark, and were noted as daring and determined
smugglers. Allan or Alley Geggie was a power-
ful man, and, when closely pressed, most fruit-
ful in resources. Many are the feats he is said to
have performed. Two excisemen were pursuing him on
one occasion. Having followed him to a ford on the river
Tweed near Twizel, where a boat was stationed to con-
vey passengers across, they inquired at the small cottage
where the boatman resided if a person agreeing with
Allan's description had been seen. The answer returned
was that such a man had just been kented over the Tweed.
The pursuers then requested to be conveyed over the
river also. The ferryman, as they supposed him to be,
asked them to step on board. Remaining himself on
shore, be pushed the boat forcibly into the stream, down
270
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{.limn
1891.
which she flew like an arrow, while the supposed ferryman
drew himself up to his full height as he said, "Now,
d — n ye, aw'm Alley Geggie ! " Nor did the gaugers suc-
ceed in gaining the shore till they had been borne down-
ward for several miles.
The late Eobert White tells the following story of a
noted smuggler who belonged to the neighbourhood of
Morpeth :— "Robert Purvis, a son of Thomas Purvis, a
weaver, of Angerton, on the Wansbeck, was born about
1794. With his father he learned the trade of a weaver ;
but it seems not to have agreed with his active disposition,
for he never followed it. He afterwards wrought in the
several capacities of a husbandman, a miller, and a smith ;
and about 1816 became a smuggler. In 1828, he was met
on Long Horsley Moor by an exciseman named William-
son of Morpeth, who captured his casks ; but he, himself,
took leg-bail, and escaped. Being well-known, his per-
sonal freedom was now in peril ; yet, having saved some
money, he purchased a bunting mare for his safety, and
concealed himself for a time near the residence of his
brother at the Blackcock, a row of cottages a few miles
north of Morpeth. Once, while he was on a visit to his
father at Angerton, the bouse was beset by a party of
excisemen, who effected an entrance, when Purvis, with
only his shirt and drawers on, made bis exit at one of the
windows. His pursuers gave chase. Purvis entered an
adjoining wood, and hid himself in a pond, where he re-
mained with his head above the water till the excisemen
withdrew. In March, 1829, when he was present at a
fox hunt on Thornton Moor, an exciseman attempted to
secure him ; but, putting spurs to his mare, he speedily
cleared all obstructions, and left hia enemy far behind.
At last, finding it was unsafe for him to remain in the
district, he sold his mare and prepared to emigrate to
America. Still he had to make another desperate effort
for liberty ; for when he and a comrade were at Bedling-
ton on the way to Shields, he was again beset by William-
son and another officer. When hard run, he entered a
cottage on the Blythe, the mistress of which gave intima-
tion to the exciseman of her guest. Purvis sprang through
& window, driving the casement before him, and made off.
In his flight he met with his comrade, exchanged clothes,
and lay quiet, while the other ran away in sight of the
avengers of the law and was captured. Purvis withdrew
in safety, went to Shields, sailed to America, married a
native of that country, and took to agriculture, in which
he was very successful till the period of his death, which
took place about 184-0."
Not the least famous of the smugglers who distilled
their own spirits was one Donald McDonald, who, as
his name imports, was not a native of the district, but a
genuine Highlander, redolent of peat reek. Donald had
made whisky from "the pure mountain dew" in the
wilds of Inverness, and, wandering away south, he
resolved to do the same among the Cheviots. So
he chose a lonely spot, where he rigged up a rough
hut over his working materials, with wooden spars and
rushes, setting up a small coarse table in the middle,
with a seat or two round it ; and another, rougher
still — consisting of two boards — beside the doorway.
Some dried heath, with the tops upward, served for his
bed in a corner. Thus equipped, he soon got prosper-
ously to work. Donald's whisky ere long made a stir in
the country round, and many visitors taxed his liberality.
One afternoon Donald was visited by a man on horseback,
who dismounted and entered the hut with little ceremony.
There was something suspicious about his appearance,
but he was nevertheless shown to the seat at the table in
the middle, and treated with bread, cheese, an earthen
pot full of water, two glasses, and, above all, some of
Donald's prime " stuff." Filling his own glass from the
bottle, the host withdrew to the temporary table beside
the door ; for he was rather slight in build, and no match,
in case of a scuffle, for the strong stranger, who was in
the prime of life. After a few distant compliments had
been exchanged, the following conversation, according to
Mr. White, took place between the pair : —
" What is your name?" asked the stranger.
"Tey ca' ma Tonal'," replied the other, drily.
" What more than Donald?" asked the intruder.
"No muckle mair," observed the other; "Tonal"
McTonal'."
"Well, Donald," said the stranger, "you distil
smuggled whisky ; and 1 am an excise officer. I came
hear to make you a prisoner !"
"Ough! zat needna pe tune," replied Donald, with
seeming indifference ; "ye maun pe tak' ta things, she'll
warrant ; put fat wad ye tu wi' her sell ?"
"I must take you, Donald," continued the other; "it
becomes me as an officer to do my duty. "
" Troth ! put tuty pe no owre muckle mindit now-a-
tays, " sarcastically observed Donald, grinning and showing
an excellent setof teeth in a mouth whosedimensions ranged
considerably above the usual standard. "I nape want
to quarrel wi' yer honour ; put I'm no shust willing to
pe ta'en. Onty as twa can keepit a secret, fan three
canna, let us no rife out ane anither's hearts apout ta
piziness. and nough ta petter. We'll shust transackit ta
matter snodly, and kin ye tak' ilka thing tat pe mine, and
gie ma ley-bail for payment — sertainly to gudeness ye get
ta pest o' ta pargain !"
"I cannot, sir, reason the business with you," said the
exciseman, raising his voice as if he intended to overawe
the Highlander. " According to my oath, I must detain
you a prisoner, and take possession of these materials. If
I am opposed, I have only to command help where it may
be found."
"Fery sefere ! fery hard indeed !" obdurately continued
the smuggler : "put Tonal' winna pe triven like a cow or
sheep py efer a shentleman i' Ningland ! If help pe
gotten, she maun shust help her nain sell. She has frien's
nane sae far awa' as ye may trow ; and ken't they
o' siccan a feesitor peing here, they wad tune pe at
Tonal's side. Tid onypody saw ye come in ?"
"Not a soul," observed the officer, rising from his seat
as if determined to perform his duty, and waive all
further conversation.
" Then tam'd a one sail see ye go out /" thundered
Donald, with a rapidity of expression that instantly
arrested the progressive movement of the officer. "A
man's house pe him's castle, an' if ye gie linger eyther ta
swort or pistol, by C — d, she'll tak' ta first shance ; sae
ye're plood pe on ye're nain head !"
So saying, Donald took a brace of horse pistols from
behind the door, and cocked them, laying one on the
board beside him, and holding the other in his right
June)
1891.1
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
271
hand, while with his left he unsheathed his dirk. The
unarmed officer could only collapse into his old seat at the
table, leaving the unlicensed whisky-maker master of the
situation. Being seated again, the exciseman went on
eating and drinking. Donald was only too glad to allow
this, and was still happier when, at sunset, his guest
rolled off to sleep on the bed in the corner. In the night,
Donald stowed all his goods away in a place of safety,
using his enemy's horse to help him through thn job*
The exciseman rose after a sound sleep, and, finding his
horse gone, went home as best he could. Before the
morning was out, however, he brought a stout force to
the smuggler's hut. He found his horse this time, weary
and bereft of its bridle ; but Donald had vanished with
all his valuables, and on the detached end of a cask set up
in the deserted brewery near the door were written the
words, "LABOUB IN VAIN."
author of a famous prize essay on Greece,
written in response to the invitation of the
Royal Commissioners visiting the Universities
of Scotland, which it was then thought much needed
reform, was a native of Alnwick — John Brown Patterson.
While engaged on their official work in Edinburgh, the
Commissioners, presided over by Byron's " travelled
thane, Athenian Aberdeen," made up a purse of one
hundred guineas, which they offered for the best essay
on the National Character of the Athenians. The sub-
ject was selected by the noble earl, who, as a member of
the Athenian Society and author of an inquiry into the
"Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture," had a
passionate interest in Greece. It was this prize which
Patterson won.
John Brown Patterson, born at Alnwick on the 29th
January, 1804, was the son of Robert Patterson and of
Janet Brown, daughter of the Rev. John Brown, of
Haddington, Theological Professor to tbe Associate
Synod, and author of the "Self -Interpreting Bible." In
1810 Mrs. Patterson, then a widow, removed from Croft
House, the name of her husband's property, to Edin-
burgh, but in 1815 settled in Haddington. To its
Grammar School young Patterson was accordingly sent.
For three years he resided at Haddington. In 1818 he
entered the Rector's class in Edinburgh High School.
In the course of the first year he rose to the highest
distinction, and in the year following he was foremost in
every branch taught. In August, 1820, he gained the
gold raedal — an honour for which the most eminent
scholars of Edinburgh competed. The celebrated Pro-
fessor Pillans, then the Rector of the High School, was
about to be transferred to the Chair of Humanity in
Edinburgh University. There Patterson followed him.
At the University he attained the highest honours in
every department of study. In 1822 the Scottish student
was brought rather curiously into contact with the
celebrated Count Flahault. The soldier and diplomatist
— a faithful adherent of the Bonapartes in storm as in
sunshine— had married Lady Keith, and was residing in
Edinburgh. The Count, anxious to revive his early
studies, asked Professor Pillans if he could find any one
who would come at stated hours to read Greek and Latin.
With an apology for sending one so young, the Professor
sent John Brown Patterson. The Count soon discovered
that the Professor had made an excellent choice.
Charmed with the society and accomplishments of the
youthful Scotchman, Flahault took Patterson with him
to his country residence, and many happy days were
spent in the society of the man who had fought at
Austerlitz, at Leipzic, and at Waterloo.
The late Sir Robert Peel was so fascinated with the
prize essay that he presented its author with one of the
best livings in Scotland. The preacher had in him the
fervour of his mother's race. His abundant labours at
Falkirk wore out a not too robust constitution, and a chill
which he caught induced the malady to which he suc-
cumbed. A memoir of this highly gifted man, prefixed
to a volume of his sermons, was published many years
ago. In 1860 a new edition of the essay, with the
author's additions, was published by William Blackwrxxi
and Sons. It was in Edinburgh, tbe scene of his scholas-
tic triumphs, that John Brown Patterson died on the
29th of June, 1835, in his thirty-first year, leaving a
widow and one son to mourn his loss. Dr. John Brown,
author of "Rab and his Friends," and Dr. Crum Brown,
Professor of Chemistry in Edinburgh University, were
related to the family to which John Brown Patterson
belonged.
Creoetoell
RAMBLE round about Cresswell, a village on
the Northumberland coast not far from New-
biggin, will afford much quiet enjoyment.
The only object of antiquarian interest in the neigh-
bourhood is the Edwardian pele tower, a fine speci-
men of a fortified dwelling of a former age, which
occupies a commanding position overlooking Druridge
Bay. This old home of the Cresswells has a tradition
relating to a White Lady, whose spirit is said to haunt
the place. The fair maiden was a daughter of one of the
barons of Cresswell, and had the misfortune to witness
the death of her lover, a Danish prince, at the hands of
her own brothers. Prostrated with grief at this terrible
tragedy, she slowly starved herself to death. The church
is a modern structure, and does not call for com-
ment. How the weary traveller will fare at Cresswell
will depend upon the hospitality of the inhabitants,
for the two inns that were formerly to be found in the
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MO.NTHLY CHRONICLE.
{•Tune
IWL
village have been removed. Beyond Oesswell House, the
abode of Mrs. Cresswell, there are only a few fishermen's
cottars, as may be seen from the accompanying sketch of
the place. But in these modest habitations there is the
stuff of which heroes and heroines are made, the pfcople
being those who do brave deeds without prospect of
honour or reward.
WRITER on Bywell might very well begin
his account of the place with the words of
the Roman poet, " ITrbs antiqua fuit." The
once populous town of Bywell no longer
exists. The churches where the inhabitants wor-
shipped, the cross around which they gathered on market
days and festivals, the castle which afforded them protec-
tion from the lawless Borderers, the vicarage, and the
Match am Inn, now a dwelline-house, are the only
memorials of the town. The scenery here is so beautiful,
however, that any melancholy reflections which may arise
in the mind of the visitor at the fate of this Northum-
brian " sweet Auburn " are soon charmed away. Alovelier
spot it would be difficult to find.
The Tyne, as yet bright and unsullied, making a pic-
turesque bend here, sweeps onward down a broad fair
reach, which is crossed by a tine stone bridge, erected
about fifty-three years ago. Close to the river are the
ivy-clad ruins of the unfinished castle of the Nevilles.
The churches stand a little to the west, just outside the
grounds of Bywell Hall The banks of the river here
and the slopes to the north are delightfully sraoded, some
of the trees being of great girth.
From a very early period Bywell has been famous for
its fisheries. Aliauor de Genevre, widow of Alexander
de Balliol, at the time of her death in 1310-11, was
possessed, we are told, of two locks for taking salmon at
Bywell and one acre of land abutting upon the dam. And
now nearly six hundred years later the same spectacle
msy be witnessed in this charming retreat — the struggle
between the instinct of the fish and the cunning of man,
in which not unfrequently the former gains the victory.
Bywell was no doubt an Anglian settlement, but at
what precise period it was founded we cannot say.
In the 7th or the 8th century we know that
a church was built here, probably by St. Wilfrid.
Bywell is first mentioned as the scene of an important
ecclesiastical ceremony which took place on Sunday, the
llth of June, 803. "At a place called Bigwell," says
Simeon, of Durham, " Egbert, the 12th Bishop of Lindis-
farne, was consecrated by the Archbishop of York and
the Bishops of Hexham and Whithern." The church,
like many another in the county, would no doubt have its
share in the vicissitudes of the next two centuries, for it
was found necessary to rebuild it shortly before the
Conquest.
No record has come down to us of the lords of Bywell
in Saxon times. Whoever they were, they ware ousted
in favour of one of the followers of William the Con-
queror, Guy d« Balliol, who received the barony from
William Rufus. His family possessed it for mauy
generations. The lord of Bywell, in the reign of
Henry III. — John de Balliol — was a baron of re-
nown, who, as the founder of Balliol College, OxfouJ,
June!
1./
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
273
will be remembered when his deeds of prowess are
forgotten. The barony of Bywell came into the posses-
sion of his youngest son, also called John de Balliol,
who, in 1292, received the Crown of Scotland from
Edward I. When in 1296 he was compelled to resign it,
his estates were given to John Drenx, Earl of Brittany
and Richmond. Bywell was granted in 1337, by Edward
III., to the famous Ralph de Neville, Lord of Raby and
Brancepeth, whose name was afterwards associated with
the battle of Neville's Cross. It passed out of the hands
of the Neville family in the reign of Elizabeth, being
forfeited by Charles, Earl of Westmoreland, for the part
he took in the disastrous rising of the North in 1569 .
A survey taken at this time comtains some interest-
ing particulars of the place. It appears that the
barony was 22 miles in compass, and had belonging t» it
a forest of red deer, and a salmon fishery extending three
miles in length. " In the wastes also are divers
woods and very fair coursing with greyhounds."
" The Town of Bywell, " so we read, " is builded in length
all in one street upon the river or water of Tyne, on the
north and west part of the same, and is divided into two
several parishes, and inhabited with handicraftsmen,
whose trade is all in ironwork for the horsemen and
borderers of that country, as making of bits, stirrups,
buckles, and such others wherein they are very expert
and cunning. They are subject to the incursions of the
thieves of Tindale, and compelled, winter and summer,
to bring all their cattle and sheep into the street in the
night season, and watch both the ends of the street, and
when the enemy approach to raise hue and cry, where-
upon all the town prepareth for rescue of their goods,
which is very populous by reason of their trade, and stout
and hardy by continual practice against the enemy."
On the 28th of February, 1644, a portion of the Scots
army, which had failed in its first attempt to take New-
castle, crossed the Tyne here by the ford not without some
inconvenience, for the water at the time was very deep.
About the year 1673, when the terrible superstition
which resulted in the- death of so many poor women was
at its height, Bywell and district seem to have been quite
a seminary for witches and wizards. At Birches Nook,
half-a-mile from Stocksfield Station, on the road to Mick-
ley, there lived a- person of the name of Ann Armstrong,
who played the part of witch-finder, and drew suspicion
on numbers of women in the neighbourhood. She must
have possessed a very strange-imagination, for some of the
details in her story are exceedingly curious and almost
unique of their kind. She tells how the witches
gained an influence over her, and how they used
to turn her into a horse by putting on her an
enchanted bridle, and how they rode her cross-legged
to their meetings, which were usually held at Riding
Mill bridge-end. There the devil would come as a
"long black man riding on a bay galloway." When
the bridle was removed, the girl re-sumed her natural shape
and was made to sing while the witches danced in the
shape of a hare, a cat, a moose, or a bee. Part of the
ceremony was to recite the Lord's Prayer backward.
Riding House was also a festive resort of the witches.
There they used to ride about on eeg-shells and wooden
dishes that bad never been wet. Their feasts were very
merry "functions." The devil, whom they called their
protector, occupied a chair "like unto bright gold."
They had all sorts of meats and drink, which they named
" siltt," on the table, obtained by pulling a rope. On one
occasion, when wizards were also present, they each had to
swing three times on a rope which went across the balks,
and what each one wished was sent down. One witch
obtained a capon, the plum-broth it was boiled in, and a
bottle of wine ; another a cheese, a " beakment" of wheat
flour, and " half-a-qnarter of butter to knead the said
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274
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/June
t 1891.
flower withall, they haveing noe power to gett water " ;
a third, a pound of currants to put in the flour for bread,
a quarter of mutton, and a bottle of sack ; a fourth a
"flackettof ale," containingabout three quarts, a "kening
of wheat flour " for pies, and a piece of beef. After the
feast, the devil heard their confessions, which related to
the mischief they had done since their last meeting —
strange confessions are some of those given — and we are
told he "made most of them that did most h»rmeand
beate those who had donne no harme." The result of the
trials is not known. It is to be hoped that the testimony
of Ann Armstrong was more discredited than that of
Matthew Hopkins.
A curious picture is presented of the inhabitants of
Bywell a century later in Roger North's life of bis
brother, the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.
When on the Northern Circuit, in 1676, his road lay
through the barony of Bywell. According to a law then
in force, the tenants of each manor in the barony were
compelled to guard the judges through their precincts,
and, says Roger North, "out of it they would not go —
no — not an inch, to save the souls of them. They were a
comical sort of people, riding upon negs, as they called
their small horses, with long beards, cloaks, and long
broad swords, with basket hilts, hanging in broad belts,
that their legs and swords almost touched the ground, and
every one in his turn with his short cloak and other
equipage came up cheek by jowl and talked with my lord
judge. His lordship was very pleased with their discourse,
for they were great antiquaries in their own bounds. "
From the church registers under date December 22,
1735, we get a faint side-light thrown on the social life of
Bywell at that time. The entry is:— "For scourging a
woman, Is. 4d."
In the year 1760, as one Robinson, a mason, was fishing
in the river here after a fall of rain, he found a Roman
drinking-cup of silver, with the following inscription
round the brim: — "Desideri vivas" — Long life to you,
Desiderius ! Robinson sold it for 15s. to a goldsmith in
Newcastle. It was probably washed out of the banks
about Carbridtre, and carried down the river.
The village suffered greatly from the memorable flood
of Sunday, November 17th, 1771. On the ground floor of
Bywell Hall the water was eight feet deep. The gardens
were destroyed, and the walls thrown down. Most of the
valuable stud of horses were got into the Black Church,
and escaped drowning by holding on to the tops of the
pews. A mare belonging to Mr. Elliot, father-in-law of
Thomas Bewick, who was on a visit to Bywell at the time,
saved itself in the same church by getting upon the altar
table. About ten bouses were swept away, and six persons
perished. Many of the inhabitants had to be taken out
of the houses through the roofs. Part of the churchyard
of the White Church was washed away, and dead bodies
and coffins were torn out of the graves.
The Bywell Bridge was commenced in 1836, and was
completed in 1838. At the time there were standing, a
little below the dam, two stone piers of an ancient bridge,
which led to the chapel of St. Helen's, on the south side
of the river opposite to the castle. These piers were
blown up ; but, by some accident, the train was fired too
early, and two men were hurled into the air, one of whom
was killed.
In 1852, many old cottages, with the old St. Andrew's
Vicarage, and the St. Peter's rectorial tithe buildings,
let in tenements, were pulled down. The old dam was
destroyed in 1861, to allow the salmon a free course up the
river, and the old corn mill was removed at the same
time, so that Bywell lost two picturesque features, of no
little interest.
Of the three relics af the past, the two churches are,
perhaps, the most interesting, carrying back the mind, as
they do, to pre-Conquest times. The curious circum-
stance of the two churches being so n^ar each other has
given rise to a legend of two sisters quarrelling, and each
building a church of her own. This legend is found in
other places, where there are also two churches side by
side, and is without any foundation. The churches show
how populous Bywell was in the early days of its history.
They are called the Black and White Churches, becaute
St. Andrew's at one time belonged to the Prsemonstra-
tensian or White Canons of Blanchland, and St. Peter's
to the Benedictine or Black Canons of Durham.
St. Andrew's Church (the church on the right of our
sketch, which is copied from an excellent photograph by
Mr. J. P. Gibson, of Hexham) was rebuilt, it is supposed,
about 1030 to 1060. The materials of the earlier building
have been utilised in the construction of the new one, for
on the inside of the western window on the second storey
of the tower is a portion of the shaft of an early Saxon
cross. No less than twenty-eight English grave covers,
some of great beauty, have been built into the outer wall
of this church. The chancel is remarkable in being two
feet longer than the nave. On one side of the chancel
arch is a hagioscope or squint. In the porch is a holy water
stoup, which has escaped the Puritan destroyers.
St. Peter's Church stands 150 yards from St. Andrew's,
and is a more interesting edifice. The oldest part of it is
the north wall, of late Saxon architecture, and may pos-
sibly date from about 1030 or 1060. The tower of St. Peter's
belongs to the 13th century, though it stands on founda-
tions of an earlier date. It was evidently a place of
refuge to the inhabitants of Bywell during the inroads of
the mosstroopers, and the holes in the doorway for the
reception of huge bars of iron still remain. There are two
chantry chapels. That on the south side, dedicated to
St. John the Baptist, and built about 1287, contains a
large stone altar slab with the five dedication crosses upon
it ; that on the north, founded about 1360, contains a
monumental slab on which is inscribed the figure
of a knight in armour, probably the founder of the
chantry. On the south side of the chancel (circa
June!
189L/
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
275
1195) may be seen good examples of sedilia and
piscina. The church contains a square-headed, low
side window — one of those mysterious openings the
object of which is still a problem for antiquaries.
In the tower are two very interesting old bells, one of
the 13th century, inscribed, " Tu es Petrus," with the
letters of the alphabet ; the other, of later date, inscribed,
" Utsurgantgentesvocorhornetcitojacetes " (I am called
horn, and I summon the sleeping people to arise.) The
gateway leading into the churchyard was designed by
Vanbrugh.
The market cross oricrinally stood between the two
churches, and was removed to its present position, in a
field adjoining St. Peter's, a few years ago.
It is not known exactly when the building of Bywell
Castle was begun. The earliest mention of it is in a
fifteenth century chronicle, which states that after the
flight of Henry VI. from the battle of Hexham in 1464,
his helmet, crown, sword, and horse armour were found
in Bywell Castle. ''How or in what manner he
escaped," says the writer, "God knows, in whose hands
are the hearts of kings." The present picturesque ruins
are those of the Great Gatehouse — a large machicolated
tower of three stages, surmounted by four turrets, one at
each corner. This Gatehouse was the only part of the
castle built. For some reason or other this "Border
hold " was never completed.
There is a mound near Stocksfield Railway Station,
on the north side of the river, called the Bound Hill,
which the Rev. Anthony Johnson surmises was the Mote
Hill of the barony, where the open-air motes were held.
The Gallows Hill, where felons were banged, is a little to
the north of Bywell, near the farmstead of Peepy.
Bywell Hall was rebuilt about the year 1760, from the
designs of Paine, by William Fenwick, who was High
Sheriff of Northumberland in 1752.
Vanished are the barons and their bold retainers, the
deft handicraftsman and the hardy peasants; but the
beauty of Nature is still unimpaired, and in this nook of the
Bewick country, which recalls so many of the famous
wood-cuts, we may find some of that meditative, peaceful
delight so difficult to gain in the bustle of modern life.
WM. W. TOMLINSON.
ISag an tit*
j|N what year the Tyne had its first Barge Day,
none of our local historians disclose to us.
The record, writ in water, Time has long
ago effaced. But in the dajs of the second
of our Stuart Sovereigns we obtain distinct traces of
the survey of the river by Mr. Mayor and his Brethren.
Ere the reign of King Charles was ten years old, John
Pithy, Corporate Chamberlain, was disbursing the sum of
£1 12s. 6d. "for wherry hire and charges of Mr. Major,
Aldermen, and others, to Hedwyne Stremes, to view and
sett the towne's bounders." "For roweing and stealing
the barge, and for ten whirries that accompanied the
Buishopp of Duresme downe to Sheles," there was subse-
quently an expenditure of £1 19s. Afterwards comes, in
1635, a more formidable item :— " For the charges of a
dinner for the Buishopp, Maior, Aldermen, and their
attendants, at Sheles, £15 Is. 4d." There was also an
Assize trip on the river about the same time : — "Paid the
wherrymen for attending with the barge and wherries, to
carry the Judges down to Sheles, 10s." (Richardson's
Imprints and Reprints.)
Judges and Bishops were entertained by the Corpora-
tion, and so also was the King. Charles had left London
for a visit to Scotland, attended by Lords Spiritual and
Temporal, one of whom was Laud, Bishop of London,
soon to be Archbishop of Canterbury. Of vast dimensions
was the royal train, and magnificent the hospitality of
Newcastle. Lionel Maddison was Mayor, and on June 4,
1633, he banqueted his visitors royally, the King knighting
his host during the evening. Next day, the Trinity House
gave the guests an excursion to Tynemouth Castle, when
Royalty was the centre of a stately flotilla en the tide, and
was marked with eager interest from the shore. Meagre
is the notice bestowed by our local annals on the progress
to and fro. Incidentally, however, we are admitted to
same particulars of one of the episodes of the day.
There had been a riot of the apprentices on the Shrove
Tuesday preceding. At the West Ballast Hills, where
the young gentlemen took their "walks after service,"
and the housewives of Newcastle had a drying ground
through the week, "a new limekiln and ballast heap
had been made without the gate of the town called
Sand Gate." The obnoxious kiln was tumultuously
thrown down, not without countenance from the lookers-
on; and "one of those who animated the boys" was
Edward Bulmer, of the Trinity House, getting himself into
troubled water by his partnership. Great was the bulk
to which this affair of the 'prentice rioters grew. Privy
Council took it up; Council of the North was brought
into it ; the business became a matter of national interest
and importance ; and the curious reader may see much
more about it in the State Papers than concerns our
present paper on the Barges. Enough for us if we quote
some portion of Bulmer's petition of 1634 to the King, by
which the breakers into which he had cast himself were
made more perilous than ever to the unfortunate pilot.
Describing himself as " steersman of his Majesty's barge
to carry his Majesty and divers of the nobility down the
Tyne, "we further learn from him that he availed him-
self of his nearness to the King to show him a certificate
from the Trinity House of the great abuses concerning the
river, "for which relation, and no other cause that he can
imagine, the Mayor and Aldermen, having property in
the staiths and quays where the abuse arises, have, in his
opinion, taken so great malice against him."
276
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
. 1891.
So much for Edward Buhner and the King's Barge.
After an eventful period of forty years, in which Civil
War and Commonwealth ran their course, comes the
memorable Assize Barge Day of the time of the second
Charles. With the month of August, 1676, arrived in
Newcastle Sir Francis North, Chief Justice of the
Common Pleas, afterwards the Lord Keeper Guilford ;
and with him as his colleague was Baron Vertie
of the Exchequer. 'Happily for history. Sir Francis
had his Boswell. His brother Roger accompanied him,
and wa°s his biographer. The Mayor was Sir Francis
Anderson, and planned a pleasant recreation, the story of
which is well and lovingly told by Roger North. Whether
Baron Vertie was of the party on the river does not
appear. "His lordship's entertainment at Newcastle
was," as we are informed, "very agreeable, because it
went most upon the trades of the place, as coal-
mines, salt-works, and the like, with the wonders that
belonged to them ; and the Magistrates were solicitous to
give him all the diversion they could ; and one was the
going down to Tinmouth Castle in the town-barge. The
equipment of the vessel was very stately; for, a-head,
there sat a four or five drone bagpipe, the North-Country
organ, and a trumpeter a-stern ; and so we rowed merrily
along. The making salt I thought the best sight we had
there. The other entertainment was a supper in the open
air upon an island in the Tyne, somewhat above the
town ; and all by the way of ligg and sit upon the ground ;
but provisions for a camp, and wines of all sorts, very
fine. In short, all circumstances taken together, the cool
of the evening, the verdant fiat of the island, with wood
dispersed upon it, and water curling about, a view of
the hills on both sides of the river, the good appetites,
best provisions, and a world of merry stories of the Scots
(which, by the way, makes a great part of the wit in these
parts), made the place very agreeable, where every one
walked after his fancy, and all were pleased."
So runs the world away ! Only a single generation bad
gone since the Siege of Newcastle, with all its pains and
penalties, its woes and horrors ; and now the burgesses
and their visitors were lolling, pic-nic, on the King's
Meadows, with rounds of droll jokes about the besiegers,
provoking peals of laughter. The readiest tongues were
telling " merry stories" of the Civil War, and setting the
island in a roar !
Koger North, who sketches so well the idyllic picture
of the August day, has also to relate how " some ol the
Aldermen " told "strange histories of their coal-works;
and one was by Sir William Blackett, who cut into a hill
in order to drain the water, and conquered all difficulties
of stone and the like, till he came to clay, and that was
too hard for him ; for no means of timber or walls would
resist, but all was crowded together ; and this was by the
weight of the hill bearing upon a clay that yielded."
"Another thing, "adds the judge's biographer, "that
IB remarkable,, is their way-leaves. For when men have
pieces of ground between the colliery and the river, they
sell leave to lead coals over their ground ; and so dear
that the owner of a rood of ground will expect £20 per
annum for this leave."
We now approach the record, so often quoted, of the
old waggonways of the North of England, out of which
has been evolved, in the process of the suns, the vast
network of iron roads that covers the globe. "The
manner of the carriage," says the observant Roger, "is
by laying rails of timber from the colliery down to the
river, exactly straight and parallel ; and bulky carts are
made with four rowlets fitting these rails, whereby the
carriage is so easy that one horse will draw down four or
five chaldron of coals, and is an immense benefit to the
coal-merchants. "
Here, before the Revolution of 1688, is the principle of
the modern railway in practical action and biding its
time, awaiting that succession of details that were one
day to bring the " express train " into competition with
the colliery tram. How long these waggonways of the
Tyne had been in existence, is not precisely to be ascer-
tained ; but their introduction probably occurred in the
earlier years of the seventeenth century, and we may
pretty safely ascribe the gift to the enterprising stranger
commemorated by the "Chorographia" in 1649. "Master
Beaumont, a gentleman of great ingenuity and rare parts,
adventured into our mines," says Gray, "with his thirty
thousand pounds, who brought with him many rare
engines, not known then in those parts; as the art to
boore with iron rodds to try the deepuesse and thicknesse
of the coals, rare engines to draw water out of the pits,
waggons with one horse to carry coales from the pits, to
the stathes, to the river, &c." More enterprising than
prosperous, his lot was like that of many an adventurer
in the field: — "Within few years he consumed all his
money, and rode home on his light horse."
The Assize Barge Days flowed pleasantly forward on
the stream of time till they ran aground — seme half-
century after the supper and "merry stories" on that
"little island" of the Tyne. affectionately described by
Bourne as "a delicious place, and a great ornament to
the river." This was in the days of the second Charles.
With the reign of the second George came a less
harmonious sail from Shields than that of 1676. "In
1729 [1730?], the town," says Gyll's interleaved Bourn*
(quoted by Brand), "bad a trial with Sir Henry Liddel
about paying of tolls, wherein a verdict was given in
favour of Sir Henry. It was then customary for the
Judges to go in the town's bargp, attended by the Mayor
and others of the Corporation, to Tinmouth ; and in their
return, Mr. Justice Page, who tried the cause, had some
hot words with Mr. Reay relating to the trial ; and
thereupon the Judge threatened to commit the Mayor ;
and the Mayor told the Judge he would commit him,
being then upon the water, and in his jurisdiction. This
June!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
277
squabble was the occasion of discontinuing the custom of
going to Tinmouth."
It was, however, too agreeable an outing to be left for
ever in abeyance. Before very long it was resumed, the
free air of the open barge offering a grateful contrast to
the close atmosphere of the crowded court.
In the autumn of 1772, when the ancient viaduct of the
Tyne had been overthrown by an inundation, the local
authorities used the baree as a bridge, the Sheriff
receiving the Judges at the South Shore in Gateshead,
and ferrying them over to the Quayside in Newcastle
opposite the Exchange. The south front had then an
entrance door. There, awaiting their lordships, stood the
Mayor (Sir Walter Blackett) and Magistrates, who
accompanied them into court.
Some forty years afterwards, in the latter years of the
long reign of George III., occurred the mishap to one of
his Majesty's Judges that gave rise to Shield's ever-to-be
remembered song ot "My Lord 'Size," printed in the
Monthly Chronicle, 1887, p. 37.
The Barge Day of 1814 brought a greater wonder than
any marvel of Eastern story. Not even the magic horse,
that rose in the air like a balloon, could outvie the steam-
boat that took part in the procession of Ascension Day,
sailing against wind and tide, and surpassing in speed the
swiftest craft on the river. It was the first passenger
steamer that had been launched in England — the Tyne
following in the wake of the Hudson and the Clyde.
From year to year came the welcome Barge Day on
the Tyne ;
For pleasure had not ceased to wait
On those expected annual rounds ;
and in the year 1832, in the course of the sixth mayor-
alty of Archibald Reed, the time-honoured custom was
observed with unwonted enthusiasm. Mr. Reed had been
elected to the office of Sheriff in 1794, and entered upon
his first mayoralty in 1800, so that his year of office ran
its round in two centuries. His fifth election as Chief
Magistrate occurred in 1830 ; and he was chosen a sixth
time in 1831. Great were the rejoicings on Ascension
Day (May 31), 1832. The procession left the Mansion
Honse for Shields at halt-past seven o'clock in the
morning. At raid-day, when it returned, the air was
vocal with the roar of cannon, the clangour of bells, and
the lustiness of loud huzzas. " At that time, the sight
was very pleasing, from the number of light and elegantly-
painted boats, with suitable flags, which preceded the
barges to the Mansion House. The Stewards of the
Incorporated Companies, in compliment to the Chief
Magistrate, had the Swan steamboat tastefully decorated
tor the occasion " (for steam vessels were now established
institutions in the world). " After partaking of refresh-
ment at the Mansion House, the company departed for
Hedwin Streams, whither the fineness of the day attracted
& numerous company to enjoy the sports in the afternoon.
There were races on the King's Meadows, in one of which
a horse named Peacock missed his step and fell down, and
a mare named Lady Mary, which was following close, fell
over him, and broke one of her legs." (Sykes.)
The Reform Bill was now within a few days of be-
coming an Act, and the Corporation Commissioners were
holding their Courts in 1833 ; but the Barge Day had its
observance nevertheless. There was even "An Elegant
New Barge " launched on the 6th of May, 1834, f&r the
use of the Mayor and Corporation, from the building yard
of Messrs. Oliver and Son, South Shields.
The Municipal Corporations Act received the. Royal
Assent in 1835, accomplishing a great change — a revolu-
tion ; yet there is still the Barge Day ; nor has the Tyne
Conservancy Act of 1850 banished the ancient usage.
JAMES CLBPHAN (THE LATE).
The last annual survey by the Corporation of New-
castle took place in 1851, in the mayoralty of Mr. Alder-
man Armstrong, father of Lord Armstrong. It has since
been made every five years by the Corporation, every seven
by the Tyne Improvement Commissioners. On the 15th
of July, 1878, the anniversary of the passing of the Con-
servancy Act (the beneficent statute that binds the com-
munities of the Tyne into one), the Comn-issioners had
their survey; and it was renewed in 1885. The Cor-
poration Barge Day came in 1881 in the mayoralty
of Mr. Alderman Angus ; and on the 26th of May the
survey of the water-boundary of the borough was made
with the wonted proclamation. It was celebrated again
in 1886, Mr. Browne (now Sir B. C. Browne) being
Mayor. And now it has been celebrated once more, this
time in the Mayoralty of Mr. Joseph Baxter Ellis.
(Stant Cur.
JURING the Roman occupation of Britain,
Corstopitum, now Corchester, about half a
mile west of Corbridge-on-Tyne (see page
214), was one of the most important places
in the province of Valentia, standing as it did in close
vicinity to the great imperial highway leading north-
wards, afterwards known as the Watling Street. Its
position, on a tongue of land at the confluence of the Cor
Burn with the Tyne, must have made it a place of con-
siderable strength ; and that its inhabitants were in the
enjoyment of a good share of the comforts and luxuries of
life is proved by the fact that the neighbourhood abounds
with the broken relics of a high civilization. The station
in all likelihood suffered the same fate as the others on or
near the Wall of Adrian at the hands of the marauding
Scots and Picts.
That Corbridge was once a large and populous place,
distinct from Corstopitum, is matter of historical cer-
278
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/June
\ 1891.
tainty. It was privileged to send members to Parliament
down till a comparatively modern date, and only ceased
to do so on the petition of the inhabitants, who,
diminished in number and straitened in means during
the troublous Border raid times were unwilling any longer
to b»ar the cost. It might otherwise have subsisted by
prescription as a rotten boroueh, like Old Sarum, Gatton,
and other decayed places, till disfranchised by the Reform
Bill of 1832. But, leaving this as irrelevant to our pur-
pose, we turn to the long disused necropolis of Corstopi-
tum, to speak of some of the relics which have been un-
earthed from that City of the Dead within the last two
centuries.
Mr. Robert Forster, author of a "History of Cor-
bridge," tells us that quantities of human bones have
been discovered from time to time on the west side of the
Cor Burn, where the cliff has been undermined by the
stream during sudden floods, and he adds that a man
named Adam Harle, whom he seems to have known,
found, when a youth, in a field a little to the westward of
the Roman Station, a human skull of immense size ; but
he makes no mention of the most marvellous disclosure of
all, the alleged discovery of the mortal remains of the
Giant Cor. It would have been singular indeed if the
ancient kingdom of Northumbria had been without its
giant, seeing that there is scarcely a region on the face of
the earth that has not been able to boast of one or more.
A belief in the real existence of such abnormal beings has
always prevailed in all parts of the world as an indisput-
able dogma of the popular creed.
The etymon or genuine sense of Cor is the Celtic
Curaidh, pronounced koorey, signifying a hero, a cham-
pion, a great warrior. In or about the year 1660 it was,
when the banks of the Cor Burn had been worn away
near the old Roman station by an impetuous land-llood,
that a skeleton was brought to light, supposed to be that
of a man of prodigious size. The length of the thigh-
bone was nearly six feet, and the skull, teeth, and other
parts were proportionally monstrous, so that the length
of the whole body was computed at twenty-one feet. The
wiseacres of the day were clearly of opinion that the
remains were those of a giant, who had possibly flourished
before the Flood, or had perhaps been contemporary with
the Emim, the Zamzummim, the Zuziin, the Anakim, and
other giants who flourished about the time of the Hebrew
Exodus. Some portions of the skeleton of this suppositi-
tious Tyneside giant were in the possession of the Earl of
Derwentwater at Dilston in 1695 ; but what became of
them after the ruin of the Radcliffes will probably never
be known.
A singularly large bone, discovered near the same spot,
and possibly belonging to Cor when alive, was for many
years to be seen hung up in the kitchen of the old George
Inn, Flesh Market, Newcastle. This bone was purchased
by an enterprising speculator of the Barnum species, who
was proprietor of the Keswick Museum, and by him it
was gravely exhibited as the Giant Cor's rib.
Eft*
feultt
j|S illustrative of the rude manners and gross
customs of a barbarous age, some extracts
from the household book of Henry Algernon
Percy, fifth Earl of Northumberland, must
have more than passing interest. The book was begun in
1512, in the reign of Henry VII. It must be borne in
mind that the prices of many commodities were regulated
by law, and could not be increased or decreased without
express sanction. As Hume points out in his history of
that period, this restrictive policy had the tendency to
restrain industry, and hence prices which seem to us
absurd and ridiculous were in effect the results of the
limitations put upon them by the king. For the greater
part of what follows the writer is indebted to Hume's
notes.
The household book gives a true picture of ancient
manners, and is one of the most singular monuments that
English antiquity atfords us. The family of the earl
consisted of 166 persons, and on an average 57 strangers
might be reckoned upon as the number who would join the
family at the daily meals ; on the whole, 223. Twopence
halfpenny was supposed to be the daily expense for each
for meat, drink, and firing. This would, assuming that)
provisions were three or four times cheaper than in our
time, be equal to fourteen pence ; no extravagant sum for
a nobleman's housekeeping, considering that the chief
expense of a family at that period consisted in meat and
drink. The sum allotted by the earl for his whole
annual expense was £1,118 17s. 8d., of which amount
meat, drink, and firing absorb £796 11s. 2d. So rigidly
was the expense of the earl's family managed, that it was
ordered and determined how many pieces should be cut
out of every quarter of beef, mutton, pork, and veal, and
each entered and accounted for by the different clerks
appointed for that purpose. If a servant was absent a
day, his mess was struck off ; if he was about the earl's
business, board wages were allowed him — eightpence
per day in winter, and fivepence in summer; if any
stay had to be made in any place, twopence per
day was his allowance and the maintenance of his
horse. About a quarter of wheat was allowed for
each month throughout the year, and the price wag
estimated at five shillings and eightpence a quarter.
For brewing purposes two hundred and fifty quarters of
malt were used per year at four shillings the quarter ;
every quarter of malt had to make two hogsheads, which
permitted an average of a bottle and a third to each
person, and it is naively admitted that the " beer will
Junel
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
279
not be very strong." One hundred and nine fat beeves
are to be bought at All-Hallowtide, at thirteen shillings
and fourpence a-piece ; and twenty-four lean beeves to be
bought at St. Helen's at eight shillings a-piece. The latter
are to be put into the pastures to be fed, and are to
serve from Midsummer to Michaelmas. This leaves us
to infer that summer was the only part of the year
that the family ate fresh meat ; the rest of the year they
lived on salted food. One hundred and sixty gallons of
mustard is the allowance for a year, and an order is
issued for the right making of this condiment. "Six
hundred and forty-seven sheep were allowed at twenty
pence a-piece; these were eaten salted, except between
Lammas and Michaelmas. Only twenty-five hogs were
allowed at two shillings a-piece ; twenty-eight veals at
twenty pence; forty lambs at tenpence or a shilling."
These dainties were, it appears, reserved for the earl's
table and that of the upper servants, called the knight's
table.
The drinking part of the business received a tolerably
fair amount of attention. In addition to the beer
mentioned previously, we learn that ten tuns and two
hogsheads of Gascony wine, at the rate of £4 13s. 4d.
a tun, formed no inconsiderable part of the daily
fare. It is interesting to find that my lord and lady were
by no means behind in appreciating the rude fare.
Breakfast was served for them at seven o'clock in the
morning, consisting of "a quart of beer, as much
wine, two pieces of salt fish, six red herrings, four
white ones, or a dish of sprats. On flesh days, it was
varied by a half a chyne of mutton, or a chyne of beef
boiled."
The "linen closet," as a household institution, does
not find any place in the earl's family arrangements.
According to Hume's account, only seventy ells of
linen at eightpence an ell were allowd for the use
of this great household of over two hundred per-
sons : no sheets were used ; the linen was made into
eight tablecloths for my lord's table, and one table-
cloth for the knight's table. Forty shillings a year
was the amount charged for the washing, and this was
principally spent on the linen belonging to the chapel.
Early rising was evidently a virtue. Mass was ordered to
be said at six o'clock in the morning ; dinner was served
at ten, supper at four, and at nine the gates were shut,
no further ingress or egress being permitted. Only
twenty-four fires were lit in the house, and the coals were
portioned out to each, a peck of coals being the allowance.
After Lady Day no fires were permitted in the rooms,
"except half-fires in my lord's and lady's and Lord
Percy's and the nursery." As the earl spent much of his
time in Yorkshire, it is evident that on some days it
would be very cold in the house, seeing that we often
have very cold weather after Lady Day. Eighty chalders
of coal, at four and twopence a chalder, suffices through-
out the whole year ; and, as the household book quaintly
remarks "coals will not burn without wood," sixty-four
loads of wood are permitted at twelvepence a load.
Another entry in the book devises that " henceforth no
capons are to be bought, but only for my lord's mess, and
that the said capons shall be bought for twopence a-piece,
lean, and fed in the poultry, and master Chamberlain and
the stewards be fed with capons, if there be strangers sitting
with them." Another quaint item says : — "It is thought
good that no plovers be bought at no season, but only
in Christmas and principal feasts, and my lord to be
served therewith, and his board-end, and none other,
and to be bought for a penny a-piece, or a penny halfpenny
at most."
The extraordinary care which was taken to regulate the
outgoings and incomings of the earl's household was
really marvellous. From the highest to the lowest every
want was studied and taken into account. The most
minute particulars are preserved of every day's doings in
the matter of meat, drink, and firing. Item after item
occurs laying down in the strictest and severest manner
what is to be done in regard to certain occurrences.
The earl presided over his feast in right royal
fashion, and introduced into his orders the hieh-sound-
ing preamble, "It seemeth good to us and our council."
One remarkable circumstance is that, in ministering
to the temporal wants of his huge household, the earl
provides but two cooks, while, for their spiritual needs,
he keeps and feeds eleven priests, besides seventeen
chanters, musicians, &c. The meals, as may be expected,
were served in a half-cooked, badly-dressed fashion,
while the appurtenances of the tables were in a more
slovenly, disordered condition than the mess-room of
a modern ship's company. All this led to frightful
disorders amongst the menials, which certainly gives
one a bad opinion of the barbaric magnificence with
which they were surrounded.
The arrangements with regard to the stables were no
less complete. The earl kept twenty-seven horses at his
own charge ; the upper servants bad allowance for the
maintenance of their own horses. These animals were
six gentle horses, at nay and hard meat throughout the
whole year ; four palfreys ; three hobbies and nags ; three
sumpter-horses; six horses for those servants to whom my
lord furnished a horse ; two sumpter horses more, and
three mill-horses, two for carrying corn, and one for
grinding it. From this latter item it may be inferred that
water or windmills were then unknown, or, at any rate
not in use in the earl's domain. Loaves made of beans
and a peck of oats were the daily food of the principal
horses; the oats being charged at twenty pence, the
beans at two shillings a quarter.
When the earl set forth on his journey, he took with
him thirty-six horsemen, together with bed and other
accommodation. The year was passed at three country
seats in Yorkshire ; but as there were furniture and gar-
nishment for only one, it necessitated everything being
280
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/June
1 1891.
carried along with him— beds, tables, chairs, kitchen uten-
sils, which must have been strongly made to bear the rough
usage of those days, when roads were but a name, and
the lumbering waggon was the only means of transit. It
is a far cry from the days of the seventh Henry, when
feudalism and vassalage were paramount, to our own time ;
yet the picture drawn in this household book with such
careful methodic calculation tells us more of the real
history of the period than State papers or court intrigues
and amours. SCARDEBURGH.
flOUR members of the dove family are known
to frequent the Northern Counties — the
ring dove, the rock dove, the stock dove,
and the turtle dove. The first is the most
common, and, we may add, the most persecuted.
The ring dove fColumba palumbus), which is perhaps
better known as the wood pigeon or cushat, is the largest
of the wild pigeons of Europe. A few years ago it was
denounced as over plentiful, and persecuted accordingly
as destructive to the farmers' crops. Now, and for the
past few years, it has been comparatively scarce all over
the country. The bird is a resident in the two Northern
Counties. In January, 1873, Mr. John Hancock says an
extraordinary number of wood pigeons was observed
at Marsden, moving in a south-easterly direction, follow-
ing the coast line. They were two days in passing, and
many of them were killed by the farmers in the
neighbourhood.
The ring dove is a wary bird, though in the breeding
season, if not molested, it will sometimes nest in trees
and bushes close to dwellings. Toung birds taken early
from the nest have occasionally been partially domesti-
cated, but when a chance presents itself they sooner or
later return to a wild life. Instances are rare in which
they have bred in captivity.
The adult bird is handsomely plumaged. The male
weighs about twenty ounces, and the wings extend to
nearly two feet five inches. The plumage is of a deep
blue on the head, nape, and throat ; the upper part of the
back and upper wing covers are dark greyish blue, and
the lower belly white. The lower part of the throat is
decorated on each side with a glossy white spot, and
gleams with metallic lustre. These peculiar markings
have given the bird one of its commonest names — the
ring dove. The quills are slate grey, and the tail and
the tail feathers are slate black, marked with an
irregular line of lighter shade. The bill is pale reddish
orange yellow, red at the base, powdered over with a
white dust ; the cere almost white ; the iris pale yellow ;
and the eyelids are yellowish red, the bare part aboxe
them blue. The female is recognised from her mate by
her smaller size, and the fact that the colouration of her
plumage is not so bright as that of the male.
The rock dove ( Columba livia) is now generally believed
to be the original stock of most of our varieties of
domestic pigeons. Indeed, it can scarcely be distin-
guished at a distance from the common " blue rock." It
occurs all round the rugged shores of Great Britain, is a
resident in Northumberland and Durham, and breeds in
the rocky cliffs of the sea coasts.
The late Mr. P. J. Selby points out that, although
many ornithologists have supposed the stock dove and
rock dove were identical species, the distinctions in
regard to plumage and habits are considerable. One bird
is a danizen of the woods, where it breeds and roosts,
whilst the other inhabits caves and holes in rocks, and is
never found in woods or perching and nesting on trees.
The food of the rock dove consists chiefly of grain and
seeds of wild plants and weeds, together with different
kinds of snails.
The adult male rock dove has the prevailing colour
June!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
281
bluish-grey, shading into pale grey on upper back ; lower
part of back and rump, white ; tail coverts, ashy-grey :
tail nearly black at tip; wings, conspicuously marked
with two broad, black transverse bars ; feathers of chest
and sides of neck, glossed with shades of green and
purple ; bill, brownish-black ; legs and feet, deep red ;
irides, pale orange ; length about 12 inches. The female
is slightly less in size, and not so conspicuously coloured
on the neck.
The stock dove (Columba tenas) has of late become
quite common in Northumberland and Durham. It
frequents woods and coppices, and nests in hr.les of
decayed trees, on the ground in disused rabbit burrows, .
but is rarely, if ever, found nesting amid the branches of
trees, like its larger relative, the wood pigeon.
Speaking of the occurrence of stock dove in the county
of Durham of late years, Mr. Hancock remarks: — "It
is only recently that the stock dove has made its appear-
ance in this district. A single example was shot in
Castle Eden Dene, on the 26th of October, 1869, by
Mr. John Sclater, butler to Rowland Burdon, Esq.,
and is now in the possession of the former, where I saw
it shortly after it had been obtained. In 1871, I was
informed by Mr. Sclater that the gamekeeper had taken,
in a rabbit trap, another specimen, likewise in Castle
Eden Dene, and that he (Mr. Sclater) had found its
nest the day after. It was built at the root of a yew
tree that had been blown down over the edge of a cliff."
Mr. Hancock, after stating that Lord Eavensworth, on
the 24th March, 1874, saw a pair of stock doves fre-
quenting the old trees in front of Ravensworth Castle,
thus concludes his notice: — "This interesting species
will probably become a resident in the district."
The food of the stock dove consists of leaves, seeds,
grain, wild berries, acorns, beechmast, &c. It' is rapid on
the wing, and when taking flight the pinions are struck
sharply together. It is active on the ground, and moves
about somewhat like the wood pigeon. The note is a
repeated "coo-oo-oo," and is most frequently heard in
the morning.
The male stock dove is about one foot two inches long.
Bill, pale reddish orange brown, the edges greyish yellow,
the bare part round it pale yellowish red ; the cere, red,
excepting the hind part, which is white ; iris, yellowish
scarlet ; head and crown, bluish erey ; neck on the sides,
glossy iridescent' green and purple red ; on the back
and nape, bluish grey ; chin bluish grey ; breast above,
brownish purple red, shading off downwards into bluish
grey, grey on the lower part and sides; back above,
bluish brown, then bluish grey, and on the lower part
grey. The wings rather long — two feet two inches in
expanse, have the second quill feather the longest, the
third nearly of the same length, the first a little shorter ;
greater and lesser wing coverts bluish grey ; primaries,
dark leaden grey, the three inner have a large patch
of black on the outer webs; tertiaries, bluish grey, the
last three with a leaden grey spot on the outer web;
greater and lesser wing coverts, grey. The tail, of twelve
feathers, and slightly rounded at the end, is bluish grey
for two-thirds of its lenirth, then succeeded by a narrow
band of a lighter grey, the end dark leaden grey. The
female is slightly smaller than her mate, and her plumage
less showy.
The turtle dove (Columba turtur) is a native of
Africa, but it is found breeding in many European
countries from Germany to Italy. It is usually termed
the European turtle, possibly to distinguish it from its
near relative, the collared turtle (Turtur risoriui), which
latter is a native of Egypt, Palestine, and other countries.
The turtle dove is of a social disposition, and frequently
assembles in large flocks, which fly over wide tracks of
country, after the manner of the passenger pigeons of
North America.
Mr. Hancock thus refers to the casual occurrence of the
282
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/Jane
189L
turtle dove in Northumberland and Durham :— "Several
specimens of this casual visitant have been killed in the
neighbourhood of Newcastle ; one was shot on the Town
Moor, another at Prestwick Car. On the 17th of May,
1856, a gamekeeper of the late Sir Hedworth Williamson,
Bart., killed a fine male specimen near Whitburn, Dur-
ham. Another occurred near Shotton Colliery on the
12th October, 1870. This species has never been known
to breed in either county."
"The voice of the turtle," from which it derives its
name, is expressed by the syllables "tur, tur," more or
less rapidly repeated. This bird feeds on various kinds of
grain and seeds, and has a special weakness for peas
grown in the fields, to which it helps itself freely when
opportunity offers. The female, Morris states, sits
on the young, if the weather be cold, both night and
day.
The male weighs about six ounces ; length, about one
foot. Bill, dark greyish black, the tip of the upper man-
dible yellowish brown ; it is much compressed about the
middle, and the tip is hard ; inside it is reddish. Iris,
bright orange yellowish red, the bare space around it
light red — darker than in the female ; head, on the sides,
yellowish, fading away into the pink of the neck and
breast; the crown and neck on the back, light greyish
blue ; on the sides the latter has a rounded patch of
black, each of the feathers tipped with white, surrounded
with a tinge of blue ; in front it is a delicate light purple
red colour, fading off backwards into grey ; chin, pale
brown ; throat and breast, delicate light purple red,
bluish grey on the sides ; back, greyish brown above, on
the lower part brownish in colour. The wings, long and
sharp, expand to a width of one foot ten inches. The
tail, long and much rounded, has twelve feathers, greyish
brown, the two centre ones brown. The female is
lighter coloured in plumage, and less in size than her
mate.
Mr. James Willis, inspector of mines for the county of
Northumberland, died at his residence, Portland Terrace,
Newcastle, on the 12th of April.
On the same day, at The Mount, York, died Colonel
Whitting, commanding officer of the Hth Regimental
District.
The death also took place on the 12th of Police-Superin-
tendent Young, chief clerk in the office of the Chief
Constable of Northumberland at Morpetb.
Mr. John Hudson, of the firm of John Hudson & Co.,
exporters, of Sunderland and Newcastle, died on the 13th
of April. The deceased had been educated at the Grange
School, Sunderland, under the famous Dr. Cowan, and
was an accomplished linguist.
On the 14th of April, Dr. Henry Debord Ward, medical
practitioner, and a trustee of the Thomas Knight Memorial
Hospital, died at Blyth, his age being 53 years.
The death occurred on the same day of Sergeant Hunter,
of Amble, who had been a member of the Northumberland
constabulary for twenty-four years.
Mr. Cuthill, stationmaster, died very suddenly at
Chollerford Station of the North-British Railway Co. on
the 15tb of April.
On the 17th of April, Mr. James Watson, race-horse
trainer, and a native of Newcastle, died at Belleisle,
Richmond.
Mr. John Cuthbert Allison, a prominent member of the
Order of Druids, died at South Shields on the 17th of
April.
Mr. Peter Stewart Macliver, founder and proprietor of
the Western Daily Press, of Bristol, and formerly part-
proprietor of the Newcastle Guardian, died at his residence,
Gotham Park, Bristol, on the 19th of April, at the age of
69. The deceased was a relati ve of the great military hero
Lord Clyde.
On the 20th of April, there were interred in the
cemetery at West Hartlepool the remains of a lady
whose name was associated with that of Dickens, the
novelist. Mrs. Ann Humphrey, who had died in West
Hartlepool a few days previously at the age of 77
years, was the wife of William Humphrey, watch-
maker, once of Barnard Castle, but later a resident of
Hartlepool. Thomas Humphrey, father of William,
occupied a shop in the Market Place at Barnard Castle,
opposite to the King's Head Hotel, where Dickens, from
its sign of "Humphrey, Clockmaker," took the hint for
the title of his work, " Master Humphrey's Clock." (See
Monthly Chronicle, 1887, pp. 237, 390.)
On the 19th of April, Mr. Christian John Reid, J.P.,
senior partner in the old-established firm of Reid and
Sons, jewellers. Grey Street, Newcastle, died at Oakneld,
BenwelL He was 74 years of age.
The death was announced as having taken place
at St. Vincent's Hospital, New York, on April
6th, of Mr. Thomas H. Glenny, tho accomplished
actor. Mr. Glenny
was born in the Low
Bridge, Newcastle,
nearly sixty years
ago. From his
earliest years, he
seems to have had a
great attachment to
the stage, of which he
became in later life a
distinguished orna-
ment. First he was
"call boy" at the
Theatre Royal ; then,
as a youth, he began
to play minor parts
in the Low Black
House in Carliol
Square, which was
then under the
management of Mr.
J. S. Ireland ;
afterwards he ac-
cepted an engage- MR. I. H. GI.E.N.NV.
Juoe)
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
283
ment with the celebrated Mr. Beverley, who owned
or leased the theatres in North and South Shields ; and
finally he«made for himself a distinct position in the
theatrical world of the United States. Our sketch,
copied from a photograph in Mr. Ireland's possession,
represents Mr. Glenny in the character of Myles-na-
Coppaleen in the play of " The Colleen Bawn."
Mr. John Mavor, who since 1848 resided at North
Shields, and who left that place with his family only at
Easter to take up his residence at Enfield, near London,
died in the latter town on the 21st of April. Mr. Mavor
conducted schools in North Shields uninterruptedly for
many years, and was for some time a member of the
Tynemouth School Board.
An announcement of the death of the Rev. John Robert
Fleming, Rector of Ilderton, at the age of 59, appeared
on the 24th of April.
On the 23rd of April, Mr. John Beckwith. J.P., of
Silksworth House, near Sunderland, died, after a few
days' illness, at the advanced age of 87. Deceased was a
brother of the late General Beckwith, and uncle of Cap-
tain Beckwith, J.P., chairman of the Houghton-le-Spring
Highway Board. Mr. Beckwith, who was a bachelor,
spent a good portion of his earlier life in India.
On the 23rd of April, there were buried at Durham, the
remains of James Davis, formerly an organ builder, and
afterwards carver and gilder in Rushworth's Picture
Gallery, in that city, who had died at the advanced age of
91 years.
On the 25th of April, the death was announced of Mr.
John Woodman, Wall, North Tyne, a member of the
Hexham Board of Guardians, and noted as one of the best
farmers in the district.
On the 26th of April, there were interred at Shincliffe,
the remains of Mr. William Brown, a somewhat eccentric
character, known, from his trade, as "Butcher Brown,"
who had died at the age of 72.
An announcement appeared on the 27th of April of the
death of Dr. Spear, who was for some time Medical
Officer of Health for the Borough of South Shields.
Mrs. M. G. Collingwood, wife of the Mayor of Middles-
brough, died at her home at Linthorpe, after a lingering
illness, on the 28th of April. She was a native of Sunder-
land, and was 57 years of age.
On the 29th of April, the death was recorded, at the age
of 82, of Miss Marjorie Hodge, of St. James's Street,
Newcastle, sistsr of the late Mr. G. W. Hodge, solicitor.
The deceased lady was the daughter of the late Mr.
Rowland Hodge, who was at one time prominently
identified with the wooden shipping industry in Newcastle.
On the same day, the death was reported of Mr. Thomas
Cooke, a well-known wool-buyer, of Hexham.
Mr. E. N. Charlton, poor-rate collector for Bishop-
wearutouth East District, died suddenly on the 29th of •
April.
Mr. Gabriel Wood, who for thirty years had discharged
the duties of stationmaster at Haydon Bridge, on the
Newcastle and Carlisle section of the North-Eastern
Railway, died on the 30th of April.
On the 1st of May, the death was reported of Mr.
Robert Coulson, mechanical engineer, as having occurred
in Guelpb, Canada, on tha 10th of April. Mr. Coulson
formerly resided in Newcastle, and went to Canada as a
representative of Messrs. Robert Stephenson and Co.,
when the bridges of the Grand Trunk Railway were built.
The deceased was 79 years of age.
On the 2nd of May, the death occurred, in his 63rd year,
of Mr. James Davidson, senior partner in the firm of John
Davidson and Sons, of the Phcenix Flour Mills, Close,
Newcastle.
On the 2nd of May, Mr. Elisha Hunter Ryott, who
for many years held an important position in the locomo-
tive department of the North-Eastern Railway at Gates-
head, died at his residence in that town, his age being
71 years.
On the 3rd of May, the remains of Mr. William Riley,
of West Auckland, an ardent sportsman, who had died
very suddenly, were interred at St. Helen's Auckland.
Mr. J. M. Milburn, manager of the Durham County
Asylum farms, at Sedgefield, died on the 4th of May.
On the same day took place the death of Mr. William
Alexander Wooler, J.P., of Sadberge Hall, Darlington,
at the age of 79. Mr. Wooler had long been an active man
in the public life of the Darlington district, particularly in
connection with the Board of Guardians.
On the 4th, there also died, in his eightieth year, Mr.
Jonathan Brown, of Pottery Bank, Morpeth, one of the
oldest farmers on Mr. Blackett Ord's Newminster estate.
The death was announced, on the 5th of May, of Mr.
George Stobart, tailor, Scotswood Road, Newcastle, a
gentleman, who, many years ago, was prominently asso-
ciated with Mr. George Crawshay, and other followers of
Mr. Urquhart, in connection with the Foreign Affairs
Association.
Mr. John Graham, chemist, one of the oldest tradesmen
of Darlington, died in that town on the 5th of May.
On the same day, Mr. John Matheson, who was for
upwards of thirty years shipyard manager for Messrs.
Andrew Leslie and Co., Hebburn, but who left this
district some twelve months aeo to take the management
of the London Graving Dock Co., Limited, died at his
residence in London.
The Most Rev. Dr. Magee, Archbishop of York, also
died in London on the 5th of May. His Grace had been
ill about a fortnight, and succumbed to the effects of
influenza, complicated by bronchitis and inflammation of
the lungs. The Archbishop, who was formerly Bishop of
Peterborough, and was appointed to the see of York only
in January last, was 70 years of age.
On the 6th of May, at the age of 79 years, Mrs. Mary
Proud, whose husband, Thomas Proud, was murdered by
a man mamed James Welsh, at Newbrough, near Hexham
on the 7th of Feburary, 1847, died at Seaham Harbour,
where she had lived since the tragic occurrence. The facts
of the tragedy may be summarised thus : — Proud had had
one of his children christened on the date named. After
tea, he and gome male and female friends who formed
the christening party repaired to the village inn.
Welsh and other men were in the house at the same
time, and solicited the party to leave some money behind
to drink. The request was not complied with, and
when the party left the house Welsh followed them,
and, it is alleged, molested one of the females. Proud
resented the ill-conduct of Welsh, who, in a fit of fury,
stabbed him in the neck with a knife, producing a
wound so ghastly that Proud reeled but a few yards,
when he dropped dead in the sight of his friends, and
almost under the shadow of his own home. Welsh was
convicted at the Morpeth Assizes soon after, and was
hanged at Morpeth gaol during the same year.
284
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{June
1891.
On the 7th of May, the death occurred at Durham of
Mr: Thomas Hutton, J.P., at the age of 76 years. The
deceased was formerly in business as a bookbinder in the
city, but retired from business some years since. He
3at as a member of the Town Council from 1854 to 1881
without intermission, retiring at the latter date.
ssl
©entrances;.
APRIL,
days' play,
in
the second draughts
HENBY OHBISTIE.
ICWAfter eleven
tournament held
England was brought
to a close, the champion-
ship being won by
Henry Christie, of
Sunderland. Mr.
Christie is only twenty-
three years of age, but
showed remarkable skill
in the game from child-
hood.
11. — A boiler ex-
plosion occurred at Us-
worth Colliery, in the
county of Durham,
whereby three men,
named Thomas Mitchi-
son, Joseph Armstrong,
and William Bell, lost
their lives, and other two workmen were severely in-
jured. Thomas Tate, one of the sufferers, died on the
17th.
— A meeting was held at Sea Houses, in furtherance of
a scheme of railway communication between North Sun-
derland Harbour and the main line at Chathill.
12.— A young man, named Joseph Walter Blades, aged
20, died at Middlesbrough, from the effects of injuries
received in a football match on the previous day.
— Mr. Thomas Ironsides, farmer, Kibblesworth, com-
pleted the hundredth year of his age. On the previous
day, which was a Saturday, there were great rejoicings in
the village in honour of the event, and the old gentleman
led off a merry-making dance with his daughter. On the
following day, Mr. Ironsides attended service in Lamesley
Church, feeling allusion to his presence being made by the
Vicar, the Rev. E. W. Snape. (See page 90.)
13. — The Star Hotel, Alnwick, an old historical house,
was completely destroyed by fire.
— The annual meetings of the Durham and Northumber-
land Congregational Ministers and Churches were in-
augurated by a service held in Bath Lane Church,
Newcastle, the sermon being preached by the Rev. Alfred
Norris, formerly of Tynemouth. The following day was
devoted to business, the chair being occupied by Mr.
Andrew Common, J.P., of Snnderland. The Rev. Joseph
Parker, of the City Temple, London, a native of Hexhain,
delivered an address on "Christian Conduct and Service."
On the 20th Dr. Parker paid a visit to his native town.
W.— The Rev. James Westwater was ordained pastor of
the Bridge Street Presbyterian Church, Blytb.
— It was stated that several cases of Russian influenza
had occurred in Newcastle and district.
— Mrs. Isabella Jobling, widow of William Jobling, who
was executed and gibbeted on J arrow Slake, in August,
1832, for the murder of Mr. Nicholas Fairies, J.P., died
in the South Shields Union Workhouse, at the advanced
age of 96 years. (See Monthly Chronicle, 1888, p. 236).
— At Spennymoor, a man named Hardy, otherwise
known as "Sailor Jack," shot and severely injured
Sergeant Applegarth, of the Durham County Police
Force.
—The old Workhouse at Gateshead, and the land con-
nected with it, were privately sold to Mr. Sisson, New-
castle, on behalf of a client, the intention being to use the
ground as sites for dwelling houses.
— A presentation of silver plate was made at Bamburgh
Castle to the Rev. D. Dixon-Brown, in recognition of
valuable services rendered by him to the Crewe Charity
and Estates during the past quarter of a century, a silver
toilet case being at the same time presented to Mrs. Dixon-
Brown.
— A "united religious conference," in furtherance of
temperance, was held in the Town Hall, Newcastle.
15. — It was announced that, during the previous few
days, the Alnwick Board of Health had been excavating
Clayport Street from the Spa Well downwards, in order
to bring the chalybeate water to the middle of the town.
In the course of excavation, the men came upon the
remains of the wall and tower which, about three hundred
years ago, fortified the town on the west side against
irruptions of the Scots and Border mosstroopers ; and
about the foundations of Clayport Tower some articles of
interest to the local antiquary were unearthed, among
them a round ball, about 2i inches in diameter, roughly
made from the basaltic rock which outcrops about Stoney
Hills.
—A resolution in favour of the establishment of a free
library was adopted at a public meeting at West Hartle-
pool.
— The spring exhibition of the Newcastle, Northumber-
land, and Durham Botanical and Horticultural Society
was opened in the Town Hall, Newcastle. The total
proceeds for the two days over which the show extended
amounted to £161 10s., or £17 5s. more than last year at
the same time,
16.— It was stated that the will of the late Mr. Robert
Thomas Wilkinson, solicitor, of Rose Dene, Sunderland,
and Holystone, Northumberland, had been proved m the
Durham District Probate Division. The personalty was
sworn at £45,124 10s. 4d., this being exclusive of all
estates in Durham and Northumberland, and also of the
ground rents of properties which belonged to the deceased.
The testator, in addition to bequests to relatives and
friends, and to local charities, left a sum of £10,000 to
build a church (furnished with a peal of bells), together
with a vicarage house, in connection with the Church of
England. Provision was further made for an annual
endowment of £300.
— Mr. G. T. France, late chairman of the Gateshead
School Board, was presented with a silver tea and coffee
service, a cheque for £100, and an illuminated address, in
recognition of his services to the town.
— Mr. .T. M. Oubridge was elected chairman of the
Newcastle Board of Guardians.
17. — The mail steamer Britannia, belonging to the
fleet of the Halvorsen Line, sailed from the Tyne
June)
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
285
MK. C. JCBOBSSOS.
with a party of British
journalists tor a short
tour in Norway. An
extraordinary recep-
tion awaited the visi-
tors at Bergen, where
they were entertained
in princely fashion by
Mr. P. G. Halvorsen.
Convoys of steamers
met and accompanied
them through some of
the majestic fjords of
the country ; Sags
floated from all the
ships in the harbour;
bands of music en-
livened the journey ;
and salvoes of artillery
were fired from the for-
tress of Bergen. The
expedition was organized on this side of the North Sea by
Mr. C. Jurgenson,
the Newcastle agent
of the Halvorseu
Line. Captain Bent-
zon, the commander
of the Britannia, so
greatly charmed the
voyagers by his cour-
tesy and attention,
that they afterwards
paid a special visit to
his ship for the pur-
pose of presenting
him with a handsome
testimony ot their re-
gard and appreciation.
18.— The new flour
mills of the Whole-
sale Co-operative
Society at Dunston-
on-Tyne, erected at
MB. p. a. HALVOBSE.V. a cost of nearly
£100,000, were for-
mally opened by Mr. J. T. W. Mitohell, chairman of the
Wholesale Society.
One of the engines
was named " Equa-
lity " by Mr. T.
Burt, M.P., and the
other "Fraternity"
by Mr. G. Scott,
chairman of the
Newcastle Branch.
The party after-
wards proceeded
down the river, in
specially hired boats,
to Tynemoutb, and
were entertained at
the Aquarium. The
united production
of the mills was esti-
mated at 5,600 sacks
per week. CAPTAIN BENTZON.
— Mr. Samuel Storey, M.P., was committed for trial,
but admitted to bail, by the Sunderland county magis-
trates, on a charge of perjury under circumstances arising
out of the evictions connected with the strike at Silks-
worth Colliery.
20.— In the Central Hall, Hood Street, Newcastle, the
Rev. A. J. Harrison, D.D., Evidential Missioner of the
Church Parochial Mission Society, and Lecturer of the
Christian Evidence Society, delivered a lecture on "The
Right View of Bible Difficulties," being the first of five
lectures, on successive evenings, concerning difficulties in
religion.
21. — A verdict of wilful murder was returned by a
coroner's jury at Crook against Mrs. Robinson, a
woman who, apparently in a state of mental aberra-
tion, had hanged her infant child.
— The Cleveland miners agreed to a reduction of 5 per
cent, in wages.
— Miss Colenso, daughter of the late Bishop of Natal,
delivered a lecture, in the Liberal Club, Pilgrim Street,
Newcastle, on " England and the Zulus." Mr. F. W.
Dendy presided.
22. — The foundation stone of a new Presbyterian
Church, to cost about £8,000, was laid in North Bridge
Street, Sunderland, by Mr. James Westoll.
—Dr. R. Spence Watson presided at the annual rreet-
ing of the Tyneside Sunday Lecture Society. The report
stated that, although there were four lectures fewer, the
total attendance during th« past session had risen from
27,900 to 31, 047.
23.— This being St. George's Day, the usual celebra-
tions took place at the Newcastle Barracks, where the
depot of the 5th -Northumberland Fusiliers was stationed,
St. George being the patron saint of the regiment.
—The Rev. Dr. Moulton, President of the Wesleyan
Conference, preached in Blenheim Street, Newcastle.
— It was decided to form an association to be styled the
Newcastle and Gateshead Builders' Association, and Mr.
W. C. Tyrie was elected- president.
25.— The North-East Coast Institution of Engineers
and Shipbuilders held a meeting at West Hartlepool,
under the presidency of Mr. Wigham Richardson.
— In the course ot some excavations at the top of the
narrow lane leading from the Palace Green into the Banks
just outside the entrance to the Cathedral in Durham, the
workmen came upon the old Roman pavement which lay
between the Cathedral and the Castle.
— During the Communion service at St. Nicholas'
Cathedral, Newcastle, the Ven. Archdeacon Martin, of
Lindisfarne, formally presented to the Cathedral, as a
memorial of the late Mr. Charles S. Saunders, for many
years collector of H.M. Customs at Newcastle, an office
for the Holy Communion, written and illuminated after
the Lindisfarne Gospels in the British Museum, and
bound in ancient oak from the bed of the Tyne.
26, — A handsome new Wesleyan Church, which owed
its existence to the generosity of the late Mr. Joseph
Robinson, of Etal Villa, North Shields, was opened in
that town by Dr. Moulton, President of the Conference.
The church was erected to the memory of Mr. Robinson's
daughter, the wife of Mr. James Joicey, M.P.
27. — A serious fire occurred at the oil and grease works
of Messrs. Theo. Phillips and Co., North Road, Middles-
brough, the damage being estimated at £1,500.
25. — A strange marriage ceremony took place at South
Shields. A circus curiosity, a little woman 32 inches
286
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{-Tune
189 1.
CATHEKJNE o'HARA.
high, was joined in matrimony to a man who stood up-
wards of six feet in his stockings ! Another " mon-
strosity," who had to sign the register by holding the pen
between his teeth, he having no arms, gave the bride
away. Accompanying the party was an "American
giantess " weighing 44- stones, as also a couple of men
measuring 7 feet 10 inches and 29i inches in height re-
spectively. The bride and bridegroom and their friends
were connected with a travelling menagerie and circus.
— It transpired that, on the occasion of the recent
census in Newcastle, Catherine O'Hara, living with her
son in Turner's Entry,
Wall Knoll, Pandon,
was returned as being
103 years old. The old
woman, who is a widow,
is totally blind and par-
tially deaf, but she is
able, when spoken to
loudly, to understand
the questions put to her.
Mrs. O'Hara seems to
' have come of a long-
lived race, for her father,
John Conway, is re-
puted to have died at
Glasgow at the extreme
age of 103 years, and she is stated to have had an uncle
who died at the Head of the Side, Newcastle, when he
was 104 years old. (See page 95.)
28. — Mr. Robert Laidlaw Dunford, late chairman of the
Newcastle Board of Guardians, was entertained to a ban-
quet in the Continental Restaurant, Grainger Street, by
the members of the Board and other friends, as a mark of
their appreciation of the services rendered by him during
his term of office. Mr. J. M. Oubridge, who succeeded
Mr. Dunford in the chairmanship, occupied the chair.
— The annual conference and meeting of the Newcastle
and Gateshead Auxiliary of the United Kingdom Alliance
were held in the Central Hall, Newcastle.
29. — It was announced that Mr. Thomas Stamp Alder
had been appointed postmaster at the Northumberland
Street post office, Newcastle, rendered vacant by the death
of Mr. Field.
— It was stated that a letter, from Australia, bearing
the simple address "Uncle Toby, England," had safely,
and apparently without any delay, reached its destination
at the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle Office.
—A Horticultural Mutual Improvement Society was
formed in Newcastle.
— The Rev. Canon Greenwell was re-elected President
of the Durham and Northumberland Archaeological and
Architectural Society.
— A fire broke out in the hold of the steamer Tynesider,
belonging to the Tyne Steam Shipping Co., while that
vessel was proceeding down the river Tyne on a voyage to
London.
30. — Mr. Henry Tennant ceased to be general manager
of the North-Eastern Railway Company and became one
of its directors. (See page 136. )
— At the annual meeting of the Boys' Summer Camp,
under the presidency of the Mayor of Newcastle, the
report of the hon. secretaries stated that the society
had been the means of giving a healthful and invigora-
ting holiday to 166 boys of Newcastle, and 85 of Gates-
head, being an increase of 79 on the total of the summer
of 1889. The balance sheet showed a balance in hand to
the amount of £76 4s. 6d.
MAY.
1. — At a special meeting of the North-Eastern Railway
Company at York, it was resolved to issue additional
stock to the extent of £1,550,000.
— A fire, attended with great destruction of property,
broke out in the shipbuilding works of Martinez-Rivas-
Palmer (the last-named representing Sir C. M. Palmer,
M.P.), at Bilbao, in Spain.
2. — A married women named Mary M'Lauehlin, met
with her death under circumstances of violence at Sunder-
land. James Collins and Elizabeth M 'Covering, nephew
and aunt, were charged with the murder.
— A collection of 111 lots of water-colour drawings and
pictures, the property of the late Mr. Bolckow, M.P., of
Middlesbrough, were offered for sale by auction in London,
and the total sum they realised was £69,380.
— A demonstration, under the auspices of the Tyneside
and National Labour Union, was held at Jarrow, but
towards the close of the meeting considerable confusion
and uproar prevailed. On the following day (Sunday),
what was called a Labour Day Demonstration was held
in Newcastle, and here, too, the proceedings were of a
very disorderly character.
3. — A special gospel temperance mission was opened in
the Central Hall, Newcastle, by Mr. Matthew Burnett,
the "Father Matthew of Australia."
4. — It was stated in a local paper that a live toad with-
out a mouth, and with a deformed leg, was said to have
been found in Hutton Henry Pit, at a depth of forty
fathoms.
— At a meeting of the Watch Committee of the Gates-
head Corporation, Mr. John Elliott tendered his resigna-
tion as Chief-Constable of the borough. Mr. Elliott, who
was born at Castleton, Cleveland, in 1823, was brought
up to the tailoring trade ; but, coming to Newcastle, he
Jtmel
». /
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
287
drifted into the police service, and was for many years
chief of the detective department, before his removal to
Gateshead.
—At a meeting of the Committee of Management of
the Newcastle Hospital Fund, it was reported that the
total sum realised on behalf of the medical charities in
October last had amounted to £4,551 10s. Id.— the largest
collection in the history of the fund.
— At the Gatesbead Police Court, Catherine Dunn, a
widow, was committed for trial, but admitted to bail, on
a charge of having caused the death of her daughter,
Anastasia, by throwing a poker at her on the 18th of
April.
5.— Mr. Arnold Taylor, of the Local Government Board
Office, held an inquiry at Stockton as to an application
by the Corporation for power to borrow several sums of
money for public purposes.
—It was announced that Mr. Thomas Burt, M.P., had
been appointed by the Prince of Wales one of the
governors of the Imperial Institute.
— In the Court of Appeal, judgment was given in the
case of Stuart v. Bell, which was originally tried before
Mr. Justice Wills and a special jury at Leeds, when a
verdict was given for plaintiff with £250 damages. The
action was brought for alleged slander, the plaintiff being
at the time valet to Mr. H. M. Stanley, the African
explortr, and the defendant Mr. Thomas Bell, then
Mayor of Newcastle. The decision of the Court below
was now reversed, and the appeal allowed with costs.
6. — The first concert of the Northern Musicians' Benevo-
lent Society was given to a large and fashionable audience
in the Town Hall, Newcastle.
— At the spring session of the Iron and Steel Institute
in London, the Bessemer Gold Medal was awarded to
Lord Armstrong for bis eminent successes in connection
with the iron and steel industries.
7. — On the occasion of Ascension Day, the quinquennial
survey of the boundaries of the river Tyne was made in
barges and steamers by the Mayor and Corporation of
Newcastle. An unusual degree of interest was attached
to the proceedings on account of a communication which
had been read at a meeting of the City Council on the
previous day from the Department of Woods and Forests,
setting up a claim on behalf of the Crown to the foreshore
on both sides of the Tyne. The ceremony, however, was
carried out in the usual way, and the following proclama-
tion was read by the Town Clerk at Spar Hawk and
Hedwin Streams : — "O yes, O yes, O yes ! Proclamation
is hereby made that the soil of the river Tyne, wherever
covered with water between Hedwin Streams and Spar
Hawk, is within the city and county of Newcastle-npon-
Tyne, and belongs to, and is within the jurisdiction of
the Mayor, aldermen, and citizens of the said city and
county. Dated this 7th day of May, in the year of our
Lord, 1891.— J. BAXTER ELLIS, Mayor ; HILL MOT'DM,
Town Clerk." The aquatic excursion was joined by repre-
sentatives of all classes of citizens, and the Recorder of
Newcastle, Mr. W. Digby Seymour, who was among the
guests on board the Mayor's boat, expressed his conviction
that the right of the Corporation of Newcastle to the fore-
shore of the Tyne rested on a sound and solid basis.
— The crew of the Sunderland iron steamer Skyro,
who arrived in Portsmouth from Spain, reported that on
the 26th of April, when off Gandia, their vessel was de-
stroyed by coming into collision with what appeared to be
a stray torpedo.
SIR M. E. GRANT DUFF.
7. — The late Mr. Robson, of Corbridge, bequeathed to
his nephew " his old
mahogany desk , with
// *5 "V^ft the contents there-
of." After his death
the bureau was found
to contain bank-
notes and valuable
securities, and the
question was to-day
raised before Mr.
Justice Chitty
whether the nephew
was entitled to the
securities. His lord-
ship decided in the
affirmative.
8. — In the pre-
sence of a large and
influential assemb-
lage, the new in-
stitute recently formed out of the former Presbyterian
Church at the Barras
Bridge, Newcastle, for
the Tyneside Geo-
graphical Society, was
inaugurated by Sir
Mountstuart E. Grant
Duff, President of the
Royal Geographical
Society. Earl Percy
presided, and among
those present were the
Mayor, the Sheriff, the
Bishop, the Vicar, as
well as many other
prominent citizens of
Newcastle, including
Mr. G. E. T. Smith-
son, the hon. secretary
of the society. At six
o'clock in the evening,
a dinner in celebration
of the event was held
at the County Hotel, the chair being occupied by Mr.
Albert Grey, Sir M.
E. Grant Duff being
among the guests. At
a later hour, Mr. Grey,
accompanied by the
vice-presidents and
council, held a recep-
tion in the ball of the
nstitute, where there
was a splendid collec-
Ktion of geographical
curiosities on exhibi-
. •
—The Hon. T. H.
W. Pelham, the com-
missioner appointed
by the Privy Council,
held an inquiry at
South Stockton with
reference to the
MR. G. E. T. SMITHSOK. petition for the
EARL PERCY.
288
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{June
1891.
grant of a charter of incorporation to the parish of
Thornaby.
— It was found that the miners of Northumberland had,
by ballot, refused to accept a proposed reduction of 3 j per
cent, in their wages.
9. — There was launched from the yard of Palmer's Iron
and Shipbuilding Company at Jarrow, the clipper-stem
screw steamer Francisco Crispi, one of the five vessels to
be built by the firm for the Italo-Britannica Steamship
Company, an under takingsubsidised by the Italian Govern-
ment. Among those present on the occasion were
Count Tornielli, Italian Ambassador, and the Countess
Tornielli, who, on their arrival in Newcastle on the
previous day, were officially received by the Mayor, the
Sheriff, and other official representatives of the city.
—Washington Hall, in the county of Durham, was
formally inaugurated, under the designation of Dame
Margaret's Home for Waifs and Strays. The institution,
at whose disposal Sir Lowthian Bell had generously
placed his mansion and grounds, owed its origin to the
efforts of Miss Watson, of St. Thomas's Street, New-
castle, and her friends connected with the Frudhoe
Street Mission Rooms and Schools, the first home being a
house in Ashburton Crescent, Gosforth. The Mayor of
Newcastle presided over the interesting proceedings at
Washington, and the opening ceremony was performed
by Sir Lowthian Bell, after whose late wife the new home
is named. (See page 46.)
10.— The grand organ, built by Messrs. T. C. Lewis
and Company, Limited, for St. Nicholas' Cathedral,
Newcastle, was opened by the first of a series of special
services, the preacher being the Bishop of Derry, the
Right Rev. William Alexander, D.D. Dr. E. H. Turpin,
organist of St. Bride's Church, London, presided at the
new instrument.
General ©entrances.
APRIL.
12. — Serious disturbances occurred at Bradford in con-
nection with the strike at the Manningham mills, owing
to the authorities re-
fusing to allow an
open-air meeting near
the Town Hall. Dur-
ing the following two
days enormous crowds
assembled, and made
attacks upon the police.
Eventually the Riot
Act was read, the mob
being dispersed by the
military and police.
15.— Death of Cap-
tain G. H. Mackenzie,
a distinguished chess
player, who was born
near Aberdeen in 1837.
He defeated Herr
Anderssen in a chess
handicap in 1862. The
following year, he US-
CAPTAIN MACKENZIE. poused the cause of
the North in the American Civil War. In 1865 he
settled in New York and became known as a skilful
chessman. He won the first prize in every American
tournament in which he competed, and in the European
jousts was frequently a prize winner. His greatest
performance was the winning of premier position amongst
the twenty-three competitors in a match at Frankfort in
1887. Captain Mackenzie visited the North of England
in October, 1889, when be played a series of simultaneous
games at Sunderland and South Shields. Our portrait is
reproduced from a photograph by Messrs. Downey and
Sons, of South Shields, taken at the time of his visit.
19.— Mr. Peter Stewart Macliver, proprietor of the
Western Daily Press, died at Bristol at the age of 69. He
was at one time part proprietor of the Newcastle
Guardian.
18.— Captain Edmund Hope Verney, R.N., M.P. for
North Bucks, was arrested upon his arrival in London
from the Continent on a charge of having committed
offences under the Criminal Law Amendment Act. At
the trial on May 6 he pleaded guilty to havinsr conspired
to procure a young woman for immoral purposes, and was
sent to prison for twelve months.
23. — The result of an election in Mid-Oxfordshire was
declared as follows : — Mr. G. H. Morrell (Conservative),
4,448 ; Mr. Benson (Gladstonian Liberal), 3,760.
23. — Mr. Goschen submitted the Budget for the year to
the House of Commons. He announced a surplus of
£2,000,000, and stated that it was the intention of the
Government to devote it to the establishing of free educa-
tion, to the building of barracks, and towards covering
the cost of the withdrawal from circulation of light gold.
23. — The ironclad Blanco Encalada was sunk by Chilian
Government torpedo boats in Caldera Bay, Chili. Two
hundred lives were lost.
24. — A Parliamentary election took place place at
Whitehaven, resulting as follows : — Sir J. Bain (Conser-
vative) 1,338, and Mr. Shee (Gladstonian Liberal) 1,105.
26. — Count Von Moltke, the great German strategist,
died suddenly at Berlin, in his 91st year.
MAY.
1. — Industrial demonstrations were held on the
the Continent. In France and Italy serious disturbances
arose.
3. — A demonstration was held in London by the
labouring classes in favour of the eight hours movement.
3.— Mr. Barry Sullivan, the popular tragedian, died at
Brighton, aged 67.
5.— The Rev. William Connor Magee, D.D., Arch-
bishop of York, died in London, aged 70.
6. — The result of a Parliamentary election in the
Stowmarket division of Suffolk was declared thus : — Mr.
L. Stern (Liberal), 4,346 ; Mr. E. W. Greene (Conserva-
tive), 4,132.
9. — The result of a Parliamentary election for Har-
borough Division of Leicestershire was declared as fol-
lows:—Mr. J. W. Logan (Gladstonian Liberal), 5,982;
Mr. Gerald H. Hardy (Conservative), 5,493.
10. — Mr. Cunninghame Graham, M. P., who took part in
a Socialist demonstration at Calais, was arrested the same
night, and expelled from French territory.
Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling-on-Tyne
/Iftontbl? Chronicle
OF
NORTH-COUNTRY*LORE*AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 53.
JULY, 1891.
PRICE 6D.
tfntrg 0f
Jtttttrn-t inter 23urftam.
ELIEVING that no complete record exists
of the ancient ceremony that took place on
Croft Bridge when Dr. Van Mildert, the
last Prince Bishop of Durham, entered the
diocese in July, 1826, I have compiled an account of that
interesting event — an event that is all the more interest-
ing because it has never been repeated since, and will
probably never be repeated again. Surtees's " History
of Durham" was published before the appointment of
Dr. Van Mildert, and nothing beyond a short and very
unsatisfactory notice of the ceremony is to be found
in Sykes's "Local Records" or any similar work since
issued. The writer, then a youth in the Darlington
Grammar School, was, with other scholars, few of whom
now live, present on the occasion, and saw and heard
all that transpired.
The long and beneficent episcopate of Dr. Shute
Harrington, Bishop of Durham, was closed by his death
on March 26, 1826. The venerable prelate had ruled the
diocese for the space of thirty-five years, he having been
installed in 1791. Owing to the peculiar customs and
circumstances of the County Palatine, an early choice of
a successor was necessary : how necessary may be judged
from the following entry in the "Larchfield Diary" of
that date :— " In consequence of the death of the Bishop,
the Easter Sessions for the trial of prisoners was post-
poned, as the office of Sheriff ceased then. Until a new
Bishop was appointed, no writs were issued, nor could
any licenses to marry be granted, as the Chancellor and
other ecclesiastical officers ceased to act, and required
what was called new patents or re-appointments. The
Dean and Chapter took possession of the registry office,
so that no will could be inspected." It may be added
19
that Darlington was at the same time deprived of its
only civic officer, the Bailiff. Mr. Bowes, who then filled
that office, held patents for it from three Bishops, and
those patents are still in the possession of the family.
Dr. William Van Mildert, Bishop of Llandaff, was
installed Bishop of Durham in London on April 23, and
on July 21 following he was installed in his own Cathe-
dral »t Durham. Earlier in the latter month he made
bis formal entrance into his diocese. The following
account of this entrance, and of the feudal ceremony on
Croft Bridge, is from the memory of the writer and
others who were there and saw it, corroborated by a
notice of the affair in the Newcastle Courant of July
22, 1826:—
On July 14 the right reverend prelate and his suite
arrived at Northallerton, of which town he was Lord of
the Manor, also of its shire and halmote. His lordship
stayed a short time in that town, and then proceeded to
Croft, where he remained all night at the Spa Hotel.
Next morning there was a vast assemblage of the gentle-
men and others of the County Palatine, who, leaving
their equipages and horses drawn up in long lines on .
the north side of the River Tees, proceeded to Croft
Bridge, where Mr. Griffith, Under-Sheriff of the County
of Durham, Mr. Bowes, the Bishop's bailiff at Darling-
ton, the Sheriff's officers, and Mr. Rayson, the agent
of Lady Blackett, who held the manor of Sockbura
in trust for her son, were awaiting on the arch where the
County Palatine and the North Hiding of Yorkshire join.
Among the gentlemen who had assembled to greet and
welcome the new Count Palatine, were Henry Blackett,
Esq., who was afterwards Lord of Sockburn ; Colonel
Chaytor and his sons— Mr. W. R. C. Chaytor, after-
290
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
wards Sir William Chaytor, Mr. John Clairvaux
Chaytor. now of Croft, Mr. Henry Chaytor, now of
Witton Castle, and Mr. Matthew Hutton Chaytor ; the
Rev. James Dalton, rector of Croft; his son Charles,
afterwards General Dalton, of the Royal Artillery ; Mr.
Trotter, now the Rev. T. L. Trotter, rector of Great Stain-
ton ; Lieutenant-General Aylmer, of Walworth Castle ;
Mr. John Allan, of Blackwell Hall ; Major Hartley, of
Middleton Lodge ; Captain Cumby. R.N., of Heighing-
ton (one of Nelson's captains at Trafalgar) ; Mr. William
Skinner, Mr. John Wilkinson, and Mr. Leonard Rais-
beck, of Stockton, and the Mayor and Corporation of
that town ; the Rev. Mr. Headlam, Mr. Francis Mew-
burn, Mr. Hodgson, of Auckland, and his son, now
Major Hodgson, of Gainford : and many other gentlemen
and clergymen from various parts of the county There
was also a considerable number of ladies, with Mrs.
Dalton and the young ladies from the Rectory.
A little after 11 o'clock the Right Hon, and Rev. Lord
Barrington arrived, and soon after the ceremony took
place by which the manor of Sockburn is held. First
came the Prince Bishop in his carriage, drawn by six
horses, attended by three gentlemen. Then another
carriage and four horses, in which were the Bishop's wife
and her attendants, other carriages following. As soon
as Dr. Van Mildert came to the division arch, a gentle-
man representing the Lord of Sockburn presented, on his
behalf, the historic sword, the Sockburn falchion, and
thus addressed his lordship : — " My Lord Bishop, I here
present you with the falchion wherewith the champion
Conyers slew the worm, dragon, or fiery flying serpent
which destroyed man, woman, and child ; in memory of
which the king then reigning gave him the Manor of
Sockburn to hold by this tenure that upon the first
entrance of every Bishop into the county this falchion
should be presented." The Bishop took the sword into
his hand, and, courteously wishing the Lord of Sockburn
health and long life, returned it to the bearer.
Crossing the bridge, the procession was then formed in
the following order -.—Sheriff's officers mounted, with
white wands, leading the horsemen ; three of the Bishop's
outriders ; his lordship in his carriage and six horses ;
the Bishop's wife in her carriage and four ; Lord Barrington
in his carriage and four ; carriages of the county gentry,
clergy, and others, numbering about 50, including a num-
ber of gigs and other more humble conveyances.
The procession reached Darlington about 12 o'clock,
where all were anxious to see the new Bishop. A splendid
lunch was provided at Mr. Scott's, the King's Head, and
about a hundred gentlemen were introduced to the Bishop.
His lordship was much gratified with his reception, and
he seems to have made a most favourable impression upon
all. About 2 o'clock his lordship entered his carriage
and drove to Auckland, where he was warmly welcomed.
Amidst the applause of the people the Count Palatine,
the last of »n illustrious line, a line of which Durham may
justly be proud, entered the stately palace of his pre-
decessors. A most sumptuous feast was prepared. The
"Larchfield Diary," whose writer (Mr. Francis Mew-
burn) was one of the guests, mentions with many
encomiums the rare and choice wines, and also the
justice which the assembled party did to them.
An incident in the procession to Auckland, related to
me by an eye-witness (Mr. James Thompson, now of Hur-
worth House), produced considerable mirth. The parish
clerk of Auckland wished to show respect to the new
Count Palatine. Net possessing a horse, he borrowed a
piebald steed belonging a circus then in the town, and,
accompanied by the proprietor on another piebald, joined
in the cavalcade. Much laughter was caused by the
exertions of the clerk to maintain his equilibrium in his
unaccustomed position.
It seems from a letter of Bishop Cosin to Dr. Sancroft
(afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury), that the falchion
ceremony was, at any rate occasionally, performed in the
Tees, most likely at Neasham. The Bishop thus writes
under date of August 22, 1661 : — " The confluence and
alacritie of ye gentry, clergy, and other people was very
great, and at my first entrance through the river of Tease
there was scarce any water to be seene for the multitude
of horse and men yt filled it when ye sword yt killed ye
dragone was delivered to me with all the formality of
trumpets and gunshots and acclamations yt might be
made. I am not affected with such shews ; but, however
ye cheerfullness of ye county in the reception of their
Bishop is a good earnest given for better matters, which,
by the grace and blessing of God, may in good time
follow them."
Various opinions have been expressed as to what was
the origin of this curious ceremony. Pennant thinks it
refers to a victory over the Scots ; Hutchinson imagines
that the dragon was some Danish rover who was ravaging
the country and was slain by Conyers ; while Surtees
aays : — " It would not be difficult to connect the falchion
legend with the real exploits of Roger de Conyers,
Constable of Durham Castle, Comyn, who had usurped
the See and was defeated by the Constable, playing
the part of the dragon." Some little confirmation of
Surtees's theory may be found in the fact that the grant
of Sockburn was made by the Bishop, and not by the
reigning Monarch, as stated in the ceremony at Croft
Bridge, though it might have been confirmed by the
latter. Others have thought the ceremony refers to some
actual fact now lost in the obscurity of ages, when some
huge serpent or lizard, such as we know formerly existed
on the earth, was slain. In the tradition recorded in the
Bowes MSS., the creature is called " a wyverne or aske,"
the latter being the local name for lizard. Science, which
usually does so much to dispel false notions, teaches us
that huge lizards did once roam the earth. I» it not
possible that some of these monsters might still have been
living in ancient times, and that popular ignorance and
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ISBLf
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
291
fear might have endowed them with terrors greater even
than those they possessed ? If, sixty years ago, any one
had asserted that elephants once roved over the plains
of Siberia, he would have met only with ridicule and
contempt. Yet we know now that elephants did flourish
there, as their frozen carcases are still occasionally
found. It is therefore not altogether impossible that the
Sockburn "wyverne or aeke," the " Lambton worm,1'
and many other similar creatures, may be something
more than myths.* JOHN BOUSFIELD.
Sl)t ffiongerj! /altljton.
This celebrated weapon (of which we give a drawing)
was exhibited at a meeting of the Newcastle Society of
Antiquaries on April 29, 1891.
Mr. Robert Blair, the secretary of the society, stated
that Sir Edward Blackett, to whom the falchion now
belongs, found, when it came into his possession, the
•following memorandum in his father's handwriting, at-
tached to the hilt : —
Sir Edward Blackett now represents the person of Sir
John Conyers, who in the year 1063, in the fields of
Sockburn, slew with this falchion, according to ancient
story, a dragon, worm, or flying serpent, which de-
voured men, women, and children. The owner of Sock-
burn, as a reward for his bravery, gave Sir John
the manor of Sockburn for him and his heirs for
ever, on condition of his meeting the Lord Bishop of
Durham with this falchion on his first entrance into his
diocese after appointment. The tenure is distinctly
noticed in the inquest on Sir John Conyers, A.D., 1396.
The arms on one side of the pommel are those of Eneland
as borne by the Plantagenets from John to Edward III.
The eagle on the other side is said to belong to Morcar,
the Saxon Earl of Northumberland.
Mr 0. C. Hodges said he had made a rubbing of the
For further particulars anent the ancient legend of the Sock-
burn Worm see Monthly Chronicle, 1889, p. 618.
ornament upon the guard, which he showed to the Rev.
Canon Green well. They carefully compared it with
examples in the library of Durham, and came to the
conclusion that the date was probably not later than
1200, though it might be as early as 1180. It was certainly
the earliest sword in the Northern Counties. The
pommel and the guard were made of bronze. The arms
upon the pommel were an incised lion, of the character
met with in late Norman architecture and in MbS. of
about the dose of the last quarter of the 12th century.
Mr. J. R. Boyle remarked that the Conyers family
dated back to the very remotest antiquity ; but the last
male representative of the line died, early in the present
century, a pauper in Chester-le-Street !
HE constant companionship, sympathy, and
atfection of Dorothy Wordsworth for her
brother William had so important an
effect on his life and works, that a slight
acquaintance with her history and character is almost
necessary to any one wishing to understand the inner
heart of the poet himself. Somewhere in the "Prelude"
he compared his soul to an arid rock, untouched by the
softening effects of sunshine and shower, without any
nooks or crannies where flowers might lurk. His sister
came with her tender influence, sowed on it the needed
flowers, and touched it with mellowing hues. Well
indeed did her name, in its Greek meaning " the gift of
God," prefigure the relation in which she stood to him.
To use his own words — •
She gave me eyes, she gave me ears,
And humble cares, and delicate fears :
A heart the fountain of sweet tears,
And love and thought and joy.
Born at Cockermouth in 1771, Dorothy was not quite
two years younger than her brother. Devotedly attached
to each other, they passed their infancy on the very
margin of the Lake District, a neighbourhood calculated
to arouse their dormant love of the beautiful, while the
blue mountains in the distance, suggesting a country
of romance and mystery, awoke in their dual souls
a yearning love of nature which ever after dominated
their existence. From all accounts, William Words-
worth was naturally a reserved, morose boy. Fortu-
nately, his sister's loving tenderness and sweetness pro-
duced a beneficial change in his surly disposition. The
poet himself alludes to this contrast in their characters in
verses relating to their childhood, in which he says—
My sister Emmeline and I
Together chased the butterfly,
A very hunter did / rush
Upon the prey.
But SHE, God love her ! feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.
After some happy years passed together, the household
292
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
was broken up on the death of Mrs. Wordsworth.
William was sent to school, and his sister Dorothy
was removed from Oockermouth to Penrith, and eventu-
ally placed under the care of her mother's cousin,
Miss Threlkeld, at Halifax, Yorkshire, where she
was principally educated. During the summer of 1788
she, for a brief but joyous period, enjoyed the society of
her brother. They met at Penrith ; revisited all their
childish haunts ; wandered by the banks of Eamont,
among the woods of Lowther ; and, climbing the Beacon
Hill, looked wistfully towards the dim regions of Scotland,
even then planning a visit to that country, which was as
yet unknown to either of them. After this pleasant
reunion, Wordsworth went to Cambridge. Dorothy,
as she grew to womanhood, resided for a time with
her uncle, the Rev. Dr. Cookson, Canon of Windsor.
There she might have passed her life quietly and
decorously, under dignified auspices, but her intense
love for bn brother opened to her a vista of nobler pros-
pects ; and, when opportunity offered, she did not hesi-
tate to leave her influential relatives and become the
companion, friend, and pupil of him who became with her
assistance the most original and meditative of all the Lake
Poets. After leaving Cambridge, Wordsworth went
to France, and watched with ardont enthusiasm
the progress of that Revolution which was ex-
pected to emancipate mankind. The many and glaring
excessses committed by the so-called friends of
freedom disheartened and distressed him. In 1794, he
returned to England with all his high hopes dashed to
the ground, his spirits darkened and depressed, his mind
ill at ease, and his opinions, political, philosophical, and
religious, all alike unsettled and at sea. Happily, at thi»
dark period in his mind's history, a kind Providence
placed his sister by his side. She discerned bis real needs,
and with tine tact turned his bewildered and despairing
soul from abstract speculations, and directed his thoughts
towards poetry and truth.
Then it was
That the beloved sister in whose sight
These days were passed
. . . Wnispered that brightness would return.
She in the midst of all preserved me still
A poet, made me seek beneath that name,
And that alone, my office upon earth.
About this time, Wordsworth, finding his money gone
and his belief shaken, gave up all hopes of church or bar,
and contemplated going to London and trying to earn
his bread and butter as a newspaper writer ; but it was
ordered otherwise. During a pedestrian tour with his
sister from Kendal to Grasmere, and then to Keswick.
"through the most delightful country ever seen," they
learned that a young friend had bequeathed him a
legacy of £900. This piece of good fortune changed the
current of his ideas, and seldom has such a bequest
been put to better use. The brother and sister cast in
their lots together, and on this small sum, and £100
received for the "Lyrical Ballads," they contrived to live
and travel for nearly eight years. In the autumn of 1795
they settled down in a retired little house near the Quan-
took Hills, Somersetshire, and from this time we may
data the commencement of Wordsworth's self-dedication
to poetry as the main business of bis life ; while Dorothy
not only attended to household duties, but, with her
fervid imagination, encouraged her brother to further
poetic efforts. There was little or no society in the neigh-
bourhood, but long years after she spoke with affec-
tionate recollection of the time passed there, for it was the
first real home she had. Solitary as was the life they led,
one notable man, Coleridge, was a frequent visitor.
In a letter to a friend, he relates that " Wordsworth and
bis exquisite sister are with me ; she is a woman indeed —
in mind I mean, and in heart ; for her person is such that
if you expected to see a pretty woman, you would think
her ordinary ; if you expected to see an ordinary woman,
you would think her pretty. Her manners are simple,
ardent, and impressive ; in every motion her innocent
soul beams so brightly that whoever saw her would say
guilt was a thing impossible with her."
After three pleasant years passed in the South of Eng-
land, a spirit of unrest took possession of Wordsworth
and his sister, and they sought change of scene. Several
months were spent in Germany, and they paid a long
visit to their relatives at Sockburn-on-Tees. Then, tired
of wandering, early recollections and associations deter-
mined them to reside permanently in the Lake District.
Leaving their Durham friends at the close of the year,
they walked through Wensleydale over Sedbergh's naked
heights and the high range that divides Yorkshire from
Cumberland, and arrived in mid-winter at the small two-
storey cottage in that part of Grasmere known as Town-
end, which was to be their home for eight years. (For
a sketch of Dove Cottage, Townend, see page 105.) Here
they lived on their little income, Dorothy doing all the
household work, for they had no servant. Besides her
domestic employments, she wrote out all her brother's
poems from his dictation, for he never could bear the
itrain of transcribing. In addition, she sympathised with
him, counselled him. cheered him, and finally engrafted
on bis austere disposition her own impassioned love of all
that is beautiful. While thus ministering to his spiritual
wants, she never for one moment neglected his material
comfort.
The years passed at Grasmere mark an important era
in English literature; it was during this time that
Wordsworth's genius was at its brightest and best.
Dorothy was ever at his side, and many of his poems are
merely rhythmic versions of her descriptions. Most people
are familiar with the well-known poem on daffodils, and
no better instance can be given of her influence than the
following quotation from her journal which Wordsworth
embodied in verse : — " When we were in the woods
below Gowbarrow Park, we saw a few daffodils-
Julyl
1891.1
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
293
close by the water side ; as we went on there
were more and yet more; and at laat under the
boughs of the trees we saw a long belt of them along
the shore. I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew
among the mossy stones about them ; some rested their
heads on the stones, as on a pillow ; the rest tossed and
reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed
with the wind, they looked so gay and glancing."
Sometimes it is even doubtful as to whether the sister's
prose is not truer poetry than the brother's verse. Cer-
tainly nothing can be more charming than her description
of the "lady of the woods" on a bright, breezy day: —
" Our favourite birch tree was yielding to the gusts of the
wind with all its tender twigs ; the sun shone on it, and
it glanced in the wood like a flying sunshiny shower. It
was a tree in shape, with stem and branches, but it was
like a spirit of water." In 1802, Wordsworth married his
cousin and early playfellow, Mary Hutchinson ; but the
bride's advent at Grasmere brought little change to
Dorothy, who continued to fill the same place, sharing
the household duties with her sister-in-law, writing out
and suggesting poems to her brother ; and in addition was
always ready, wet or dry, sunshine or rain, night or
day, to accompany him on his endless rambles,
for Mrs. Wordsworth was never fond of walking.
De Quincey gives a graphic account of a visit he paid
to the poet's home after his marriage, and describes
delightfully the cottage with its diamond-paned windows
embowered in roses and honeysuckle, the small, ex-
quisitely clean rooms, the quiet hospitality and simple
domestic arrangements of the humble menage. The utter
absence of all effort to disguise their honourable poverty
struck him with admiration, for, out of that plain living
which circumstances enforced, how much high thinking
came ! It is curious to find that Mrs. Words-
worth, who has been handed down to posterity
by her husband "as a phantom of delight," was
(according to the great opium-eater) really a plain-
looking woman, with a decided squint, and so silent that
it was alleged she could only say "God bless you." Per-
haps this very silence was one of the reasons why she and
Miss Wordsworth lived so happily together, for Dorothy,
with her face of Egyptian brown, wild and startling eyes,
whose hurried motions denoted her nervous and high-
strung temperament, was not the easiest person in the
world to get on with.
It was in August, 1803, thatDorothy Wordsworth, though
born and reared in sight of Scotland, first set her foot on
Scottish ground. Accompanied by her brother William and
Coleridge, she set out from Keswick mounted on an out-
landish Irish car, the whole party attired in such shabby
garments that even the small innkeepers where they
lodged must have taken them for "a wheen gangrel
bodies, "or some offshoot of the many strange religious
sects who then abounded on the Borders. Yet what a
trio they were ! Some friend of Coleridge's remarked
once that he talked like an angel, and did nothing. If
the "Ancient Mariner" was nothing, what must his
talk have been? But although Dorothy Wordsworth
has left a vivid record of all she jaw, there is
not a word as to what was said. The journey,
however, bore abundant fruits, not only in the
poems composed by Wordsworth, but in the very re-
markable journal kept by his sister during that men, or
able six weeks. This journal, which remained unpub-
lished for seventy years, is now not only valuable for its
historic interest, marking as it does the state of Scotland
ninety years ago, but its entries are so truthful and exact
that each place described in it seems touched by a lis?ht
which must consecrate it for ever. Delightful as are the
accounts of places they visited, one place they left unseen
gains an additional charm from its association with this
vagrom tour.
As they travelled homewards down the banks of the
Tweed, Dorothy, knowing that the river Yarrow was
within an hour's walk, felt most anxious to visit the
romantic stream. Wordsworth, probably for some quite
prosaic reason, to her great astonishment declined to do so.
But the little discussion roused thoughts and feelings
which took shape in verse, and " Yarrow Unvisited "
remains to us a pleasing proof of fraternal comradeship.
It is written in a gayer mood than was usual with Words-
worth. The metre resembles that of the old ballads, and,
though not pitched throughout in his highest strain, con-
tains two of his best stanzas. The first verses describe
their Scotch wanderings : —
And when we came to Clovenford,
Then said my winsome marrow,
" Whate'er betide, we'll turn aside
And see the braes of Yarrow."
To this importunity the poet replied that they had seen
many famous rivers in Scotland, and that other streams
were yet before them.
There's pleasant Teviotdale, a land
Made blithe with plough and harrow ;
Why throw away a needful day
To go in search of Yarrow ?
What's Yarrow but a river bare
That glides the dark hills under?
There are a thousand such elsewhere
As worthy of your wonder.
His winsome marrow looks up in his face somewhat
surprised and pained at what seems scorn of the song-
honoured river. Touched by her l:>ok, he, in more serious
manner, replies, admitting that there must be something
worth seeing about the fair flowing river, with its trea-
sured tales of times long past. He assures her, however,
that tor the present it must remain a dream, and in a
cheerful spirit concludes the poem with the comforting
hope that
Should life be dull and spirits low,
'Twill soothe us in our sorrow
That earth has something yet to show.
The bonny holms of Yarrow.
Wordsworth did visit, and revisited, its bonny braes.
294
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
but for poor Dorothy the stream remained for ever unseen
and unknown.
As the poet's family increased, so did hie income. He
received a Government appointment with a salary of
£500 a year, had other legacies left him, and found him-
self in a position to move to a more commodious dwelling.
His first migration was to Allen Bank ; then he re-
moved to the parsonage at Grasmere, and finally he
went to Rydal Mount. In all these changes of abode
Dorothy accompanied him, and shared his joys and
troubles. With gifts which, had she chosen, might have
won her literary distinction, she was content to forget
herself, merge all her interests in her brother's, and allow
her thoughts to find voice only in bis poetry. Refusing
many offers of marriage, she gave herself up to one
work — to live only for and in him. When he was
at last acknowledged by the world as the great original
poet of the century, she who had helped to make him so
was almost past rejoicing at her work. In 1829 severe
illness so prostrated her mind and body that she never
recovered her former health. She had exhausted herself
in her ceaseless efforts to smooth the path of her earthly
idol, and the continuous strain wore out that once buoyant
frame and fervid spirit. But not before her self-imposed
task was accomplished, and she was content to know that
he to whom she had dedicated her days was happy,
famous, and prosperous. Though mentally and bodily
feeble, she outlived her brother. She died at Rydal
Mount in 1856, aged eighty-three, and now rests with her
beloved kindred in the green churchyard at Grasmere ;
the clear waters of the Rothay, which in life she loved so
well, murmuring a perpetual lullaby a few yards from her
grave. M. S. HAHDCASTLE.
JNE of the chief adornments of the Cathedral
Church of St. Nicholas', Newcastle, is the
elaborate sculpture here represented, known
as the Maddison Monument. It com-
iiinnuirutes three generations of the worshipful family of
Maddison, who were municipal dignitaries in Newcastle
during the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles I.
Lionel Maddison, the founder of the family, came to
Newcastle from Unthank, near Stanhope, became alder-
man and Sheriff, and wan twice Mayor of Newcastle.
His only son, Henry Maddison, was Mayor also. Henry
was the father of sixteen children, of whom the eldest,
Lionel, being Mayor of the town in 1633 when Charles I.
passed through on his way to be crowned in Scotland,
received the honour of knighthood.
The monument appears to have been erected by Sir
Lionel soon after the death of his father. At the top are
•tallies of Faith, Hope, and Charity. Faith, on the left,
is represented in a sitting posture, holding a book in one
hand, and a cross in the other ; Hope, to the right, re-
clines on her anchor in an attitude of aspiration ; Charity,
in the centre, stands erect, holding in her right hand *
flaming heart. Under the statue of Faith are inscribed
the words " Memoriae Sacrvm " — sacred to the memory ;
below Hope is written "Memorare Novissima, " — to relate
the last words.
In the body of the monument are six kneeling figures —
three men and three women. Those on the left are
Alderman Lionel Maddison and Jane Seymour, his
wife. The central figures are Henry Maddison, their
son, and his wife, Elizabeth Barker. The effigy in
armour on the right is Sir Lionel Maddison, and behind
him kneels Anne Hall, his wife. Below the principal
figures are sixteen smaller ones, representing Henry
Maddison's sixteen children— ten sons and six daughters.
Above are coats of arms indicating the family alliances —
Maddison quartering respectively Marley, Seymour,
Barker, and Hall.
Under the figures of Alderman Lionel Maddison and
his wife, on the left side of the monument, is the in-
scription : —
Here rests in Christian hope ye Bodies of Lionell
Maddison, sone to Rowland Maddison of Vnthanke in ye
covnty of Durham, Esq. and of lane his wife. Shee
Died Ivly 9, 1611. Hee having been thrice Maior of thi»
Towne Departed Dec. 6, 1624, aged 94 Yeares. Hee
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
295
lined to see his onely sonne Henry Father to a Fayre &
numerous Issue.
The two panels in front, beneath the figures of Henry
and his wife, are inscribed as follows :—
Here Interred also are the Bodys of Henry Maddison
& Elizabeth his Wife (Davghter to Robert Barker of thi«i
Towne Alderman) who liued together most comfortably
and louingly in trve Wedlock ye space of 40 Yeares. He
was somety me Maior of this Towne & having liued in good
name & fame 60 Yeares Deceased in ye trve Faith of
Christ the 14th of Ivly 1634.
Elizabeth his only Wife had issve by him ten sonnes Sr
Lionell Maddison Kt., Raphe, Robert, William, Henry,
Peter, George, Timothy & Thomas, & six Davghters lane,
Svsan, Elizabeth, Barbara. Elenor & lane. All the sonns
at his death were liuing but lohn, who died in ye late
Expedition to Cadiz. She liued his Widow 19 Years and
being Aged 79 Years Dyed the 24 of September 1653.
The panel to the right, beneath Sir Lionel and his wife,
was left blank for their descendants to fill up. For some
reason or other — perhaps, as Brand suggests, because of
the knight's defection from the cause of the king— this
panel remained unappropriated for more than two hun-
dred years. But when St. Nicholas' was restored in 1873-
77, and the monument was removed from the western
pillar of the south aisle of the chancel, cleaned, and set up
in the south transept, Mr. Henry Maddison, of Darling-
ton (who died in Newcastle February 6, 1891) caused the
space to be filled with the following inscription : —
In this chvrch are also interred the mortal remains of
Sir Lionel Maddison, Knt. (descended from the ancient
and worshipfvl family of Maddison of Ellergill &
Vnthank, co. Dvrham) who was Mayor of this town in
1632, & died in Nov. 1646, aged 51 Years ; & of Anne his
wife, who was sister and co-heiress of Sir Alexander Hall,
Knt. and died in April, 1633.
[This date, by the way, is wrong. Lady Anne Mad-
dison was buried on the 14th of April, 1663.]
Beneath the panels are four Latin mottoes. To the left,
under Lionel's wife, "Animse svper aethera vivunt" —
Souls live above the sky. Beneath Lionel and Henry,
"Decus vitae est honorata mors"— The glory of life is an
honoured death. Under Sir Lionel and bis mother,
"Beati mortui qui in Domino morivntur" — Blessed are
the dead which die in the Lord. Below Sir Lionel's wife,
" Serius aut citius Metam properamus ad vnam" — Sooner
or later we all hasten to one goal.
Originally the base of the monument contained a series
of small shields indicating the marriages of Sir Lionel
Maddison's brothers and sisters, but these have long dis-
appeared. So far as can be ascertained the marriages
were as follows : — Ralph, to Elizabeth, sister to Sir
Lionel's wife ; Robert, to a Miss Draper ; William, to
Rebecca Gray ; Henry (Sheriff of Newcastle, 1642-43, and
Mayor, 1665-66), to Gertrude, daughter of Sir George
Tonge; Peter (Sheriff of Newcastle, 1637-38), to Elizabeth
Marley ; Thomas, to Jane, daughterof Ralph Cock ; Jane,
to William, son of Sir Nicholas Tempest ; Elizabeth, 1st
to William Bewicke, son of Robert Bewicke the Puritan
Mayor, and 2ndly to Thomas Loraine, of Kirkharle ;
Eleanor, to Sir Francis Bowes ; Jane (born after the first
Jane's death), to Sir James Clavering.
Sir Lionel Maddison left an only daughter, Elizabeth,
who married Feb. 27, 1639-40, Sir George Vane of Long-
newton, Knt., second son of Sir Henry Vane of Raby
Castle, and brother of Sir Harry Vane of the Common-
wealth. From this marriage the noble house of London-
derry traces its descent. RICHAKD WKLFORD.
SC Rtminiticence at Jtlro.
original, but hitherto unpublished, letter of
Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu, who formerly re-
sided at Denton Hall, Northumberland (see
Monthly Chronicle, 1887. p. 132), shows that, regardless of
the constant sneers at Tyneside, its scenery, the people
and their customs, which appear in her other letters, the
writer still had a warm affection and remembrance for her
neighbourhood and dependents, and that even at her then
advanced age she had the welfare of her workpeople and
tenants even in the Far North always at heart.
The letter, which is now in my possession, is dated
October 20, and was franked at London "October the
twenty-first, 1794." It is addressed to a Mr. Wood-
house, Scotswood, Newcastle-upon-Tyue, and was ap-
parently written at her residence at Saudleford, near
Newbury, Berkshire. Who Mr. Woodhouse was I am
unable to say, but, from the number of instructions and
advice she gives him, he may probably have been her
steward or agent.
The following is a copy of the letter : —
Oct. 20. 30.
My good Friend, — My dear Mrs. M. Montagu's bad
complaint in her eyes made it necessary for her to go to
London for advice, which I thank God has much
relieved her, as yr letter of yesterday informed me. For
the first three days she was not sensible of any benefit, but
there is now hope every day will bring on a further amend-
ment.
As my House is not near so cheerfull as when my
young Friends are here, I intend to be in London ye 2d
day of Novbr. In ye meantime you may direct yr
letters rather to Manchester Square than Sandleford, lest
any inducement should carry me to London sooner than I
intend.
Pray give yr enclosed immediately to yr School Master
who is to be my Butler. I wd have pottatoes, barley, and
butter as usual, and shall want also Coal, and I should
be glad of a dry 'd Salmon.
I desire old Mrs. Brown may be told I wish to have her
spin me some Huck a back, and that 1 shall set a great
value upon it for her sake, and give my love to her and
her good old man. I hope you sent them a goose and barrel
of beer at Michaelmas.
I was glad to learn by your letter that our Pittmen keep
constant at their work. I believe I mentioned to you
that you are to give Dixon five guineas towards bis
journey, and to advance him a quarter's wages if it will
be useful to him.
I had designed to write to your dear wife to-day, but
was prevented by a very large party coming to see me at
this place. Pray give my kindest love to her and all yr
family.
I am ever yours and your dear wife's
most sincere and affectionate Friend,
Etiz. MONTAGU.
The handwriting is small, neat, and precise. The
296
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
number 30 in the top right hand corner I am unable to
explain, nor can I say what " your enclosed" was, unless
it was another letter. What a tale of degeneration the
words "your schoolmaster who is to be my butler"
imply ! Mrs. M. Montagu was the wife of Matthew
Robinson, a nephew of the writer's, who took at her
request the name of Montagu. Irom the words "as
usual" which succeed "pottatoes, barley, and butter,"
it) may be presumed that these articles, when pro-
duced in her Northern home, found greater favour
with the worthy lady than those produced on her
more Southern estates, and that Denton regularly
supplied Sandleford, and in all probability Manchester
Square as well (the London house was situated in Man-
chester Square). Huck-a-back was a coarse kind of linen
cloth used for household purposes, which until I read the
above letter I was unaware was spun in Northumberland.
PERCY S. HotLE.
llfbrno ?gall, W&tttmavtlnntt.
j]NE of the most interesting objects in the
neighbourhood of Kendal, the chief town of
Westmoreland, is Levens Hall, a venerable
mansion, built in the old English style,
which has belonged successively to the Redmans, the
Bellinghams, the Grahams, and the Howards.
The antiquary and the archaeologist will here find
many rare curiosities to arrest attention. In the in-
terior there is an endless variety of carved work, con-
sisting of figures, emblems, and ornaments, which are said
to date from the time of Queen Elizabeth. These artistic
productions were executed to the order of one of the
Bellinghams, who expressed his determination to "outdo
his contemporary, Walter Strickland of Sizergh." The
carved work in the north dining-room alone was valued,
6fty years ago, at not less than £3,000. The chimney
piece is supported by figures of Hercules and Samson,
and in compartments are representations of the four ele-
ments, the four seasons, and the five senses. Another
room is hung with Gobeline tapestry depicting an Italian
legend, while other rooms are adorned with hangings of
great costliness and beauty. Various relics of a turbulent
age are to be found in the entrance hall, and the princi-
pal rooms are hung with noble pictures.
The fame of Levens Hall rests, however, not so much
upon its interior adornments as upon its gardens, which
are laid out in a very quaint style. They were originally
designed by Beaumont, gardener to James II., who lived
with the owner of Levens Hall during the troublous
times that befel his master. For many years they were
in a wild and neglected state ; but Colonel Howard
greatly improved them, without changing their original
character, having had the assistance of Mr. Archibald
Forbes, author of a work entitled " Ornamental Garden-
ing." As will be seen from our drawing, which is repro-
duced from Allom's Views, the yews, hollies, and other
evergreens' have been cut into many shapes, more remark-
able for eccentricity than beauty ; but they are un-
doubtedly fine specimens of toparian art, and always
excite the admiration of landscape gardeners.
An old custom was annually observed at Levens Hall
on May 12. The Mayor and Corporation of Kendal,
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
297
after having assembled at Milnthorpe, and proclaimed
the fair there, adjourned to the gardens to witness
athletic sports, bowling, &c. An excessively strong ale,
called "Morocco," with bread and butter and radishes,
was served out to all present. This annual festival dates
from the time of Colonel Graham.
Levens Hall is surrounded by a park containing many
beautiful trees The river Kent enters the demesne at
the north by a waterfall, called Levens Force, and winds
through the estate for a distance of about a mile and
a-half. On the southern side of the river, at a place
called Kirksteads, are the remains of a circular building
alleged by authorities to be a temple devoted to Diana.
In the same locality is a spring known as the Dropping
Well, which is endowed with petrifying qualities, like
the Dropping Well of Knares borough. " In a short time
the wat«r turns moss, wood, leaves, and the like into
stone," or rather the appearance of stone.
priate names, such as " Bumler Box," " Noah's Ark, "and
"Hancock's Birdcage." A photograph of this strange
structure was taken at the time by the late Mr. William
Guthrie, who was attached to the Tyne Theatre, and who
established a photographic business in Nun Street some
twenty-five or thirty years ago. The accompanying
sketch is copied from Mr. Guthrie's photograph. It will
be seen that Madame Tonnelier, the well-known vocalist,
was performing in opera at the Tyne Theatre when the
Bumler Box was one of the curiosities of Newcastle.
at JHarfc 'Ctotjrt
aittr
* 3301%
JlIDDLE-AGED residents in Newcastle will re-
member a curious structure that was exposed
to view when St. John's Lane was being
converted into West Grainger Street. This structure
was part of an old tannery that stood somewhere
behind the Scotch Arms in Newgate Street. It
presented so curious an appearance to the wayfarer
during the time West Grainger Street was in process
of construction that it received many popular and appro-
COUNSELLOR AND DIABIST.
BRANCH of the far-spreading family of
Grey was established at Southwick, in the
parish of Monkwearmouth, by George Grey,
of Barton in Rydale, Yorkshire, who, about
the year 1630, purchased the freehold estate of the
Hedworths in that village. The eldest son of the settler,
George Grey No. 2, a Captain of Foot for the Parliament
in the Northern Association, who married a Robinson of
Rokeby for his first wife and a Newcastle lady for his
second, left, among other issue, George Grey No. 3, a
well-known clegyman. The clergyman— rector of Law-
298
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
ton, in Cheshire, for a time, and afterwards for about
thirty years rector of Burnieton, near Bedale, became the
father of two notable men— Dr. Zachary Grey, the
learned editor of " Hudibras " and opponent of Warbur-
ton, and George Grey No. 4, counsellor at law in New-
castle.
Counsellor Geozge Grey was born at Lawton on the
20th of October, 1680, and received his early education at
Burniaton Grammar School. From thence he was sent
to the University of Edinburgh and then proceeded to
Howgrave, to study law under Thomas Bendloes. The
next step in his educational progress was bis entry in
Hay, 1699, as a student at Gray's Inn, London. For a
couple of years he had chambers there, but in 1701 he
exchanged these for lodgings at the house of Jacob Touson,
the original publisher of Milton's "Paradise Lost,"
Dryden's Flays, and other famous works. With Touson
he remained till he was called to the bar in 1706 and com-
menced practice. Choosing the Northern Circuit as the
one most likely to yield him clients became down to York
Assizes in 1710, and thence followed the judges to Cur-
bam and Newcastle — a memorable journey, which led to
his marriage. For as he was lodging in the house of one
Robert Sutton, at Gateshead, his landlady told him of a
young lady, Alice, daughter of James Clavering, of
Greencroft, and granddaughter of Sir James Clavering,
of Axwell, who would make him a suitable wife. During
the winter following, being on a visit to her great-uncle,
Robert Ellison, of Hebburn, he was taken to a party
at Ravensworth Castle, at which Miss Clavering was a
guest. He came, saw, and conquered — in other words, he
fell in love with the maiden, proposed for her hand, was
accepted, and on the 13th October, 1712, married.
By the death of his father the year before, young Mr.
Grey had received bis share of the family property at
Southwick ; besides which he was heir to the Newton
Picot estate of an uncle, the Rev. Matthew Robinson, of
Burniston. So, to be near Southwick, and not too far
from his wife's relatives at Greencroft, and at the same
time to keep in touch with a great commercial centre, out
of which pretty constant employment for lawyers never
fails to arise, the young couple settled in Newcastle.
We know from Bourne's history whereabouts in the town
they lived. "Lower down a little," writes the historian,
describing the Bailiffgate end of Westgate Street,
"almost at the End of the Street, on that same Side of
the Street where are the Houses of George Grey, Esq.,
Mr. Anderson, etc., was the House of the Carmelites or
White Fryers." Somewhere, therefore, between West-
morland House and the Postern lived Counsellor George
and Mrs. Grey at the date of Bourne's history.
In Newcastle, practising cbieSy as a chamber counsel,
and varying his professional work with the life of a
country gentleman upon the family estate at Southwick,
Mr. Grey resided for sixty years. If not exactly a public
man in the sense of occupying an official position, or
taking a prominent part in the political or municipal life
of the town, he was eminent in legal acquirements and
professional influence. In what may be termed the un-
published history of the Northern Counties — wills and
deeds, transmissions of property, pleadings at the Assizes
and in the Courts of Law at Westminster — his name con-
stantly appears. Thus, Mrs. Anne Davison, making her
will in December. 1719, left the surplus of her personal
estate to him and three others, to be devoted to purposes
of charity, and he, outliving his co-trustee, founded with
the proceeds the almshouses in the Manors for widows of
clergymen and merchants which, until swept away by the
railway, was known as Davison's Hospital. In like
manner Barbara Gee, widow, made him, with Benjamin
Bennet (author of " The Irenicum "), Joseph Airey, and
another, a trustee of her will, by which she charged
property in Pilgrim Street, now covered by the Royal
Arcade, with payment of £6 10s. per annum to the
minister of the Close Gate Meeting House — a payment
that is still received by the trustees of the Church of the
Divine Unity in Newcastle.
Moving among the upper ranks of local society — the
Claverings, Liddells, and Ellisons — Counsellor Grey was
one of the " conversible " men whose paucity of numbers
in Newcastle at the middle of last century Dr. Alexander
Carlyle, of Inveresk, noted down in his autobiography.
And not only was he a "conversible" man. He had
been a diarist in his youth, and in his maturer age he
wrote to his more celebrated brother Zachary letters that
exhibit him as a man of many parts, taking an intelligent
interest not only in his profession, but in agriculture,
literature, and the passing questions of the day.
The diary of the counsellor constitutes his chief claim to
celebrity. For minuteness of detail, innocence of expres-
sion, and inappreciation of the relative importance of
events, it beats the prolix diaries of Anthony Wood and
Elias Ashmole out of the field. For example :—
1680. October 20. I was born at Lawton, in Cheshire,
and baptized October 31. My grandfather Cowdry one
of my godfathers. About this time the great comet was
seen.
1684-5. March 18. Came from Cheshire to Burniston
with my father ; I was carryd on a pillow on horseback
before one Tho. Frank.
1687. May. I was admitted to the Latin School at
Burniston, under Mr. Samuel Hulm. 1689. I had a bile
on my neck.
1696. October. My father went with me to Eden-
brousfh ; I was admitted of the College under Mr. Robert
Scott ; we went from Southwick, and crossed the Tyne at
Shields ferry, and did not go through Newcastle.
1699. May 1. I went to London in stage coach, and
May 19, I first went into Chambers in Gray's Inn ; it was
a ground (chamber) in Chappel Court.
1701. April. I left chambers in Gray's Inn, and
lodgd with Mr. Jacob Tonson the bookseller. July. I
went into Yorkshire along with Mr. Hayfrid Wainwright
and learned inensurac'on. October. I gott my book of
mapps.
1704. I went to Cambridge to meet my brother
Zacbary, and admit him of Jesus College. June I
bought my foot rule, with compasses and pencil, it cost
7s. 6d. June 29. Bought my 8vo. Bible, it cost 7s. 6d.
July 10. Went into Yorkshire in stage coach. I eat on
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
299
the road some raisins, which in my pocket happened to
mix with a dentrifice made of beaten china, which threw
me into so violent vomiting and purging that I had like
to have dyd on the road. Dec. I waa at Southwick, and
we divided Simonaide.
1706. April 29. I was called to the barr.
1708. Feb. 14. Set forwards in stage coach for York-
shire ; I then had a severe cold, which fix'd my jaws that
I could not chaw my meat ; but though the frost was
very severe I recovered on the road, and got well home
by the blessing of God.
1710. Aug. 19. At York assizes, and from thence
went to Durham assizes, and then to Newcastle, and
lodgd at Mr. Robert Button's in Gateshead, and Mrs.
Button then recommended my dear Alice to me for a
wife, though I had never heard of such a person. Feb.
20. I was made a Freemason at BeedalL
1711. I went to Robert Ellison's Esq. at Hebburn,
January 18, and staid mostly there till 14- Feb. Mr.
Ellison proposed my dear Alice to me for a wife, carryd
me to Ravensworth Castle to see her, went to Greencroft,
and proposed the match to Mr. Clavering and wife, her
father and mother.
1712. June 13. I came from Gatonby to settle at
Newcastle; brother Zachary was with me. Sept. 29.
Bought the wedding ring. Oct. 11. Got a licence.
Oct. 13. I marryd my dear Alice.
1713. April 30. My dear wife came to my house at
Newcastle. Aug. 4. Son George born 30 minits past
eleaven at night; baptized 25, brother Liddell and
brother Clavering godfathers, aunt Rogers godmother.
1714. Oct. 30. Daughter Jane born a quarter past six
at night, bapt. 28. Jan. 26. Sworn by a Dedimus for
Commission of Peace for County of Durham.
Mr. Grey lost his " dear Alice " the day after Christ-
mas, 1744, and two years later his only surviving son.
This son, the fifth George Grey of Southwick, had
married Elizabeth, daughter of Nathaniel Ogle, of
Kirkley, by whom he left issue one son, also named
George, and a daughter named Elizabeth. The latter,
uniting the Greys of Southwick and Howick by her
marriage with Charles, son of Sir Henry Grey, became
the first Countess Grey, and the mother of Earl Grey,
the Reformer. The old counsellor lived twenty-eight
' years after his wife's decease, and ten years after his
grand-daughter's marriage. Dying at length on the 24th
May, 1772, at the patriarchal age of ninety-one, he was
buried in St. Nicholas' Church, Newcastle.
Robert C§reg, p.p.,
A NOTABLE ECCLESIASTIC.
Sir Ralph Grey, of Horton and Chillingham, father of
William, Lord Grey of Wark, had, by a second marriage,
a son named Robert, who, entering into holy orders, rose
to a position of eminence in the diocese of Durham.
Born about the year 1610, he was educated partly at
Northallerton, and partly by Amor Oxley, schoolmaster
in North Northumberland, and afterwards head master of
the Royal Free Grammar School, Newcastle. From
Oxley's care he proceeded to Christ's College, Cambridge,
where he finished his scholastic course, and probably took
his arts degrees. His father, dying in 1623, left him the
estate of Little Langton-upon-Swale, in Yorkshire, and
upon the decease of his mother, in 1635, he came into
possession of other property. At the outbreak of the
Civil War, he attached himself to the Royalist side of the
quarrel, and thus, while his half-brothers, Lord Grey of
Wark and John Grey of Bamborough, were assisting to
fight the battles of Parliament, he and another brother
were helping the king. In 1644 he was one of a party of
cavaliers, several of them belonging to Northumberland
and Durham, who were besieged in the little strong-
hold of Millum Castle, Cumberland, the property of
Ferdinando Huddleston, his brother-in-law. Later on he
was arrested for delinquency, the charges against him
being that he had enlisted men to serve under his brother,
Colonel Grey (slain at Newark), had communicated " by
means of a Northern woman" with the king's garrison,
spent three days in the camp of Prince Rupert on
Bellerby Moor with his brother and Colonel Clavering,
ridden among his brother's troop into Northumberland,
bestowed 40s. upon Royalist soldiers at Durham as he
passed through the city, &c., &c. Pleading the Act of
General Pardon and consenting to take the oath of
fidelity to the Commonwealth, he was allowed, though not
without subsequent questioning, to enjoy his own again.
Morton, Bishop of Durham, stripped of the revenues of
the see and living retired as tutor in the family of Sir
Henry Yelverton, at Easton Mauduit, Northamptonshire,
collated him, in March, 1652, to the rectory of Bishop-
wearmouth, and in May following conferred upon him
the eighth stall in Durham Cathedral. While the
Commonwealth lasted, these were empty preferments ;
but at the restoration of the monarchy, created D.D. by
mandamus, he entered into beneficial occupation of the
rectory and the stall, and fulfilled the duties belonging
thereto till his death. He was found dead in his study
on the 9th of July, 1704, aged 94 years.
Dr. Grey, described by Dr. Raine as living, like a
second Bernard Gilpin, a life of the most disinterested
liberality and the most unfeigned piety, and dying the
death of a saint, is the subject of a collection of anecdotes,
which Spearman, the antiquary, contemplating a bio-
graphy of him, gathered together, and left, with many
other projects of a similar nature, incomplete. The
following are interesting excerpts from Spearman's
MSS. :—
Bishop Crewe pressed Dr. Grey and Dr. Morton [pre-
bend of the sixth stall] to read King James's declaration
for a Dispensing Power in their parish churches, which
they declining, and arguing against it, he angrily told Dr.
Grey his age made him doat, he had forgott his learning.
The good old doctor briskly replied he had forgott more
learning than his Lordship ever had. "Well," said the
Bishop, "111 forgive and reverence you, but cannot
pardon that blockhead Morton, whom I raised from
nothing." They thereupon tooke their leave of the
Bishop, who, with great civility, waited upon them
towards the gate, and ye porter opening ye wickett, or
posterne only, ye Bishop said "Sirrah, why don't you
open ye great gates?" "No," says ye Reverend Dr.
Grey, "my Lord, weele leave ye broad way to yr Lord-
ship', ye strait way will serve us."
In King James' reigne, riding on horseback from his
Rectory at Bpp. Wearmouth to Durham, Mr. J. Lamb, a
popish Justice of Peace, a busy, active, and fierce man
for that party (as all renegades are violent, and being
raised from being a coachman to Mr. Challoner's family).
300
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I July
\189L
overtook ye Doctor, sneered at him, and told him he
wondered he would ride on so fine a palfrey when his
Saviour was content to ride upon a colt, the foal of an
asse ; the Doctor replied, " Tis true, sir, but the King
has made so many asses Justices of the Peace he has not
left me one to ride upou."
As he was going from his house to church many poor
attended (as they daily used to do) his going out. His
Curate, Mr. Broughton, going before him, chid them for
being so troublesome and said he wondered at their
impudence, when, to his knowledge, the Dr. had given
them all money the day before, and bid them begone.
" How now, good Mr. Broughton," said the Doctor, " are
you angry at the poor, and daily read the Lord's Prayer ?
Doe you aske of God your daily bread, which he gives
you plentifully, and will you grudge giveing a share of it
to the poor, or can you be angry at their asking a daily
supply for their necessitys ? I hope you are a better
man." And thereupon called back the poor, gave mony
to each of them, and bid them come daily to his door, and
RO to church, and he would releive them, and said he did
not fand biuiselfe a jott the poorer tor what he gave them.
Another day, as he came out of his gate, a poor salter's
borse fell down under his load and died, and the man
lamenting his losse, and having a family to maintaine, the
Dr. ordered his servant to give him his old padd ; which
much rejoyced the poor man. And about a month after
the Dr. mett the poor man with two horses laden with
salt, and not the old pad. " How now, friend," says the
Dr., "what's become of my pad?" "Truly, Sir, I ex-
changed him for these two horses, and had money to boot.
Your's was too good for the worke, and required better
keeping than I could afford ; I hope you are not angry ':"
"No, I am pleased," says the Dr. : "my horse has made
two horses. You can do more than I can do : thou can
increase and multiply, which I never attempted. God
increase thy store. Be honest and prosper " ; and gave
him 5s. and parted.
Dr. Grey died a bachelor, and intestate. Administra-
tion of his effects was granted to Ralph Lord Grey,
Governor of Barbadoes, Henry Neville of Billingbear,
and Edward Bedingfeld of Chillingham Castle. What
was left of his patrimony yielded £130 per annum, and
there was found in his study £300 wrapped up in papers,
containing £5 each, which he had laid aside for funeral
expenses and legacies. He had given away everything
else in charity.
(Silbert anb (Heorge
ECCENTRIC GENIUS IN HUMBLE LIFE.
Gilbert Gray was of Scottish parentage, and had been
educated at Aberdeen for the Presbyterian ministry.
Being a young man of independent thought and eccentric
action, he had been unable to subscribe to the "stan-
dards " of the Church, and, deeming himself in other
respects altogether unfitted for pastoral work, had ceased
his theological studies, acquired the art of bookbinding,
and somewhere between 1730 and 1740 had engaged him-
self as bookbinder and general shopman to Allan Ramsay,
the poet, who carried on the business of a bookseller in
Edinburgh. Allan Ramsay, as we know from an oft-
quoted couplet, was a friend and correspondent of Martin
Bryson, the Tyne Bridge bookseller, and when Mr.
Bryson took into partnership his apprentice, William
Charnley, and wanted an assistant, Gilbert Gray was
sent by Allan Ramsay to help the new firm in extending
their local connection. The partnership of Messrs.
Bryson and Charnley began in 1750 ; that is, therefore,
about the time when Gilbert Gray, an unmarried man of
forty, came to settle in Newcastle. Five years later the
firm resolved itself into its original elements, and Gray
transferred his services to Mr. Thomas Slack, printer,
bookseller, and founder of the Newcastle Chronicle. With
Mr. Slack, and his successor, Solomon Hodgson, acting
in the triple capacity of proof reader, bookbinder, and
warehouseman, he remained for nearly forty years, and,
dying on the 12th February, 1794, aged 85, was buried in
the Nonconformist burial ground at the Ballast Hills,
The story of Gilbert Gray's life in Newcastle is told in
Mackenzie's "History," and Thomas Bewick's "Auto-
biography," Both writers exhibit him as a man of con-
spicuous ability, industry and benevolence. Mackenzie
states that, without trenching upon his duty to his em-
ployers, he was able to undertake considerable business
on his own account. Among his abortive speculations
was an attempt to manufacture paper in Pandon Dene
out of paper shavings ; among his successful enterprises
were the manufacture of "Dr. Anderson's Scotch Pills,'"
(which he sold to Mr. Slack "by the bushel"), and the
compilation of useful books for country readers. He re-
issued, and sold in numbers, an anti-clerical publication
known as "The Independent Whig"; wrote himself and
published " The Countryman's Treasure " — a book de-
voted to the ailments of domestic animals, and the best
means of curing them ; and " Multum in Parvo," a collec-
tion of moral axioms. He also compiled "The Complete
Fabulist," and an " Epitome of the History of England,"
for the use of schools, " which is thought to have been the
first work of the kind published." These books he offered
Jnlyl
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
301
for sale in a cheap form to country people who attended
Newcastle Market.
His mode of living was singular and economical. He
varied his favourite dish of hasty pudding with pease,
which usually stood in a bowl near to him while at work,
and which, with water, satisfied the wants of nature.
He scarcely ever tasted animal food ; and on being once
presented with a goose, it was salted, hung ,up, and cut
into slices and broiled as wanted. If ever he ventured
into a public-house with his friends, he strictly limited
himself to one pint of ale. When drowsy he lay doijfn ;
when refreshed he rose up, without any regard to time or
custom. His savings were generally applied in releasing
from orison some poor, honest, unfortunate debtor ; but
he was frequently imposed upon by the arttul tales of his
countrymen, all of whom, at last, he viewed with undie
criminating suspicion. In Newcastle he married a
woman called Wallace, and some time after her death
another named Spence, by whom he had three sons-
George, William, and Jphn. In early life he had em-
braced the tenets of the Quakers, and he always retained
the calm, deliberate, and punctual manner of that sect.
His wife admired and practised his principles of abstemi-
ousness and charity ; and they lived together in a state of
uncommon felicity.
Bewick's testimony is that of a youthful friend and
admirer. The workioom of Gilbert Gray was a rendez-
vous for thoughtful lads of Bewick's age. It was there
that he met William Bulmer, afterwards famous as the
founder of the Shakspeare Press ; Thomas Spence, the
"Spencean Reformer," and others less known to fame.
Writing about the early days of his apprenticeship,
Bewick describes the old man's kindly attentions and
eccentricities with high appreciation:—
His moral lectures and advice to me formed a most
important succedaneam to those imparted by my parents.
His wise remarks, his detestation of vice, his industry,
and his temperance, crowned with a lively and cheerful
disposition, altogether made him appear to me as one of
the best of characters. In his workshop I often spent my
winter evenings. This was also the case with a number
of young men, who might be considered as his pupils ;
many of whom, I have no doubt, he directed into the
paths of truth and integrity, and who revered his memory
through life. He rose early to work, lay down when he
felt weary, and rose again when refreshed. His diet was
of the simplest kind, and he ate when hungry, and drank
when dry, without paying regard to meal times. By
steadily pursuing this mode of life ^e was enabled te
accumulate sums of money — from ten to thirty pounds.
This enabled him to get books of an entertaining and
moral tendency printed and circulated at a cheap rate. I
have •ften discovered that he did not overlook ingenious
mechanics whose misfortunes — perhaps mismanagement —
had led them to a lodging in Newgate. To these In-
directed his compassionate eye, and for the deserving (in
his estimation) he paid their debt, and set them at liberty.
I lived in habits of intimacy with him to the end of his
life, and when he died, I, with other of his friends,
attended his remains to the grave at the Ballast Hills.
George, the eldest son of Gilbert Gray, by the second
marriage, was born in 1758. He received his education at
the Royal Free Grammar School in the Spital, under that
famous head-master, the Rev. Hugh Moises. A marked
fondness for drawing, which young Gray exhibited
in early childhood, induced his father to place him
under the tuition of Mr. Jones, an eminent fruit painter
in Newcastle, and rarely had artist a more promising
apprentice. Before many years were over, the skill of
the pupil exceeded that of the teacher. Besides draw-
ing and painting, he studied botany, mineralogy, and
chemistry — studied them to such purpose that, in 1787. he
determined to enlarge his stores of knowledge by foreign
travel. Fired by the examples of Bruce and Captain
Cook, he sailed from Whitehaven to North America,
resolved to see for himself the habits of life among
savages, and to investigate upon his own account the
secrets which Nature had hidden in that far-off region.
Unaided and alone he traversed the wild regions of the
New Continent, and returned to Newcastle with a rich
harvest of experience in the manners and customs of
Geor§e Gray, Fru.t
uncivilized tribes, and abundant treasures in natural
history.
The fame of this adventure was speedily noised abroad,
and in 1791 he was engaged by Prince Poniatowsky to
conduct an exploring party into the interior of Poland,
for the purpose of examining and reporting upon the
geology of that country. This appointment was entirely
to his taste, but the method of conducting the expedition
did not correspond to his plain and simple habits.
Fancying himself slighted, he abandoned the expedition
at Cracow, and returned to Newcastle. The f-ear of
similar disappointment led him to refuse an offer from
Major George Anderson, who desired to secure his
services as botanist, geologist, and draughtsman, in a
tour through Iceland. He preferred to remain at home,
where he could teach drawing, paint a little, and indulge
his eccentricities. In 1794, he opened a shop in Dean
Street, as a " portrait, fruit, house, and sign painter " ;
but his want of capital and his contempt for the forms
and courtesies of business, soon induced him to resign
the project. After this, he removed to Pudding Chare,
where,
He lived very retired, and devoted much of his time to
chemical researches. Some of his discoveries, particularly
two on making bread from roots, he communicated to the
302
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
Literary and Philosophical Society. He was long
engaced in making an inproved ink for printers, and the
late Lord Stanhope [of the Stanhope Press] took out a
caveat for his substitute for oak bark. His proper business
of painting and teaching drawing he followed only so far as
was absolutely necessary. Many of his fruit pieces were
exquisite, and exhibited a natural transparency of texture
seldom attained. He always endeavoured to practise his
father's abstemiousness, and to avoid eating with his gor-
mandizing acquaintance. He certainly enjoyed the con-
viviality of a little circle of clever men, but on one occa-
sion he was obliged to fly to Sunderland in order to
escape the temptations to which he was exposed by his
jolly companions. A female was never permitted to cross
his threshold : but after he had struggled tor a time with
a severe fit of sickness in his solitary apartment, he began
to think that "it is not good for man to be alone. " He
therefore married a Mrs. Dobie, the widow of a poor
shoemaker ; but upon her death, he declared that all the
riches of Mexico and Peru should not tempt him to repeat
the experiment.
Bewick, who was five years his senior, formed a friend-
ship for George Gray which only death divided. In the
"Autobiography" he describes him as "one of the best
botanists and chemists in this part of the country."
Although his room was "never cleaned or swept," and
he carried on his employment "surrounded with models,
crucibles, gallipots, brushes, paints, palettes, bottles, jars,
retorts, and distills, in such a chaos of confusion as no
words can describe," yet " from this sanctum sanctorum
he corresponded with gentlemen of science in London and
other parts." "Few men," he adds, " were better liked
by private friends, as well for his knowledge as for his
honesty, and the genuine simplicity of his manners."
Notwithstanding his unwholesome habits, and his un-
healthy surroundings, George Gray lived to the age of
sixty. He died at his house in Pudding Chare, on
Thursday, December the 9th, 1819, and was buried in St.
John's Churchyard on the Sunday following. John Bell,
the antiquary, made an appeal to the public for means to
erect a monument to his memory ; but so far as can be
ascertained the proposal was unheeded, and "neither
stone nor storied urn " marks his resting-place.
[EARINESS of the world, and a longing de-
sire to merit transference to a better,
through a persistent course of austerity and
sacrifice, have disposed many pious indi-
viduals. in all ages and countries, and of every rank in life,
to retire trom the neighbourhood of their fellow-men, and
take up their solitary abode in desert places. Witness
the Gymnosophists of Ancient India; the Hindoo;
Yogins ; the Fakirs, Santons, and Dervishes of Turkey ;
the Marabouts of Morocco ; the Bikshus of Indo-China ;
the Nazarites and Esseues of Judaea ; the Eremites and
Anchorites of primitive Christian times ; the Culdees of
North Britain ; and many more too numerous to particu-
larise. It would doubtless be too much to assert that the
spirit which animated all these fugitives to withdraw
from common society was one and the same; yet there
can be no question but that many of them, at least, fled
into the wilderness to escape from the general lawlessness
of the times they lived in, which they felt themselves
individually impotent to stand against.
In the dark ages following on the introduction of
Christianity into Northumberland, when the pagan
Mercians on the one hand, and the savage Danes on the
other, kept up an almost incessant reign of terror in the
l.-iiid, this quarter of Britain produced, we have no doubt,
many hermits, but particularly that prince of Anglian
confessors, the illustrious St. Cuthbert. Conceiving that
the comparative luxury and ease of a monastic life
afforded too many selfish enjoyments, and distracted his
mind from the contemplation of Divine things, he retired
to the largest of the Fame Islands — now known as the
House Island— opposite to Bamborough, and there com-
menced the life of an anchorite, building to himself a cell,
with a small oratory, which he surrounded with a wall so
high as to cut off his view from every object but heaven.
This dreary place was well suited to a life of mortifica-
tion, beine, as the legend says, "full of devils," and
"voyd of trees, water, and graine." During the saint's
residence there, it was the scene of more miracles than
perhaps any other islet within the bounds of Christendom
ever was. In the first place, the evil spirits which fre-
quented it were put to flight ; then fresh water gushed
forth from the rock at the command of the holy man ; the
earth brought forth corn, without either seed or tillage;
the birds of the air, when they came to tithe the spon-
taneous crop, left off at once at the saint's bidding ; and,
to crown all, two thievish crows, which had plucked off
the best straws from the thatch of this poor hut, for the
purpose of building their nests, came back at his call,
evinced their penitence in the plainest terms they could
use, prostrated themselves at his feet for absolution, and
next day brought him a dainty piece of pork to make
amends for the injury they had done his roof ! In his
solitude, Cuthbert lived nine years, "so much devoted to
heaven that he forgot he was on earth. "
Of the Hermit of Warkworth, whom the ballad of
Bishop Percy has made famous, a full account is given in
the Monthly Chronicle, 1890, p. 346.
There is a place called the Hermitage, in the parish of
St. John Lee, near Hexham, which, as Hodgson truly
says, "both art and nature have united their efforts to
render charming." It was to this sweet solitude, then
known as Erneshow, or the Eagle's Hill, that John of
Beverley retired from his apostolic labours of evangelising
the Anglian pagans, previous to his appointment to the
see of Hexham by King Alfred. Here also was the
oratory of St. Michael, held sacred in former days for its
power over inveterate diseases, and likewise protected by
the virtue of the saint from being plundered by lawless
marauders, who, if they dared to meddle with it in their
incursions, were punished with madness, so that they
roved wildly about, mangling their limbs till they died.
July!
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
303
A recluse appears to have lived in a hermitage on Tyne
Bridge, Newcastle, in the early part of the fifteenth cen-
tury. When the ruins of the bridge were being taken
down, after the great flood, the bones of a human
skeleton were found by the workmen ; and it is thought
to be not unlikely that they were those of this anchorite,
who had been buried in his cell. A few years before
that discovery was made, it is perhaps worth mentioning
that a gardener named Edward Train, who went by the
name of "The Hermit," died at Gateshead. He had
lived twenty years alone in his garden, and during that
time never once lay in a bed. Disappointed love was
said to have been the cause of his thus secluding himself
from human society.
We have had no hermits, however, properly speaking,
in this part of the world since the Reformation. But
there have been many recluses who, for various reasons,
have shut themselves up in solitary places, if not actually
in cells. Others there have been, like Peter Allan at
Marsden Rock, who have dug out for themselves domiciles
in the living rock, worthy to be compared with those still
to be found in Upper Egypt and the Holy Land, wherein
the early Christian hermits found a secure refuge. Far
from imitating the self-denying anchorites of a devouter
age than ours, however, these modern hermits have usually
been men of a very different stamp, more like Robin
Hood's jolly chaplain and steward Friar Tuck than such
worthies as Godric of Finchale, who passed whole winter
nights up to the neck in the river Wear, doing penance
for his own and other people's sins.
Of two of these eccentrics there are recorded some few
particulars.
About the middle of the last century, William Petti-
grew, a Scotchman, who was employed by the owners of
Walbottle Colliery, erected a hut in Walbottle Dene
against the side of a hill covered with brushwood, a short
distance south of the turnpike road leading from Newcastle
to Carlisle. Here he resided for some time with his family,
and from his dwelling place came to be known by the
name of Willie of the Wood. The habitation was con-
structed of sods, and thatched with broom. Four staves
driven into the ground, and a couple of planks, served sa a
table, while a few old coal buckets, or corves, covered with
ctraw, formed his bed. This becoming noised abroad,
curiosity prompted many to pay the family a visit, when
Mrs. Pettigrew was wont to accost them in some such
words as — "You're welcome to see the house i' the glen,
guid folk." The groups of visitors at length, however,
became so numerous— especially on Sundays and holi-
days—that they were troublesome ; but the "canny Scot"
projected a scheme to turn the public curiosity to account.
He procured bread and cheese and other means of refresh-
ment, for which a ready sale was got ; and he was thus
enabled to maintain his family in a more comfortable way.
From this humble situation two of Pettigrew's sons rose to
a good position in society ; one of them joined the army.
where, in the course of time, he became a lieutenant, and
the other acquired some celebrity as a preacher in the
Methodist Connexion.
In the early part of this century, a Scotchman named
Macfarlane, who had taken up his residence about
Elsdon, and made a living by making besoms, supplied
all the gentry in the country round with brooms for their
stables, &c. One day he asked Mr. Bryan Bnrrell, of
Broom Park, for permission to take in a bit of land on
Rimside Moor, on the banks of the Lemmington Burn,
for the purpose of erecting a shed upon it, in which he
could make his brooms. This request was readily
granted, whereupon he staked out a convenient piece, and
built a turf hut covered with heather, in which, when he
had a mind, he slept at nights. He cut a quantity of
heather, when in bloom and free from damp, and setting
it close up on end, roots downwards, made a capital bed
by its means. Then he contrived to make a little garden,
and stocked it with rose and berry bushes, flowers and
vegetables, so as to make the place look very pretty.
When any of the gentry came about, as they soon began
to do, he joked with them and told them good stories, of
which he had a rich fund, and so he was not molested in
his settlement. Alter a while, he begged further leave to
rail off a piece of ground to form a lumber yard. This,
also, he got permission to do. Being very industrious,
very civil and obliging, he became a general favourite.
He was always ready to give directions to strangers
crossing the wilderness. By-and-bye, he came to be con-
sidered as a sort ot country-keeper. He lived himself, as
a person who knew him well told the present writer,
"like a fighting cock," growing his own potatoes, greens,
and other vegetables, and likewise keeping a pig to
furnish him with fresh pork, bacon, and ham. After
twenty-one years' squatting in this manner, a contested
election for the county of Northumberland occurred, and
Macfarlane went down to Alnwick to record his vote.
The hermit's vote being given to the candidate for whom
the Lord of the Manor voted, and every vote then being
of absolute value, no objection was taken to the claim ; and
so, from that day till his death, the besom-maker of Rimside
Moor was virtually a freeholder of Northumberland.
llaudbfi), gram list.
ARTHUR ROUSBEY, whose English
Opera Company recently appeared in the
Town Hall, Newcastle, is a native of South
Shields. At an early age he evinced a desire for the
stage, and on many occasions assisted at amateur dra-
matic performances. When he was about 17 he left
home and joined a travelUng theatrical company, in
which he undertook small parts. After gaining experi-
ence that was of considerable service to him in after life,
he returned home and devoted himself to the cultivation
304
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
of his voice, which had developed into a baritone of fine
quality and extensive compass.
Under the instruction of the late Mr. Eugene Tiesset,
of Newcastle, he made
rapid progress. His
teacher trained him
upon the method he
himself had acquired
from Lamperti, the
great master of his art
at Milan. Proceeding
to Italy, he placed
himself under Signor
San Giovanni, with
whom he remained a
couple of years. He
then returned to Lon-
don, and completed
his musical education
under Mr. Thomas
Wall worth.
An engagement was
then accepted with the old impressario, Mr. Charles
Durand. Subsequently Mr. D'Oyly Carte made Mr.
Rousbey a tempting offer to join a company he was
organizing to produce Gilbert and Sullivan's famous
series of operas in the country. Mr. Rousbey was
the original Sir Marmaduke, a part that was eminently
suited to his style. As Dick Deadeye in "Pinafore " he
further increased his reputation, but his best effort in
comic opera was in "Patience." His assumption of the
character of Grosvenor was a triumph of refined singing-
and acting. After touring in America, he entered into a
contract to sing in grand opera at Covent Garden, and
made his first appearance in that historic house as the
Blacksmith in Nessler's "Piper of Hatnelin," his success
being so pronounced that the late Mr. Gye at once
secured his services for four years.
Mr. Rousbey had for some time been contemplating the
formation of an English opera company under his own
control, and in May. 1887, he decided upon the venture. It
was with this company that he visited his native Tyneside.
MR. ABTHUH ROUSBEY.
Castle, atlea
antt tft* Carritfe Ccraot,
j|N all the rugged and romantic scenery of the
"land of the mountain and the flood," it
would be difficult to find a more striking
and picturesque sight than that presented
on the eoast of Carrick, where Culzean Castle crowns
a basaltic cliff, about two n.iles from the village of
Kirkoswald. On the one side its turrets overlook the
sea ; on the other is a wealth of sylvan beauty. The
skuation, indeed, is the work of Nature in bet grandest
and sweetest moods. Burns knew the spot, for in
" Hallowe'en" he says : —
Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze.
On sprightly coursers prance ;
Or for Culzean the route is ta'en.
Beneath the moon's pale beams !
There up the Cove to stray and rove.
Among the rocks and streams,
To sport that night.
The magnificent mansion shown in our sketch is the
Jubl
18S1. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
305
Beat of the Marquis of Ailsa, ami Ailsa Crag is seen in
the distance. The lands of Culzean originally belonged
to the Kennedys, afterwards ennobled under the titles of
Kennedy and Cassiiia. In an old manuscript the mansion is
spoken of as " The House of the Cove, builded with greate
coste and expense by Sir Thomas Kennedy of Cullzeane,
Tutor of Cassilis," while another manuscript speaks of the
"verey braiff yairdis " (meaning very fine gardens) con-
nected therewith. Between Sir Thomas Kennedy and
the Laird of Bargeny a misunderstanding arose, and
on May 12th, 1602, the knight of Culzean was assas-
sinated. Sir Walter Scott took as the subject of a drama
the extraordinary machinations of the elder and younger
Mures of Auchindrane for the accomplishment of this
base deed. Sir Archibald Kennedy, the grandson of Sir
Thomas, acquired notoriety, it is said, as a persecutor
during the Stuart reign ; but after the Revolution he had
sometimes to hide in the coves beneath his mansion. It
was his daughter Susanna, a woman of great beauty and
coble presence, who had a romantic love story. While
she was walking in her father's garden one day, a hawk,
bearing the name and arms of the Karl of Eglintoune,
alighted on her shoulder ; and it was Alexander, the
ninth earl, who wooed and won her. To this highly
gifted woman Allan Ramsay dedicated the "Gentle
Shepherd."
) The Cassilis family having become extinct in its main
line in 1759, the title and family estates passed to Sir
Thomas Kennedy, of Culzean, who became ninth
Earl of Cassilis. Earl John, it is said, had privately
executed a deed of entail while his countess was
attending a ball, and thus secured for his successors
the union of the title and estates. Ii was Uavid,
the tenth earl, who thought it necessary to rebuild
the house at the Cove in keeping with the family dignity,
and the work was accordingly entrusted to Robert Adam.
The result was a baronial mansion combining grace with
strength. It covers an area of four acres, and, besides
many other attractions, has an extensive and valuable
collection of arms and armour.
The "Fairy Coves, "situated immediately beneath the
castle, are merely rifts in the basalt in the course of its
volcanic formation. They are six in number, the largest
being fifty -feet high, and about two hundred feet broad,
and having the appearance of an irregular Gothic arch.
Three of the coves to the east, and three to the west,
communicate with each other; while in the largest of the
western series there is a door barring the way to an apart-
ment above.
The Dule Tree, which stands in front of Cassilis Castle,
situated on the banks of the Doon about a mile from
Dalrymple, has two traditions associated with it. One
refers to David, third Lord Kennedy, who fell at Flodden
with many of his followers, his kinsfolk afterwards
assembling under the boughs of the plane tree to spend
several weeks in lamentation. The other tells the tale of
Lady Cassilis and the gipsies, as recorded on page 206 of
this volume.
Another view on the Carriok Shore which enjoys special
natural advantages is that of Dunure Castle. This man-
sion was the first house of any consequence possessed by
the family of Kennedy, whose early generations, down to
306
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
the attainment if the peerage about 1452, were all styled
"of Dunure." It is now a ruin, the chief feature, as
shown in our illustration, being a tall tower on a pinnacle
rising from the rugged coast. In 1570, the castle was the
scene of a very curious and dark transaction. Gilbert,
fourth Earl of Cassilis, "wasane particular manne, and
ane verey greidy jnanne, and carrit nocht how he gatt
land, sa that he culd cum be the sainin." Having a mind
to obtain feus of the abbey lands of Glenluce, this
man of an easy conscience got a monk to counterfeit the
handwriting of the recently deceased abbot for that pur-
pose. To conceal the forgery, he caused one of his
retainers to kill the monk, and then he got his brother to
accuse the murderer of theft, and have him put to death.
Desiring, further, to obtain possession of the rich lands
of Crossnaguel from the abbot, Allan Stewart, Cassilis
inveigled him into captivity, and then conveyed him to
his lonely sea-tower of Dunure. For three days he
endeavoured to prevail upon the abbot to surrender his
lands, and at last, finding persuasion useless, he took him
to the Slack Voule (vault), where his minions bound the
wretched man before a blazing fire. Eventually, to
escape the horrible torture, the abbot signed the charter,
the earl making his servants swear upon the Bible that
they would never reveal what had been done. It was the
Laird of Bargeny, himself a member of the Kennedy
family, who attacked Dunure, and relieved the abbot.
But the Government was too weak to insist on redress,
and so the earl remained in possession of the ill-gotten
domains, and handed them down to posterity, granting
only r. small pension to Stewart for his life. Such were
the doings in Scotland in "the good old times."
Opposite Dunure is the Isle of Arran, where Mr. Rose,
an English tourist, was brutally murdered, in 1889, by a
penurious companion named Laurie.
STft* dFirst
Jpt*ami)fffft,
W1^1' M^:'-~* &**&
j|TJILT on the banks of the Tyne, the first
steamboat that carried on passenger traffic
in English waters was launched from the
South Shore, Gateshead, on Monday,
the 21st of February, 1814, a fortnight after
the breaking up of the Great Frost; and
on Thursday, 19th of May, the Tyne
Packet, as Sykes is faithful to record, began to run
as a passenger boat between Newcastle and Shields : —
"Being Ascension Day, it joined the procession of bargea
&c., and was a great novelty." It was "the principal
novelty of the day," says the Keivcastle Chronicle on the
ensuing Saturday, " greatly outstripping" the Corporate
procession " by the rapidity of its motion." " The velocity
with which it moves through the water, when favoured by
the tide, is very great, having run from Shields tu this
town, we understand, in less than an hour. Against the
tide, its motion, of course, is not so rapid ; but even thus
impeded, it appears to move at the rate of three or four
miles an hour. It may, indeed, be said fully to answer ex-
pectations in regard to its velocity. It arrived from New-
burn about seven o'clock, when it was made to perform a
number of evolutions below the bridge, the result of which
was that it appeared to be remarkably manageable."
Three weeks afterwards, the Chronicle had a second
paragraph: — "The Tyne Steam Packet has now com-
menced its regular voyages between Newcastle and
Shields. Previous to this, a fete was held in it on Friday
last, in honour of his Majesty's birthday, when a number
of gentlemen proceeded in it to Shields, where the party
was regaled by an excellent dinner on board." Returning
to Newcastle Quay about half -past three o'clock, "a
number of ladies joined the party," and the vessel then
proceeded to Lemington, the excursion closing at eight.
" In this latter voyage, tea and other refreshments were
served up ; and numerous dances, into which the com-
pany entered with great spirit, contributed to the novel
festivity of the day."
There were trips in the Race Week from day to day,
ending June 25. "Best cabin, Is. ; second cabin, 6d."
Steamboat speculation subsequently set in ; rivals rose
up alongside the primitive paddles ; and the pioneer
packet, making itself known from among
the rest, appears in November, 1815, with
the distinctive name of the Persever-
ance ; having (as we are told) on the 9th
of that month left Shields in the after
noon, "and arrived at Newcastle in two
hours, against a very strong gale of wind
wind, and fresh in the river."
The Tyne was the first of the rivers of
England to begin passenger traffic by
steam. Other waters in Britain, h-jw-
ever, had led the way. The Comet was
plying on the Clyde in 1812. The
Symington boat, with Robert Burns on
board, had, indeed, made a trial trip
on Dalswinton Loch in October, 1788:
and on the 24th of the same month, Dr.
Franklin wrote from Philadelphia to his
friend Dr. Ingenhausz in Holland, say-
ing that he had no philosophical news,
except that a boat moved by a steam-
Juljl
1891. i
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
307
•engine rowed itself against wind and tide on the
Delaware, "and it was apprehended the construction
might be so simplified as to become generally useful."
The Clermont of Robert Fulton was plying for passen-
gers on the Hudson in 1807. On the 15th of May, 1810,
the British Minister in the United States, Francis Jack-
son, writing home to his brother George (afterwards Sir
George Jackson) in London, gives a picture of this early
•craft, the first of the world's passenger steamboats. Mr.
Hogan had lent the writer his country-house on the Hud-
son, about eight miles from New York, commanding from
its elevated site a river view of upwards of forty miles in
extent, with bold rocky shores, and the scene enlivened
by a picturesque fleet sailing to and fro in all directions :
— "One of the curiosities that we daily see pass under our
windows is the steamboat, a passage vessel with accom-
modation for near a hundred persons. It is moved
by a steam-engine turning a wheel on either side of it,
which acts like the main wheel of a mill, and propels the
vessel against wind and tide at the rate of four miles an
•hour. As soon as it comes in sight, there is a general rush
of our household to watch and wonder till it disappears.
They don't at all know what to make of the unnatural
monster that goes steadily careering on, with the wind
directly in its teeth as often as not. I doubt that I
should be obeyed were I to desire any one of them to
take a passage in her. When first the vessel appeared in
these waters, it excited great consternation. Some of the
simple countryfolk were pretty well frightened out of
their wits, suspecting, I am told, that it was some dia-
bolical conveyance that had brought his Satanic Majesty
from the lower realms to visit the United States. I am
inclined to look with favour on this application of the pro-
pelling power of steam. Not improbably it is destined,
at no distant day, to produce incalculably great and bene-
ficial changes in our mode of voyaging."
Doubts akin to those inspired on the Hudson were
afterwards awakened on the Tees. On the opening day
•of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, when the loco-
motive engine shot past the assembled thousands, with
waggon loads of coals and passengers at its heels, one of
the spectators, relating the events at the close of the day,
anxiously inquired "if it could be all right." Rushing
along without apparent means of motion, no wonder
that the iron horse should be credited in some quarters
with cloven feet. It certainly looked uncanny, and pro-
voked comparisons. The cry of old Mrs. Paul, on
Christmas Eve, 1801, when she first saw Trevethick's
engine on the road, will be remembered :—" Good
gracious, Mr. Vivian, what will be done next? I can't
compare un to anything but a walking, puffing devil ! "
<"Life of Richard Trevethick," 1873.)
The early passenger-steamers, American, Scotch, and
English, were all river boats. There was for some time a
common notion that vessels moved by steam would be
serviceable means of transit on inlands waters, but would
be confined to that sphere. Watt saw difficulties in the
way of ocean navigation, yet thought they might be over-
come. In his letter of April 24, 1790, to Mr. Robert
Cullen, of Edinburgh (afterwards Lord Cullen), quoted bj-
Mr. R. L. Galloway in his volume on " The Steam
Engine and its Inventors," he declines, for the firm of
Boulton and Watt, any partnership in Mr. Miller's
scheme of steam navigation ; "the time of life we have
both arrived at, and the multiplicity of business we are
already engaged in, must plead our excuse from entering
into any new concern whatsoever as partners" ; but as
engineers and engine- builders they were ready to serve
him, and to assist in any way they could "to bring the
scheme to perfection." "We conceive," he adds, "there
may be considerable difficulty in making a steam engine
to work regularly in the open sea, on account of the undu-
lating motion of the vessel affecting the engine bv the
vis inertia of matter. However, this we should endeavour
to obviate as far as we can. "
All difficulties vanished so soon as steamboats were
once fairly afloat. The Tyne Steam Packet had not
been many months oscillating as a pendulum between
Newcastle and Shields — Shields and Newcastle— never
dreaming, apparently, of so enterprising a feat as an ex-
cursion to Tynemouth, ere she was confronted, on the
10th of September, 1814, by a visitor from Dundee ! On
the 22nd of April, as may be read in the Dundee Advertiser
(August 22nd, 1872) the Tay steamer had begun to ply be-
tween Dundee and Perth ; and some months later another
steamboat, putting out for sea, left the Tay for river traffic
in England. Calling at two or three ports on her way,
the Tyne was one of the harbours into which she came.
This fact is on record in the Newcastle Chronicle,
September 17, 1814 : — "On Saturday last, a fine new
steamboat called the Caledonia arrived in this river
from Dundee. She left Dundee on Friday morning,
and arrived at her moorings in Shields harbour in
about twenty-seven hours. Her appearance at sea
created a good deal of surprise, being generally taken for a
ship under a jury mast ; and we have heard that some
boats were absolutely launched to go to her assistance,
when, to their astonishment, she passed the bar in
grand style, notwithstanding the very heavy swell and
surf, in which many ships would not have ventured. On
her entering the harbour she was loudly cheered. She has
since worked between Shields and this town, making her
passage with the tide in about one hour and a quarter,
and against it in about two hours. Her extraordinary
expedition has excited the greatest admiration. She
is not intended to be kept on this river, but has cleared
at the custom-house for the Humber."
To the Humber she went from the Tyne, looking in at
the Wear on her way ; and in due time she was "established
as a packet between Hull and Gainsborough." On one
occasion, in the month of May, 1815, being ambitious of a
visit to York, she sticceeded in coming within five miles nf
308
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
1891.
the Minster. Her purpose fell short, however, at Naburn ;
for "the lock was not sufficiently wide to admit of her
passing through it." Tis not surprising that steamboats,
conscious of their powers, should have made early con-
quest of the world, when in their very infancy they had
such far-reaching aspirations !
The Caledonia was the first steam-vessel to adventure
into the English seas. She was followed, in the month of
November, 1814, by a Dumbarton boat, steaming through
the Forth and Clyde Canal to the east coast, bound for
London. The Newcastle Chronicle had sight of her, and
on the 3rd of December made report of her successful
voyage— the first voyage by steam from the Clyde and the
Forth to the Thames:— "The Margery steam-engine
packet from the Clyde arrived safe at London on the 24th
ult., after a very quick passage," subsequently crossing
the English Channel, and ending her days on the Seine.
Channel traffic had early been conceived in Britain after
steam had taken to the open waves. The Chronicle was
on the 7th of January, 1815, calling attention to a steamer
designed on Tyneside for intercourse with France: — "A
patent steam-packet of 200 tons is now building on the
Thames by Mr. Courthorpe. The vessel and machinery
are the invention of Mr. John Redhead, of Heworth.
She is intended to go between London and Calais, and is
constructed to carry from four to five hundred passengers,
and to be impelled through the water at the rate of twelve
miles an hour against wind and tide !"
Nicholas Wood, the first President of the North of
England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers,
left us some reminiscences of early passenger traffic on
our river. Dining on board the Cairo mail steamer ab
Jarrow in 1862, and responding to the toast of "The
Port and Trade of the Tyne," he remarked that its trade
was a very different affair now to what it was when
toasted in his younger days: — "Men and merchandise
were conveyed up and down, in those days, in what were
called 'comfortables, 'each pulled by two men, who only
ventured on the passage when the wind was not too
strong. The coal trade of the same period was done by
ships making a dozen voyages in a year. But steam came
in ; and he remembered going down the river in the first
steamboat with George Stephenson. They didn't get far.
Something happened to her, and they got down no lower
than Bill Point."
In the same year with our "first steamboat, "Stephen-
son's first locomotive, it is interesting to note, was
"launched." "The engine was, after much labour and
anxiety, and frequent alteration of parts, at length
brought to completion, having been about ten months in
hand. It was placed upon the Killingworth Railway on
the 25th July, 1814; and its powers were tried on the
same day." (Smiles's "Life of George and Robert
Stephenson," 1868.)
Mr. Alderman Wilson, author of "The Pitman's Pay,"
glances backward, like Mr. Wood, over passenger transit
on the Tyne, and commemorates the changes he had lived!
to see. He recalls the classic "wherry" of "Jemmy
Johnson," superseded by the "comfortable," and "the
comfortable made rare" by the steamboat. When Admi-
ral Washington was holding an inquiry at North Shields,
familiar as he was with sailing craft of all kinds, he was-
nonplussed by a remark of one of the seafaring witnesses,
who said that he began life afloat as "a boy blowing thiv
horn of a comfortable." The passengers of this river
coach— a vehicle resembling the Noah's Ark of the
nursery— had choice of places inside and out. They
might seclude themselves in the snug chamber, or, with,
legs dangling down, sit on the roof and dream away the
hours between the bridge and the bar. Antediluvian.
were her ways; and yet, though slow her movements,
pleasant are the memories of a row on the river in the old
comfortable, with the music of her horn rendered by
distance of time more sweet. The pioneer packets were
swifter when in motion, but had their drawbacks. The
ancient shoals and shallows oft brought them to anchor
in batches. Clever was the steamer — and the captain —
that could always escape detention. Even the boat
whose pilot of other days used fondly to rejoice in the-
pleasure she gave him in " cutting about like fun amang
the sandbanks at law watter "—even she was lost at times-
in her labyrinthine meanderings, and brought to un-
willing repose.
That ingenious Tynesider, the late Mr. Joseph Price,
of Gateshead (who was early in the field), reminded the
merchants, manufacturers, shipowners, &c., of the dis-
trict, in the year 1838, of the events of former days. In a
printed address, bearing the picture of a vessel in tow for
Tynemouth and the sea, he said : — " In the year 1815, I
became a shareholder in a steamboat speculation on the
Tyne, which was continued by the company for about
two years. This did not answer; and the boats, becom-
ing out of repair, were laid up. I made the company an
offer for the purchase of them, which was accepted. I
bought up most of the shares, and, after repairing the
boats, ran them between Newcastle and Shields for some
time. Still it was a losing concern. In July 1818, I con-
ceived good might be done by towing vessels to sea. In-
furtherance of my idea, I applied to the late Mr. Robson,
wharfinger, Newcastle, for leave to try an experiment
with one of his loaden vessels, which was granted. I
gave notice to Captain Copeland, of the Friends' Adven-
ture, Hull trader, to have all ready an hour to an hour
and a half before high water. At the time appointed,
I requested them to throw a line on board the steamer.
The tide was against us the first three miles. Everything
answered as well as I could wish, and the vessel was
towed two miles over the bar in two hours and ten-
minutes, a distance of thirteen miles, the wind against us
all the way. This was the first time a vessel was evei
towed by a steamboat." Mr. Wilson, in his "Captains
and the Quayside," commemorates the alliance between
ulyl
191. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
309
the sail anJ the paddle by Mr. Price, who, when " steam
cam' puffin' into play," said to his neighbours, "Let's
ay the chep at towin'." Those neighbours were so
sensible of the value and success of the experiment, that
they entertained him at dinner, and gave him a silver
tankard, inscribed :— "Presented to Mr. Joseph Price by
the shippers and manufacturers of lead, and the wharf-
ingers of the goods trade, between Newcastle and Lon-
don, as a mark of their approbation for his zeal and
spirited exertions in the application of steamboats to the
towing of vessels upon the river Tyne. — 1818."
Steam navigation had its difficulties and discourage-
ments, yet its progress was far from slow. Within half-
a-score years of the entrance of the Comet on her career,
a royal flotilla was seen off the coast of Britain moving
northward by steam. In the month of May, 1822, George
Stephenson had begun the construction of the Stockton
and Darlington Rai way, the first of the world's pas-
senger railroads ; and in August of that year, George IV.
embarked on board his yacht for Scotland. The example
«et some few years before was followed in the royal fleet ;
and all along the eastern coast his Majesty's subjects
were on the watch, ashore and afloat, to see the pro-
cession, with the King's vessel towed by steam.i It was a
novel spectacle; and short-lived was the enjoyment of
the spectators, so swiftly went the keel. The speed was
attended, ever and anon, by unlocked for developments ;
as, for example, when an address of congratulation
awaited the coming of his Majesty, the first sovereign of
the House of Hanover to visit his Northern dominions.
It is on record in the Newcastle Magazine of September,
1822, that " the Mayor and Corporation of Scarborough
put off in a boat; but, as the Royal George was going
with great velocity, the address was handed up attached
to a long stick !" The Comet and the James Watt were
urging the yacht on her way with a rapidity that set
aside the usual forms of presentation and reply; and
meanwhile the navvies on land were busy with an iron
road, the precursor of a highway of steam along which
the Queen of England was year by year to travel from
Windsor to her Highland home.
Three steamers of the Tyne, with passengers on board,
swelled the royal fleet of 1822, and ventured on the
voyage to Leitb ; and in 1824, the Newcastle (Captain
Joseph Fidler) brought the two ports into periodical
communication. Then, in 1827, the Rapid, described by
Mackenzie as " one of the largest steamers " of the port,
was running between the Tyne and the Forth once a
week. After which come Leith steamers whose names
are more familiar than these in the ear of the present
generation.
An earlier Rapid than the steamboat just mentioned
strove in 1823 to make a voyage from the Tyne to the
Thames, starting on the llth of August, " the first time a
vessel of this description ever sailed from Newcastle for
the metropolis." The courageous experiment was not
successful. The passengers went on shore at Whitby,
and the little craft returned home for repairs ; but in the
month of May, 1824, the plucky pioneer repeated her
attempt, and made the voyage to London in 56 hours,
returning in 60. Her next run was accomplished in 53£.
On her return, however, to the Tyne, "she was obliged
to lie-to for a considerable time by the intensity of the
fogs on the coast, which rendered it dangerous to pro-
ceed " ; and, sailing on a Saturday, she was not in New-
castle until Wednesday. So small was this primitive
London and Newcastle steamboat that she could not
carry coals for the trip both ways, but had to purchase
fuel in the Thames ; and her few passengers would not
remunerate the adventurous owners. To the Rapid,
however, small as she was, belongs the honour of having
led the way in navigation by steam between Newcastle
and London ; and in the year 1825, as the Tune Mercury
placed on record at the time, she was sold for service
on the coast of Africa. Her successor was the Hylton
Jolliffe, beginning her course as a packet between the
Thames and the Tyne in the month of June, 1827 ; and
in April, 1828, the Ardincaple made her earliest passage
from the Tyne for Leith, having previously announced
her intention to give the public, on the 13th of the month,
a pleasure trip to the Wear.
Such are some of the incidents of the infancy of that
navigation by steam which had its beginning in England
on the Tyne. JAIIES CLEPHAN (THE LATE).
Jpt. Crispin'^ 23aj> CeU&rati0its.
j]EW saints in the calendar have been more
highly honoured on their anniversaries than
St. Crispin. It is said that he was a cadet of
a noble Roman family, who, becoming a
convert to Christianity, fled with his brother Crispiuian
into Gaul, about the middle of the third century, to avoid
the persecution under Diocletian. He settled, we are
told, in the city of Augusta Noviodunium, now Soissons,
where he worked as a shoemaker, and where his benevo-
lence was so great that he even stole leather to make shoes
for the poor. The bulk of his charities having been made
at the expense of others, philanthropists who adopt a
similar line of conduct have since been known as
Crispinites and their liberalities as Crispinades. In the
year 287 the brothers suffered a most cruel martyrdom at
the hands of Rectionarius, governor of the city. Their
bodies, according toLusius, in his "Acts of the Martyrs,"
were thrown out after execution, to be devoured by dogs
and beasts of prey. But a certain indigent old man, who
resided with his aged sister, was warned by an angel to
take the bodies of these holy martyrs and deposit them
with all proper care in a sepulchre. Our veracious
authority adds : —
The old man without hesitation arose, and, accom-
310
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
. 189L
panied by his venerable sister, went to the place where
the bodies of the martyrs lay. As this was near the river
Axena. now the Aisne, they could easily, with the assist-
ance of a small boat, have brought them to their own
dwelling; this, however, on account of their poverty and
infirmity, they were unable to procure, nor, indeed, had
they any experience in the management of a vessel,
which, moreover, must have been rowed against the
current. When, however, after diligently searching in
the dark, they at last found the precious corpses wholly
uninjured — lo! they discovered a small boat close to the
shore, and thereupon, assuming courage immediately,
they each took up a body, so staggering under the weight
from weakness that they appeared not so much to carry
their burthens as to be carried by them. Placing the
bodies in the boat, they floated with great celerity against
the current of the river, and, without the assistance of
either rudder or oars, presently arrived at his cottage,
near to which, with equal secrecy and joy, they interred
the bodies of the deceased martyrs.
Thus far Lusius. But Weever, in his "Ancient
Funeral Monuments of Great Britain," published in 1631,
tells a different tale : —
There is yet to be seene, on the beach at Lidde, near
Stonend, a heap of great stones, which the neighbour
inhabitants call St. Crispin's and St. Crispinian's tomb,
whom they report to have been cast upon this stone by
shipwracke, and from hence called into the glorious com-
pany of saints.
Weever quotes this legend from Jacobus de Voraigne,
and adds that "they were shoemakers, and suffered
martyrdom the tenth of the Kalends of November (25th
October), which day is kept holiday to this day by all our
shoemakers in London and elsewhere." In other old
legends, Crispin is represented as having been a prince
who took to shoemaking as a pastime or a profession.
An amusing but scarce book about shoemakers— or,
as they are more politely called, cordwainers, from
their working in leather manufactured at Cordova, in
Spain, the best in Christendom — is entitled "Crispin
Anecdotes," and has for a frontispiece a view of
Cordwainers' Hall, in Distaff Lane, London. It is an
omnigatherum of "interesting notices of shoemakers
who have been distinguished for genius, enterprise, or
eccentricity, also, curious particulars relative to the
origin, importance, and manufacture of shoes, with other
matters illustrative of the history of the gentle craft."
From this book, as well as from other sources, we learn
that there have long been, and perhaps still are, both in
this country and on the Continent, a number of friendly
societies among the shoemakers, taking their name from
Crispin, Saint and King.
The cordwainers oi Newcastle were formed into an in-
corporated company by King Henry VI., in the year
1438 ; and for upwards of two centuries afterwards the
members used to walk in procession every year on their
head meeting day, from the Forth Hill to their hall in
the monastery of Black Friars. Even when these annual
processions were discontinued, the anniversary of St.
Crispin was still celebrated, though only at intervals,
in the public streets. What appears to have been the
last affair of the kind occurred in Newcastle on the 29th
of July, 1822, when the cordwainers held a coronation
of their royal or sainted patron, aud afterwards walked in
procession through the principal streets of Newcastle and
Gateshead. The coronation, Sykes tells us, took place in
the court of the Freemen's Hospital, at the Westgate, at
eleven o'clock ; about noon there was a procession, which,
after perambulating the two towns, finally halted at
the sign of the Chancellor's Head, in Newgate Street,
Newcastle, where the members of the trade partook of
a dinner provided for the occasion. A great number
of people assembled to witness the procession, as there
had not been a similar exhibition since the year 1789.
Mackenzie, in his history of the town, speaks contempt-
uously of the affair. "This caricature show," says he,
"produced much laughter and mirth, but, considering
the rapid increase of knowledge, it is probably the last
exhibition of this kind that the craft will exhibit in this
place. "
Joseph Blackett, in one of his letters to Mr. Pratt,
gives an account of the celebration of St. Crispin's Day
at Sunderland, on the 25th of October, 1809. It was the
day of national jubilee in England, on account of George
III. entering the fiftieth year of his reign. Mr. Blackett,
who visited the town in company with Sir Ralph Mil-
banke, Bart., describes the way in which such affairs
were managed : —
Immediately after dinner on St. Crispin's Day the
procession is got up, in which they generally personify all
the male members of the then reigning Royal Family,
together with the Lord Mayor of London, Aldermen, &c.t
arranged as follows : —
Champion, duly equipped.
King, in his royal robes, with crown and sceptre, having
his train borne by four little boys.
Royal Dukes.
Lord Mayor of London.
Aldermen, &c.
The private members take up the rear, and are generally
dressed in black coats. In this order they generally pro-
ceed to walking round the room a few times, and
occasionally they have a public procession. But as no
part of the expenses of such procession are allowed to be
paid out of the funds of the institution, this public exhibi-
tion occurs but seldom. The arrangements, however, are
nearly the same, whether public or private, with this
difference — that when public, the champion is mounted on
a charger, and the whole train preceded by bands of music,
&c. When private, they necessarily dispense with the
noble animal, and for "bands of music" substitute the
stringed instruments. On Friday last the festival was
kept in this way, "secure from public gaze." Invariably
m the evening females are admitted, when his Majesty,
ere he resigns his regal honours, selects himself a yueen ;
their Majesties then lead off the dance; thus they together
sport on the "light fantastic toe," and so conclude the
day.
Mr. John Mason, the author of a book of Border records,
relates how St. Crispin's Day was celebrated in Kelso in
1821. From an early hour in the morning, he says,
crowds from the adjoining country began to congregate ;
and it was computed that not less than three thousand
persons were at various points assembled to witness the
spectacle. The splendour of the pageantry was un-
equalled in a provincial town, and from the humblest
retainers of the Court to the field marshals, the arch-
bishop, and the monarch himself— Adam Lamb, who was.
im.}
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
311
throughout the day, "every inch a king" — everything
tended to impress the spectator as much as if royalty,
with its appendages, had been in reality present. Next
year an attempt was made to repeat the ceremony in the
same town, but this time with indifferent success.
<Btttft*ring.
jJNE of the most interesting and pleasant
events of the Whit-Monday holiday in New-
castle (May 18, 1891) was the gathering, for
the first time in a body, of the contributors
to the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle. Although only then
carried into practical effect, the idea of such a meeting of
the representatives of common interests had been enter-
tained for a considerable time. Indeed, so long ago as
the month of July, 1890, a letter, embodying a suggestion
of this nature, was received by the Editor from Mr.
Alfred Spencer, better known, perhaps, by his nom de
plume of Sergeant C. Hall, of Workington. The proposal,
Mr. Spencer submitted, was one which had many things
to recommend it. "It would," he said, "be something
unique in journalism; it would bring your army of
contributors into closer fellowship ; and it would cause
them to take greater interest in each other's productions.'
At that time no action was taken in the matter ; but
when, in the December following, a similar proposal was
forwarded to the Weekly Chronicle by Mr. G. G. Elliott,
of Newcastle, it was impossible longer to resist the feeling
which was evidently gaining force. Publicity was accord-
ingly given to the proposition, in order that the contri-
butors, whose affair it really was, might have an
opportunity of discussing it among themselves. The
result was so pronounced an opinion in favour of the
project, tha*; it was resolved to ask the ladies and gentle-
men who would or conld attend such a gathering to make
known their intentions to Mr. Elliott, who undertook the
duties of honorary secretary, and who, especially in its
earlier stages, rendered valuable assistance to the move-
ment. Three dates were named as being likely to be
moat suitable for the meeting— Easter, Whitsuntide, and
Race Week. On this point, a sort of vote was taken
through the medium of the paper ; and Whit-Monday
was ultimately selected as the most convenient date for
the majority of the contributors. A subordinate part of
the general scheme was a photographic group of such of
the contributors as cared to be represented in it, this
portion of the work being entrusted to Messrs. A. and G.
Taylor, St. Nicholas' Buildings, who produced a very
large and handsome picture, containing altogether no
fewer than 236 portraits, with a key to the identity of
each. No time was lost in maturing the necessary
arrangements for the gathering ; and, when the appointed
day arrived, everything was in perfect readiness and
order.
Between four and five hundred ladies and gentlemen in
different parts of the kingdom responded to the invitation
of the Editor, which was issued in the form of a highly
artistic card, executed by Messrs. Andrew Reid and
Sons. (See next page.) Accompanying each card was a
perforated sheet of coupons, admitting the guests to the
various places of interest to which visits were to be made.
The proceedings began by the reception of the contri-
butors at the Art Gallery, where introductions were
effected by the Editor and his assistants. Thence the
company proceeded, in succession, to the Old Castle, the
Black Gate, and the Cathedral, the parties in each case
being under the care of the Rev. J. it. Boyle. F.S.A., the
well-known antiquary and author. Naturally, those
associated so closely with the contents of a newspaper had
a desire to see the method of its production. The fullest
facilities for the gratification of this wish had been
provided at the Chronicle Office, where the contributors
and their friends were received by the manager, Mr.
R. B. Reed, and by Mr. Jos. Reed, and conducted over
the various departments of the establishment. An
opportunity was next afforded for an inspection of
the contents of the Natural History Museum at Barras
Bridge, where much kindness and attention were shown
them by Mr. Alderman Barkas, Mr. John Duncan
(artist and naturalist), the Curator of the Museum (Mr,
Richard Howse), Mr. R. Y. Green, Mr. Jos. Wright, and
other officers of the institution. A short visit was also
paid by many members of the party to Jesmond Dene,
the natural charms and beauties of which, it need scarcely
be said, were greatly admired.
The chief and most generally acceptable feature of the
programme, however, was unquestionably the conver-
sazione which was held in the evening in the large and
spacious upper apartment of the Grand Assembly Rooms
at the Barras Bridge. Here the contributors mustered in
full force, the guests as they arrived being cordially
welcomed by the Editor, Mr. W. E. Adams, or his associ-
ates. All parts of the two Northern Counties were repre-
sented in the rooms, while visitors were present from the
following among other distant places :— Bradford, Hali-
fax, Blackburn, Southport, Preston, Rochdale, Penrith,
Workington, Carlisle, Berwick, Edinburgh, Glasgow,
London, Farnborough in Hampshire, Watford in Hert-
fordshire, Stamford in Lincolnshire. Exeter in Devon-
shire, and Cardiff in South Wales. The rooms had been
tastefully decorated for the occasion, a string band was in
attendance, refreshments were various and abundant, and
a spirit of harmony and good fellowship pervaded the
entire assembly. At an early period of the evening a
series of addresses were delivered from the platform, this
portion of the proceedings being introduced by Mr.
Adams, who narrated the history of the movement which
had had so successful an issue. The speakers who
followed were Mr. Richard Welford, author of "Men of
Mark 'Twixt Tyne and Tweed," and for many years a
312
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
(July
1 TROT.
July I
1891.1
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
313
314
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/July
\ 1891.
member of the literary staff of the Newcastle Chronicle;
Mr. Alderman John Lucas, Gateshead ; Mr. C. H. Ste-
phenson, of Sou th port ; His Honour Judge Seymour,
Q.C., LL.D. ; Mr. Alderman Barkas, F.G.S. ; Mr.
George Halliwell, of Seaham Harbour; and Mr. A. B.
Wakefield, of Hipperholm, Bradford. Complimentary
reference was made by these gentlemen to one or other of
the many departments into which the literary portions of
the Weekly Chronicle are divided. Music, vocal and
instrumental, recitations, &c., were afterwards given at
intervals, among those who contributed to the entertain-
ment of the company being Mrs. Goddard, Madame
Tomsett, Miss Kate Shield, Mrs. Richard Smith, Miss
Hildegard Werner, Sergeant C. Hall, and Mr. C. H.
Stephenaon.
A collection in one of the ante-rooms of a number of
literary and other curiosities likewise proved a source of
considerable attraction. The exhibits included the first
number of the Newcastle Daily Chronicle ever printed ;
the first volume of the Newcastle Chronicle, 1764- ; the
first volume of the Newcastle Daily Chronicle, 1858 ; the
spectacles of Dr. Brydon, "the last of an army," of
Afghan fame ; and Robert Burns's spectacle case and
nutmeg box, the latter still containing one or two pieces
of the nutmeg with which the poet flavoured his toddy.
Several of these interesting relics were lent by Mr.
William Sharp, of Newcastle, and Mr. and Mrs. Mac-
pherson, of South Shields and Newcastle. In addition to
several scrap-books and old newspapers, Mr. William
lJuncan, of Newcastle, showed a shorthand copy of the
New Testament which he had written in 1871 ; and Miss
Bielski, head-mistress of the Infants' School connected
with the Elswick Works, sent a holograph letter of the
late George Stepbenson, the "father of rail ways, "dated
1843, and written from Tapton House, Chesterfield,
where, after his retirement from active professional pur-
suits, the great engineer spent the remainder of his days.
There were also on view a number of interesting Indian
curiob, collected by Mr. David Wood ; specimens of
minute writing by the late Mr. R. A. Proctor and others ;
a copy of Marat's " Chains of Slavery " ; a first edition of
Akenside's poems ; an early impression of the picture to
be presented with the next Christmas Supplement of the
Weekly Chronicle; the progressive proofs of "Geordie
and the Bairn," Mr. Ralph Hedley's picture, presented
with the last Christmas Supplement, from the "lay
in " to the final stage ; a clever piece of wood-
carving by Mr. J. T. Ogilvie, of Newcastle, repre-
senting the well-known " Uncle Toby " group ; and
some rare old books, exhibited by Mrs. J. R. Harrison,
of Newcastle. There had, moreover, been provided
an autograph-book, in which, in the course of the
evening, the majority of the visitors subscribed their
names.
The unique and happy gathering, which had through-
out been of the most agreeable and satisfactory character,
was brought to a close by the singing of " Auld Lang
Syne."
Eft* 3Si0ftffj>'0
|j HE residence of the Bishop of Durham at
Bishop Auckland is a noble pile in the Gothic
style of architecture. Situated in a beauti-
ful park of considerable extent near the river Wear,
its surroundings are all that could be desired by the
lover of romantic scenery, the main features of the
landscape being bold cliffs and eminences, noble
trees and irregular woodlands. It has truly been said
that "language is too weak, and but few pencils
are sufficiently powerful, to delineate the rich scenery
of Auckland Park." Auckland Castle or Palace, for
it is known by both names, is said to have formerly
been a manor house belonging to the See of Durham.
The house was afterwards castellated by Bishop Trevor,
who added a large hall. Sir Arthur Hazlerigg, a devoted
follower of Cromwell, who held the place during the Com-
monwealth, destroyed the greater part of the building, and
erected a pretentious residence out of the ruins. But when
Bishop Cosin came into possession at the Restoration,
Hazlerigg's mansion was razed to the ground, the mate-
rials being utilised for the construction of a palace, the
greater part of which is still standing. Having been
erected at various periods, the structure is somewhat
irregular in character, and now bears some sort of resem-
blance to an ancient abbey. The approach to the edifice
is by a Gothic gateway and screen, designed by James
Wyatt. These distinctive features of the episcopal resi-
dence are clearly shown in our copy of the drawing in
Allom's Views.
ii.
j]HILE still at Hexham, as narrated in our
first article, Billy Purvis got initiated into the
mysteries of legerdemain. He often lent
the room which served him as a dancing
academy to travelling conjurors, who, when they had no
money to pay him withal, willingly taught him tricks
with cups and balls, cards, rings, watches, medals, &c.,
in return for his courtesy ; and he soon grew so proficient
that he thought it advisable to show off in his dancing
room on Saturdays, after the regular business was
finished.
On the occasion of the popular rejoicings for the victory
of Waterloo, Billy made a great sensation by dressing up
and exhibiting an effigy of Bonaparte, according to the
July!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
315
best procurable models in physiognomy, build, costume,
&c. With this he made a tour among the neighbouring
villages, and acquired great local fame thereby.
But when he returned to his master, the Newcastle
cabinetmaker, and would have resumed working at the
bench, he was presented with what, says he, is emphati-
cally termed " the universal sack," on account of hisrecent
peregrinations and military prepossessions. Wherefore
he went back to Hexbam, and re-opened his dancing
academy ; but before long he was tempted to engage as
clown in the establishment of Mr. Powell, with whom he
visited Stagshawbank Fair, Corbridge, Blanchland,
Stanhope, Wolsingham. and other places, playing the
fool admirably, as well as performing on the union pipes,
of which he had acquired the mastery. Next he
appeared at Newcastle, where he played in disguise, and
then peregrinated across Northumberland and through
Berwickshire and East Lothian to Edinburgh in Mr.
Powell's train. Thence he went to Musselburgh Races
and back through Berwick-upon-Tweed, by Norham,
Etal, the Blue-Bell, &c., to "canny Newcassel," where he
opened a dancing academy, and added conjuring and wire
dancing to his entertainments. But he could not now
stay very long in one place, and so he set off on another
tour through the heart of Northumberland, exhibiting
his conjurations and comicalities to crowded audiences.
Poor Richard says " a rolling stone gathers no moss, '
but the proverb did not hold good in Billy's case, for as
he rolled himself from one town to another, he tells us,
he found that he bad increased in bulk, both of frame
and fortune. Gradually he added to the attractions of
his " unparalleled show " comic songs, comic recitations,
violin playing, musical boxes, &c.
At length, in 1819, he became the sole proprietor of a
fine booth, and manager of a theatrical concern in his
own proper person. A rival conjurer at the Races on
Newcastle Town Moor, Mr. Ingleby, threatened to
eclipse Billy's provincial glory. "Ingleby from the
Coburg Theatre, London," "Emperor of All the Con-
jurers," dressed in scarlet coat, black breeches, silk
stockings, and silver shoe buckles, crowned by a dashing
cocked bat, with large gold seals suspended from a
massive chain of the same precious metal, his sword by
his side and quizzing-glass dangling from the mazes of his
ruffled shirt, cut a far more conspicuous figure than poor
Billy Purvis from Elliott's Wells in the Close. But
Billy did not lose heart. Immediately taking the title
of ' ' King of the Conjurers, " he assumed the airs of royalty,
and, with the aid of an old red coat, a cocked hat, a
splendid sword, and four large imitation gold seals,
attached to a heavy brass chain, lent him by a friend, he
quite took the shine out of his Imperial Majesty. Hi»
unmistakable victory led to the secession of the
Emperor's hopeful son from hia father's establishment and
an offer to join Billy in a new campaign across country.
Billy agreed, but the young scapegrace soon cheated him.
He bought two horses at Stagshawbank Fair with the
money he had taken at the door, decamped during the
night, and left Billy to pay all outstanding claims, which
fortunately were not great.
Of the droll anecdotes told by Billy relative to his ad-
ventures on his various journeys, one of the drollest is
that concerning Jenny Dickinson of " Embleton in the
North," a well-known Bamborough Ward virago. It is
too long, however, for quotation, and, moreover, rather
coarse. Here is an incident in a different vein : —
Mounting my wee beastie. I went forth proudly on my
way. About a mile and a half from the Carter Bar the road
began to look dismal, and I began to feel very lonely.
Jogging along in this mood, I espied the figure of a man
at a distance from me. As we advanced towards each
other, I observed the stranger to halt frequently, and to
look very ominously at my galloway and its rider. The
dreariness of the country, the solitude that reigned
around, and the approaching footsteps of the unwelcome
traveller, made me feel anything but comfortable. At
last up came my gentleman and examined my galloway
with all the eyes he had. "Eh, inon, " said he, " where
hae ye gotten that animal ?" " I bought it at Whittincr-
ham Fair." " Aye, mon, an' who did ye buy it on there,
mon ?" I replied that I bought it of a butcher belonging
to Shilbottle, an acquaintance of mine. He continued
to look earnestly at the beast, putting his arm over its
neck, gently pulling its ears, clapping its head, and using
many tender and familiar endearments. At last he broke
out with "Weel, maw puir Spunkie !" "You seem to
know the animal ?" I observed. "Know it, mon! Aye,
I ken it ower weel, mon !" And as he said these words the
tears came rolling down his cheeks. Checking his grief, he
continued, "Mon, this verra beast belonged to a brither.
o' mine, an', puir fellow, he used to attend a' the petty
races roon' about, an" the bit thing used to win every
prize before it. But it cost him, that's my brither, his
life. As I said just noo, he used to gang to a' the races i'
the nighbourhood, an" being' a wild laddie, an' muchly
gi'en to drink, he was aften no fit to come hame by
hissel' ; yet the wee beastie used to bring him hame, as it
kent the road better than its puir maister kent it. But
the pitcher may gae aft to the well and be broken at last.
Ma brither, yen day, had been drinkin' at the races, an'
he gat unco fu'. Comin' on the road, he fell off puir
Spunkie's back, and brak his neck ! But, oh ! " clapping
the galloway, "it wasna the puir beastie 's faut ; no,
no, ma puir Spunkie!" "Ah! that, indeed, must
have been a sorrowful job, "I said. "Aye, mon, it was
a fearfu' thing to be cut off in that way. But, noo, if
ye'll gang back to the Carter Bar, I'll treat ye wi' a glass
of the best i' the hoose." "Well, sir," I replied, "I
would willingly do so, but as I am making my way to
Campdown, not being able to reach Jedburgh to-night, I
hope you will excuse me." I left the poor fellow stand-
ing the picture of real sorrow, and as I rode on I per-
ceived him looking after me, repeating in a sad tone "Ma
puir wee Spunkie! "
Billy was now a perfect Caleb Quotem, for, eschewing
partners, he might have affirmed with truth —
All the work I did myself ;
I coaxed the folks and took the pelf ;
I strewed the sawdust, snuffed the lights,
And put my magic traps to rights ;
I conjured, danced, and sang my songs,
And thus I pleased the wondering throngs.
On one occasion, he narrowly escaped getting sent to
Morpeth Gaol for knocking a rival showman, who had
taken the liberty to spread lying reports about him and
his wife, through the green baize of his booth. Though
no professional boxer, he could do a little when need was
in the way of self-defence. At Kendal Races in the year
316
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/July
\189-
1891.
1822, when he was travelling in company with Johnson,
the pugilist, he had a whimsical encounter in the boxiana
line. It happened that one day, while some pugilistic
scenes were being acted, Johnson asked any stranger
in the assembled company to take the gloves,
when a countryman, who knew little about sparring,
accepted the challenge and assumed the gloves.
Doubling up his hands in a most unscientific style,
he awaited Johnson;s advances ; but the practitioner,
seeing that he was nothing worth, declined to have any-
thing to do with him, saying, "Oh, here's Mr.
Merriman will do your business for you." Accordingly
Billy took his stand before the unpolished husbandman ;
but the latter took him rather aback by lifting both hands
at once, and sending him backwards in a jiffy. Not being
perfectly contented with this mode of sparring, Billy told
him "that wasn't the way to do," and he prepared to
unglove, but a second thought altered his determination.
Again he advanced, and, manoeuvring to escape the man's
arm, he dealt him such a blow that he knocked him over
the form, and his head, striking against a bolt in the
shutters, was sadly cut, and bled profusely. Billy was
sorry to see the injury the poor fellow had ' sustained,
but he consoled himself with reflecting that his head had
little brains in it or he would not have let a fool floor
him !
One of Billy's undertakings was to manufacture a set of
fantoccini figures. The first attempt was on "Ben Block
the Sailor." In a short time he finished nine excellent
figures, which he named in the following order : — " Ben
Block," "The Grand Mogul Turk," "The Indian
Juggler," "Morgiana," "The Musical Rope Dancer,"
"Pantaloon and Fantalina," "Scaramouch," "The Boy
and Butterfly," and lastly, the figure that always must
come last, "Death, or the Skeleton !'' whose astonishing
convolutions, evolutions, and dislocations were witnessed
by thousands with unmingled pleasure.
Our showman was thus conjurer, singer, dancer, phan-
tasmagorian, fantoccini man, and we know not what
besides ; and as he augmented his list of qualifications, he
increased his ratio of popularity. He had nobody can
tell how many strings to his bow, and he could play
passing well on the whole of them. At Houghton Feast,
Sunderland Fair, Durham Fair, Morpeth Fair, Newcastle
Races, North and South Shields Fairs and Races, Stag-
shawbank and Whitsunbank Fairs, Preston Guild, Car-
lisle Races, Stockton Races, Jedburgh and Kelso Races,
Rothbury, Bellingham, Wooler, Alnwick, Belford, Blyth,
North Sunderland, Chester-le-Street, Hartlepool, Dar-
lington, Yarm, Whitehaven, and all the hirings, hopp-
ings and merrymakings in the country side, he was in-
variably well patronised.
Once in Coldingham, in Berwickshire, his performance
was spoiled by a rather singular occurrence. A long box,
among other goods in a carrier's waggon, labelled, " ,
Surgeon, Edinburgh," was discovered to send forth an
unsavoury odour, and attracted the attention of the
carrier's wife. She was not long in expressing that some-
thing "no cannie" was in the box; and others, hearing
her words, strengthened her suspicions by affirming that
she was right. A hole was made, and a piece of wire
poked in and drawn out, bearing on it evident signs of far
gone putrefaction. The wife insisted on her husband
breaking open the box, which operation was performed,
when lo ! no sooner was the lid removed than the de-
cayirig corpse of a poor old woman, who had died
a week before, was discovered in the box. The carrier
told the people who it was that had given him the box to
carry, and no sooner was the miscreant's name uttered
than away ran the crowd to give the doctor the benefit of
"Lynch Law." The offender was found in hiding in a
low -thatched cottage, which the infuriated villagers
attacked, and it would certainly have gone very hard
with him if a constable had not arrived, who saved him
from the people's hands by taking him into custody. The
body of the poor old woman was again buried ; but the
excitement caused by this resurrection work took away all
intereat for the nonce from Billy's show.
One year (the dry year, 1826) he made a bold inroad
into Scotland, as far as Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock,
and Dundee ; but his fame at that time had scarcely
reached to far north, and he only got poor encouragement
at first. However, his easy good nature, affability, ready
wit, and power of repartee, stood him in as good stead on
the other side of the Tweed as it had done on this ; and
he returned to Newcastle a richer man than he had left it,
though he had sold the materials of his booth at Dundee
to a canvas weaver, having some thought of changing his
line of business.
The new speculation was to set up as proprietor of a
more pretentious and commodious structure. Billy
Purvis's Victoria Theatre soon became a sort of provincial
institution, and his company and himself reaped laurels
for the entertainments given by them, not only all
over the North of England, but in Leith, Glasgow,
Greenock, Kilmarnock, Ayr, Dundee, and other Scottish
towns.
It was a rare treat to see Billy steal the bundle. It
was never the same thing twice. The drollery was
always fresh. The discovery of the bundle — the specula-
tions as to who it belonged to — what might be its contents
— whether it would be safe to open it— whether it really
had or had not an owner — whether the man or woman
who laid it there had not stolen it, or forgotten it, or
thrown it away because tired of carrying it— whether the
owner would ever come back for it — whether, if he stole
it, he would be detected— whether there was, after all,
such a thing as stealing— whether every appropriation of
a thing was not stealing — whether one could be said to
steal a bundle like that when no one seemed to have any
better claim to it — what he would do if he took and
opened the bundle, and found the contents to be so and
July!
189). I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
317
so, as tobacco, groceries, clothes, or something else — all
this monologue or soliloquy, delivered in the purest
Tyneside vernacular, with irresistibly comic manual and
facial action, and broad local and personal allusions, was
certain to bring down the house. And, then, when at
length he did " lowse " the bundle, what revelations \
As Billy's amanuensis and editor, J. P. Robson, says, in
a clever song he wrote on the subject, which was sung to
the tune of " The King of the Cannibal Islands, " he could
coax dumplings from an old wife's pan, turn tea to
blacking, sugar to chalk, girdle cakes to half bricks,
and bring them promiscuously out of his marvellous
bundle, making his audiences "fit to pull doon a' the
ply ace."
Billy's theatrical company included many accomplished
players — both actors and actresses. Several of them
made considerable reputations for themselves, such as
C. H. Stephenson, Ned Corvan, and Emma Atkinson.
But the grand attraction, after all, which caused the
pavilion to be crowded every night, was "Billy an' his
Bundle."
Corvan, of whom more will be said anon, was given to
painting. One of his productions was a picture in oils,
representing Billy in his great scene. It is from this
picture, now in the possession of Mr. B. W. Birtley. of
Newcastle, that the accompanying illustration is repro-
duced.
Until a late period of his life, "when teeth fell out,
and gums fell in," Billy could sing a. good comic song.
He was fond of jovial company and the merriest of hearty
good fellows. Wherever he went he became a favourite
— witness the number of medals and shields he got
presented to him from different convivial fraternities and
lodges. His company was much courted, aud the
temptations to drink thrown in his way were unusually
strong. Still, even in the hey-dey of his popularity, he
could never be accused of having "sacrificed the strains
of Apollo to the mad orgies of Bacchanalian riot and
confusion. "
For a considerable time before his death, Billy bad
been " gradually sliding away." He closed his chequered
career at Hartlepool, on December 16, 1853; and he rests
from his histrionic labours under the walls of St. Hilda's
Church in that town, where, as elsewhere, the "bits o'
bairns a' kenned him weel." Crowds gathered to follow
his remains to the tomb. The Freemasons and the Odd-
fellows, to both which fraternities he belonged, paid their
last tribute of sincere respect to their deceased friend and
brother at the side of his open grave, together with the
entire company of his Victorian Theatre. A few years
318
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{
1891.
afterwards, Messrs. Sangers, the equestrians, gave an
afternoon's performance in their circus at Hartlepool, the
profits of which were applied to the erection of a tomb-
stone over Billy's grave.
STfte Kuttrd at Stai-parfe, itear
Surftant.
|N old work on the City of Durham and its
environs, published anonymously in 1824,
contains the following account of Bearpark. a
corruption of Beaurepaire, once a lovely retreat of the
monks of Durham : —
To the north-west of Neville's Cross, and about two
miles from Durham, on a pleasant eminence, rising above
the river Brone, or Browney, at Bearpark, formerly
called Beaurepaire, are the remains of an ancient mansion
or pleasure house, which belonged to the priors of Durham
monastery, and have been thus described : — "The chapel is
13 paces long, and eight wide ; the east window con-
sists of three lights, circular at the top and very
plain ; there are three windows on each side,
each divided by a mullion into two lights, their
framing on the inside square. The wall is strengthened
by a buttress of neat hewn stonework between each win-
dow, and a cornice runs round the building of the zig-zag
figure. There is a door on the north side of the chapel
from the court. The walls of the chnpel on the inside
are ornamented with a regular succession of small round
columns or pilasters, belted in the midst, the capitals
filled with a garland of open-cut foliage of delicate work,
from whence spring pointed arches ; three pilasters and
two arches in each space between the windows ; the west
end is equally finished with pilasters and arches, and
there is a small window in the centre. At each
side of the east windows is a pedestal for a statue
of considerable size. The apartment under the chapel
is lighted by small square windows ; but as the
floor of the chapel is gone, it is not easy to determine
how it was at first constructed. Adjoining to the
chapel, to the west, is a long. building, the two gables of
which are standing, having a large window of six lights
to the south ; this was most probably the refectory. On
the north, the remains of a building, 20 paces in length,
lighted to the east by three windows, which we conjecture
was the dormitory. There is a door case standing, which
has been the entrance into the garden or some chief court,
with the arms of the See in the centre." At present,
however, the remains are so ruined and confused as to
render them totally indistinct. J. L., London.
About the year 1244, Bertram de Middleton, Prior of
Durham from that year to 1258, desiring to build a
summer residence for his brethren, explored the land far
and near, and at last came to the decision that the grassy
heights " about three miles N.W. from Durham" over
looking the lovely valley of the winding river Browney,
was the exact spot required for fulfilling his purpose.
Hence the poetical name with which the mansion was
graced — BeauRepaire— "thebeautiful retreat." Evidently
it covered a large space of ground, for traces of the wall
which enclosed it still remain. And not of the wall only,
but of the retreat itself, for many old stones and odd bits
of masonry are built into the surrounding farm buildings,
giving them quite a look of antiquity. Strange transition
from the romantic to the practical — from the homes of
monks to the homes of cattle ! Prior Hugh de Derliugton
(Darlington) greatly improved Bearpark, and erected this
wall, nearly the whole of which was destroyed by the
Scots in 1315.
In 1346, King David Bruce of Scotland encamped here
with his large army (just before "ye battle of ye Neville
Crosse "), and the work of destruction was aided not a
little by his vigorous soldiers, who killed the deer and
made a wilderness of the beautiful park. Once more, in
1641, the Scots ravished the no longer lovely Beau Repaire ;
and in 1644, after yet another attempt, they seem to have
rested satisfied that success had crowned their labours.
There is very little of the old building left to attract
sightseers now. Nothing but a high gable, with a very
dilapidated window, where even " the ivy green that/
creepeth o'er ruins old " (as Dickens sings) refuses to creep.
True, the Browney sparkles below, and the hill on which
the ruins stand is still green and quiet ; but the untrodden
wastes over which the monks used to look are now
ploughed and beaten, and the smoke of a colliery village
ascends upward, instead of incense, chant, prayer, or
benediction. FAIRY, Durham.
Cfte ii!0rtft-€0tmtrj> (Sarlantt
at J?ffitg.
THE BRAVE EARL BRAND AND THE KING
OF ENGLAND'S DAUGHTER.
HIS ballad, which resembles the Danish ballad
of " RiboU," was written down from the
recitation of an old fiddler in Northumber-
land, as Mr. J. H. Dixon informs us in his
"Ballads and Songs of the English Peasantry." The
copy which we have here followed is taken from a manu-
script in the handwriting of the late Mr. Robert White,
the celebrated antiquary, and now in the possession of his
sister, Mrs. Andrews, of (/laremont Place, Newcastle, to
whose recollection we are also indebted for the beautiful
melody to which the ballad was chanted in the olden
time. Mrs. Andrews learnt the tune from her mother.
Professor Francis James Child, of Harvard College,
Boston, whose edition of English and Scottish Ballads ia
eight volumes is the most complete of any yet published,
is of opinion that this ballad is certainly the most im-
portant addition made of late years to the stores of
genuine minstrel poetry. One peculiarity of the ballad is
that it is of a duolinear character. The verses consist of
four lines, but the second [and fourth lines are the same
throughout the whole piece. Ballads of a similar
July!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
319
metrical construction seem to liave been common to all
the Northern nations.
lal - He ; He'a court - ed The king's daughter o
fair Eng - land I' ttie brave nights so ear • ly.
O ! did you ever hear of the brave Earl Brand ?
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
He's courted the king's daughter of fair England,
I" the brave nights so early !
She was scarcely fifteen years that tide,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
When sae boldly she came to his bedside,
I' the brave nights so early !
*' O Earl Brand, how fain wad I see,
Hey lillie, ho lillie lallie ;
A pack of hounds let loose on the lea."
I' the brave nights so early !
"O lady fair, I have no steed but one,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
But thou shalt ride and 1 will run."
I' the brave nights so early !
" O Earl Brand, but my father has two,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
And thou shalt have the best o' tho'"
I' the brave nights so early !
Now they have ridden o'er moss and moor,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
And they have met neither rich nor poor ;
I' the brave nights so early !
Till at last they met with old Carl Hood,
Hey lillie. ho lillie, lallie ;
He's aye for ill and never for good,
I' the brave nights so early !
" Now, Earl Brand, an' ye love me,
Hey lilhe, ho lillie, lallie ;
Slay this old Carl and gar him die."
I' the brave nights so early !
" O lady fair, but that would be sair,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
To slay an auld Carl that wears giey hair,
I' the brave nights so early !
"0 lady fair, I'll not do that,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie :
I'll pay him his fee ...... "
I' the brave nights so early !
" 0 where have you ridden this lee lang day,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
And where have you stown this lady away?"
I: the brave nights so early !
" I have not ridden this lee lang day,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
Nor have I stown this lady away,
I' the brave nights so early !
"For she is I trow, my sick sister
Hey lillie, ho lillie. Jallie ;
Whom I am bricginir fra' Winchester."
I' the brave nights so early !
"If she's been sick and nigh to dead,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
What makes her wear the ribbon sae red ?
I' the brave nights so early !
" If she's been sick and like to die.
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
What makes her wear the gold sae hie?"
I' the brave nights so early !
When cam the Uarl to the lady's yett,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
He rudely, rudely rapped thereat,
I' the brave nights so early !
" Now where is the lady of this hall ? "
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
" She's out with her maids a playing at the balL"
I' the brave nights so early !
" Ha, ha, ha ! ye are all mista'en ;
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
Ye may count your maidens owre again.
I' the brave nights so early !
" I met her far beyond the lea,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
With the young Earl Brand his leman to be."
I: the brave nights so early !
Her father of his best men armed fifteen,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
And they're ridden after them bidene,
I* the brave nights so early !
The lady looked owre her left shoulder, then.
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
Says " O Earl Brand, we are both of us ta'en."
I' the brave nights so. early !
" If they come on me one by one,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie :
You may stand by me till the fights be done.
I' the brave nights so early !
" But if they come on me one and all,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
You may stand by and see me fall."
I' the brave nights so early !
They came upon him one by one,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
Till fourteen battles he has won.
I' the brave nights so early !
And fourteen men h,e has them slain,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie :
Each after each upon the plain,
I' the brave nights so early '
But the fifteenth man behind stole round,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
And dealt him a deep and a deadly wound,
I' the brave nights so early !
Though he was wounded to the deid.
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
He set his lady on her steed,
1' the brave nights so early !
They rode till they came to the river Doune,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
And there they lighted to wash his wound,
I' the brave nights so early !
" 0 Earl Brand, I see your heart's blood."
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
" It's nothing but the glent of my scarlet hood."
I' the brave nights so early !
Thevrode till they came to his mother's yett,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
So faintly and feebly he rapped thereat,
I' the brave nights so early !
" O my son's slain ! he is falling to swoon,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
And it's all for the sake of an English loon."
I' the brave nights so early !
320
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
. 1391.
" 0 say not so, my dearest mother,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
But marry her to my youngest brother."
I' the brave nights so early !
"To a maiden true he'll (five his hand,
Hey lillie, ho lillie, lallie ;
To the king's daughter of fair England,
To a prize that was won by a slain brother's brand,
I' the brave nights so early !"
HE woodpeckers (Picidce) form an important
group of the tree-climbing races of birds.
In Northumberland and Durham only three
species have been observed, the Green
Woodpecker (Picus viridis), the Greater Spotted Wood-
pecker (Picus major), and the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker
(Picus minor).
The woodpeckers, irrespective of size and plumage,
have a general family resemblance. They have a slender
body and powerful beak, which is usually straight, conical,
and furnished with a sharp ridge at its culmen. The short,
strong feet are turned inwards; the toes are long and
placed in pairs, the exterior pair being connected as far as
the first joint; the hinder toe, which is the smallest of all,
is BO situated as to pair with the innermost and longest toe ;
in some instances this short fourth toe is but slightly de-
veloped, or entirely wanting ; the claws are long, strong,
very sharp, and much hooked. The wings are rounded,
and of medium size ; their ten primaries are narrow and
pointed, whilst their secondaries (from nine to ten in num-
ber, according to Dr. Brehm) are broader, but not much
shorter, than the primary quills. Of these latter, the first
is very small, those next in order graduated to the third or
fourth, which is the longest^ The very remarkable tail is
formed of ten large and two small feathers ; these latter
are placed above instead of under the rest ; the central
tail feathers are the largest, and very stiff. The strangely
constructed tongue, by the aid of which the woodpeckers
are enabled to capture the small insects upon which they
in a great measure subsist, is sharp, barbed, .pointed, and
endued with a glutinous secretion, derived from glands
situated in the throat, and communicating with the
mouth by two long ducts, the glutinous coating being
thus renewed every time the tongue is drawn within the
bill. Fruits, seeds, and insects constitute the food of the
woodpeckers, and in pursuit of it they exhibit wonderful
dexterity— climbing with astonishing activity the trunks
and branches of trees ; and when, by tapping with their
bills, a rotten place has been discovered, they dig at
once vigorously in search of the grub or larva; snugly
embedded beneath the bark, thus rendering inestimable
service to man by destroying hosts of insects.
The green woodpecker (Picus viridis) is a resident in
the two counties. It is not, Mr. Hancock tells us, "by
any means common, but it occasionally breeds in the
district. Mr, Isaac Clark took a nest of it with three
eggs, at Miusteracres, two or three years ago. According
to Wallis, this species was frequent in Dilston Park-
before the trees were cut down." The scarcity of all the
birds of this family is, in part, chiefly owing to the
ruthless manner in which they are shot, whenever seen,
for specimens. The green woodpecker is a native of
nearly all the countries of Europe, from Italy to Siberia,
Though nowhere numerous in this country, it is neverthe-
less a well-known bird, as is evidenced by its long roll of
common names — such as ecle, whitwall, popinjay, wood-
spite, rain-bird, rain-fowl, whittle, high hoe, hewhole,
pick-a-tree, awl-bird, yappingall, yaffle, yaffer, and nick-
a-pecker. Most of these names are descriptive of the
habits and peculiar note of the bird. It is called the
rain-bird because, when it is more than ordinarily noisy,
the weatherwise predict a fall.
Shaped somewhat like the kingfisher, the green wood-
pecker is a handsome bird, of green and brown plumage,
delicately marked and based with white, with a rich
crimson crest. In size it is between the common starling
and the jay. It is a shy and unsocial bird, and it is
heard more frequently than seen. When the woods are
otherwise silent, the woodpecker maybe heard "tapping
the hollow beech tree." Like the tits, it may be occasion-
ally seen in curious positions, creeping up the boles of
trees, and searching the holes and crevices of the bark for
food. The shrill, wild cry of the woodpecker may often
be heard in woods, and has been likened by some to the
neighing of a horse, and by others to a peal of unearthly
laughter. It has further been compared by a competent
naturalist to the syllables "glu, glu, glu, gluck," finishing
off with a sharp "gk,"as though a "laugh had tumbled
down and broken its neck, turning into something like a
cry before it expired."
The male is about one foot in length. Bill, bluish black,
.Ill
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
321
the base of the lower part being nearly white ; from its
corner a black streak runa downwards, the middle part
being brilliant red, the feathers grey at the base ; iris,
greyish white, with a faint tinge of yellow ; black bristles
surround the base of the bill. Forehead, jet black ; head,
on the sides, greenish white ; crown, brilliant red, running
downwards to a point brighter than the rest ; neck, on
the sides, greyish green, on the back and the nape,
greenish yellow ; throat, brownish white ; breast, yellow-
ish grey, with a tinge of green ; chin, as the breast ;
back, a fine greenish yellow, below yellow. The female
is about an inch and a half shorter than the male, with
less red on the crown of the head, and the plumage more
dull in colour.
The greater spotted woodpecker (Pteui major) has a
variety of common names — such as whitwall, woodwall,
woodnacker, wood pie, French pie, pied woodpecker,
great black and white woodpecker, and French wood-
pecker. Mr. Selby considered that these birds were
probably migratory, as he had met with them in North-
umberland in the months of October and November,
generally after storms from the north-east. Several ex-
amples of the greater spotted woodpecker have been
obtained in both Northumberland and Durham during
the past few years.
As might be supposed from the conformation of the
claws and tail, these birds are expert tree climbers, and
work about the trunks and branches not unlike the
creepers and nuthatches. Sometimes they will run to
the top of the tree, and then fly off. They seldom
alight) on the ground, and their movements there are
rather awkward. The food consists of insects and cater-
pillars, seeds, fruits, and nuts. In spring they produce
a jarring noise, and their note is expressed by Meyer by
the syllables "gich" and "kirr," uttered only once at a
time, at long intervals. Their calls are chiefly heard in
the love season. They begin to nest about the beginning
of April, sometimes in March. No regular nest is
formed, the eggs being usually deposited on the dust
and chips at the bottom of a hole in a tree, at a depth
of six or seven inches, but sometimes two feet from the
mouth of the hole excavated by the strong and sharp bill
of the bird.
The male weighs about three ounces, and is nearly ten
inches in length, the spike-like bill being of a dark, glossy
horn colour. The upper portion of the body is black, of a
dull yellowish grey beneath. There are large spots on the
shoulders, and some irregular markings on the wings ;
the back of the head and lower part of the belly are light
red ; and a black line passes from the base of the beak to
the nape. The tail has the two middle feathers black,
pointed, and longer than the rest ; legs and toes, blackish
grey, the former feathered part of the way down in front ;
claws much hooked and black. The female is without
red on the nape ; and in the young the top of the head
is bright red.
The lesser spotted woodpecker (Picus minor) is a
rare bird in the Northern Counties, but, according
to Mr. J. W. Fawcett's "Birds of Durham," it has
nested in that county. It has bred in Yorkshire,
and several other counties further south. Mr. Hancock
has the following brief note on the subject: — liAn
example of this rare casual visitant was shot upwards
of forty years ago at Gosforth, near Newcastle, and
is in my possession. In Mr. Selby's catalogue it is stated
that a specimen was some time ago killed at Wallsend.
In Wallis's History of Northumberland one is recorded as
having been shot in Dilston Park."
Like its relatives, the lesser woodpecker, strictly speak-
ing, does not migrate, but only quits its native woodlands
to wander erratically over the country during the spring
and autumn. At other seasons it is said to keep strictly
within the limits of a spot which it selects for a home, and
which invariably contains a large hollow tree suitable as a
sleeping place. The naturalist Naumnnn tells us that, as
21
this bird retires to rest later than many other of the
feathered inhabitants of its favourite graves or orchards,
many fierce battles ensue before it can obtain possession
of the particular hole it desires, as titmice and sparrows
322
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I July
1891.
also prefer a warm, snug nook, and are by no means dis-
posed to resign quietly in favour of the intruder.
Its food principally consists of small insects and their
larvie, spiders and ants, which it finds on the branches
of trees in woods and orchards, and it may sometimes be
noticed on the ground feeding on insects. Its note, shrill
and oft-repeated, resembles the syllables "keek keek,
keek keek." One of the sounds it makes has been likened
to that made by an auger in boring— hence one of its many
common names, the pump-borer. The nest is usually
placed in a hole in a tree, and no ordinary nesting
materials are used, the eggs being deposited on sawdust
and minute chips. Sometimes more than one hole is
made, partially or wholly, though only one is finally
occupied.
The male is from five and a half to six inches long (the
birds differing from their congeners in the comparative
shortness of the slightly conical beak, rounded tail, and
the peculiar colouration of plumage). In the male the
brow is yellowish grey, the crown of the head bright red,
the upper part of the back entirely black, and the lower
portion white, streaked with black ; the whole of the wings
are striped black and white, and relieved by a black line
that passes along the sides of the neck, which is thus
divided from the grey belly. The centre tail feathers
are black. The female is without the red patch on the
head ; the young resemble the mother, but are somewhat
duller in their hues. The wings measure two inches and
three-quarters, and the tail two inches and a quarter.
SuUntf, tft* Wttentric
at GUftrim.
JHE Rev. Louis Dutens (or Duchillon), A.M.,
F.K.S., Historiographer to his Majesty and
honorary member of the French Academy
_ of Incriptions and Belles Letters, held,
during a considerable period, the valuable living of
Elsdon in Northumberland.
M. Dutens, every inch a Frenchman, was born at
Tours in 1729 of a very ancient Protestant family. He
received the elements of education from his mother, " the
most tender of parents," and passed his early years in
reading poems, romances, and books of a similar descrip-
tion. From thence he rose to a slight acquaintance with
writers of history and ethics, until, by degrees, he arrived
at the age when the heart begins to feel that inexplicable
sentiment, sweet and bitter, the source of mingled
pleasure and pain, commonly called the tender passion.
He now fell desperately in love with a schoolmaster's
daughter, who, according to the fashion of all damsels of
this description, immediately returned his flame, and
insisted on his naming the marriage day forthwith.
He applied to his father for this purpose, and
poured out to him his whole heart; but love, it
would seem, wanted its usual eloquence on this occasion,
for the only answer which the elder Dutens thought
proper to give was a sound box on the ear, intimating
thereby, with sufficient precision, that the proposal was
not to his liking. The chagrin which this failure occa-
sioned made the young man suddenly and secretly leave
his father's house, and take the road to Angers, where his
evil genius, however, still pursued him, as he again fell in
love, this time with his landlord's daughter, who proved
as complaisant as his former sweetheart had been. But
her father took umbrage at his addresses, and drove him
from the premises, so that he was obliged to set out for
Nantes. Here the same planet continued to rule his
destiny, and a third unsuccessful passion forced him away.
So he hied to Paris. He arrived in the capital of fashion and
frivolity just in time to see the festivities which celebrated
the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The wanderer's first
occupation, after seeing the lions, was to write a tragedy,
which was of course rejected. His next was to resume
his old vocation, and fall in love with a lady of all manner
of perfections. With her he was on the point of accomp-
lishing a union, by carrying her off from the " pension "
where she was a pupil, when her enraged parent arrived,
and hurried her away from his sight, leaving him in the
parlour of the boarding school overwhelmed with unruly
grief, and with difficulty kept, by the rest of the misses,
from dashing out his own brains against the wall.
Louis Dutens's family were rigid Protestants, and were
exposed to all the intolerable prosecutions which awaited
the dissenters from the Catholic Church in France after
the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. Of these he had a
very near view in his own house. The archbishop of bis
diocese ordered to be carried off by force, from the arms
of her parents, a sister twelve years old. in order to shut
her up in a convent. No entreaties, addressed either to
the prelate or the French Ministry, could obtain the
slightest relaxation of this cruel order. The young
woman was detained four years, at the end of which time,
in self-defence, wearied out with the importunity of
proselytisers, she abjured the religion of her father, and
took the veil. The fate of his sister, and a consideration
of the state of things which rendered such an outrage
possible, induced him to form the resolution of leaving
France ; so he set out for England, with the intention of
making it his adopted home.
On his way to the coast he passed through a town
where two English ladies were staying for the benefit
of their health. Hearing that one of them was Miss
Pitt, sister of the English minister, he contrived to pro-
cure an introduction to them, and with that talent for
making himself agreeable and serviceable which never
failed him through life, he managed, to become a prime
favourite with them. He also fell desperately in love, for
the fifth time, with Miss Taylor, the companion of Miss
Pitt She returned his passion with equal ardour. The
pair soon after met again in England, where they ex-
Julyl
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NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
323
chanced mutual vows of eternal fidelity ; but, neverthe-
less, Dutens seems to have given up all thoughts of
marrying; at least we hear no more of Miss Taylor
through the whole course of his memoirs. (Memoircs
d'un Vbyageur qui se Sepose, 3 vols. London : Dulan,
1806.)
From Miss Pitt he received a letter for her brother, the
great Earl of Chatham, who at first received him kindly,
and then suddenly shut his door against him, in conse-
quence of his sister having had some words with one of
the adventurer's relatives in France. After a short and
unprofitable stay in this country, M. Dutens returned to
his father's house. There he fell sick. During a danger-
ous illness and tedious recovery, he was nursed by his
sister and taught religion, as he himself tells us. Thus
fortified and fitted out anew, he revisited the great Babel
of London, where he was soon after received in the family
of a Mr. Wyche as tutor to his son. He now found,
rather inopportunely, that he had grievously neglected
his own education, and that he knew none of the things
which he had been hired to teach. By incessant labour,
however, he contrived to keep somewhat ahead of his
pupil, and when, at length, Mr. Wyche discovered his
ignorance of the higher branches of learning, he very
amiably took upon himself the instruction both of his
son and his tutor. In this wortby family, Dutens seems
to have passed several very tranquil, profitable, and
happy years. Unfortunately, however, his pupil died.
This event plunged him into great grief, and he con-
tinued absorbed in it for the best part of six weeks, after
which the first occupation in which he felt he could in-
terest himself was the instruction of a young sister of
bis deceased pupil, both deaf and dumb. By degrees
he was more and more engaged in this pursuit ; and
at last he and his fair pupil become inseparable.
Miss Wyche soon proved a most desperate and dur-
ing lover. Ignorant of the forms and proprieties of
life, she made him direct proposals which he could not
misinterpret, but which he parried with the best grace he
could muster. At length he left the house abruptly, and
accepted the offer of a gentleman who was going to Turin
on a diplomatic mission, and who was in want of a private
secretary and domestic chaplain. Accordingly (in 1768),
he set out for Piedmont with Mr. Mackenzie Stuart,
brother of Lord Bute, and very soon, after his manner,
became absolutely necessary to his patron's existence. At
Turin, he enjoyed, of course, all the good society which
belonged to the place. He picked up in this way a great
many curious anecdotes which he afterwards gave to the
world in a curious little volume to which he gave the
title of "Dutentiana."
When Mr. Mackenzie Stuart, his principal, was obliged
to return home, M. Dutens, though a Frenchman and at
a time when this country was at war with France, was
left as our charge d'affaires at the Court of Turin. This
situation he filled for several months, and then returned to
England by way of Paris. In that city he made himself
agreeable to the English whom he happened to meet, and
had an opportunity, in this company, of seeing Sterne, the
author of " Tristram Shandy, " at the table of the Marquis
of Tavistock. The conversation happened to turn on
Turin, and Sterne, who did not know who the gentleman
that sat next to him was, asked him if he knew M. Dutens.
The latter replied that he did, and was most intimate
with him. All the company began to laugh, and
Sterne, who had no idea the individual alluded to was
present, at once jumped to the conclusion that Dutens
must be a queer sort of person, since his very name called
forth such merriment. So he asked his unknown neigh-
bour, "Is he not a rather singular man?" "Yes,"
replied he, "quite an original." "I had my doubts
about him," continued iSterne. "I have heard it said of
him — " And he went on to draw Dutens's portrait out of
his own head, while Dutens seemed to acquiesce. Then,
seeing that the subject evidently amused the company, he
set himself to invent, in the fertility of his fancy, a num-
ber of stories after his peculiar manner, continuing
the recitation till it was time to separate. Dutens
was the first to leave, and, as soon as be was gone,
the others gave Sterne to understand that the gentleman
he had been libelling, and who had just left, had managed
to contain himself out of respect for Lord Tavistock, but
that he was not a person to be played with, or made a fool
of, and that it was morally certain he would hear from hiui
in the morning. Sterne saw that he had carried the joke
too far, and, dreading the consequences, he called at
Dutens's lodgings early the next morning, and made a
thousand apologies, which were of course accepted.
After remaining some time in London, obtaining a good
pension from Lord Bute's Administration and augmenting
the list of noblemen to whose existence he was more than
half necessary, Dutens returned to Turin, and again
resumed the functions of chargt d'affaires. He employed
his leisure in planning several learned works, and in
getting up an edition of Liebnitz, which was afterwards
published at Geneva. In compiling this edition, he had
occasion to write a preface upon certain points in mathe-
matical science which he confessed he understood nothing
about. It was so much approved of, that he used after-
wards to argue from thence in favour of authors confining
themselves to subjects of which they are ignorant.
Shortly after his return to England from Turin, he got
an introduction to the Duke of Northumberland, and be-
came a regular attender at Northumberland House. He
was dazzled, he tells us, by the magnificence of the duke,
enchanted by the polite attentions with which his grace
honoured him, and particularly flattered by the distinc-
tion he received from the duchess. The duke, however,
unfortunately threw himself into opposition in Parlia-
ment, and all hopes of preferment through his grace's
influence were thenceforth banished. Dutens also soon
discovered that the duke, though a great lover of the arts
324
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
{
1891.
and sciences, and fond of conversing on such subjects, did
nothing, or next to nothing, for his dependents. Yet,
he did not fail, from time to time, when he had no other
great men to beset, to frequent Northumberland House ;
and he was at length rewarded for his assiduity by the
presentation of the living of Elsdon, in Northumberland,
then (1766) worth £800 a year. The king likewise made
him a present of a thousand pounds, to enable him to buy
furniture, etc. Moderately handsome as this was, it did
not near come up to the ideas of M. Dutens as to the worth
of his services. He rather considered his relegation to the
valley of the Reed in the light of an honourable banish-
ment. So he retired in disgust to his parish, as he tells
us in his memoirs, despising the world, hating the great
who had so grievously neglected him, and abjuring for
the rest of his life all dangling after lords and ladies.
Nay, so seriously did he set about this radical reform
in his life that he took with him Regnier's "Satire upon
Government," in order that he might have close at hand
every hour of the day that excellent preservator against
tuft-hunting.
"The parishioners at Elsdon," says a writer in the
Kewcattle Magazine for April, 1823, "expressed much
dissatisfaction when they learnt that a foreigner was
established as their minister, and on his first visit to take
possession of his benefice his appearance confirmed their
dislike ; but in preaching the first sermon the discontent
rose to clamorous opposition, one and all declaring that
they had not understood a single word of his discourse,
and a petition to the bishop for relief was the theme of
every tongue. Although well informed of all that was
passing, he appeared to know nothing of the matter, but
freely mixed among the people with the most winning and
cheerful condescension, and in going round the parish he
personally invited to dine with him, at the old castle, as
many of the higher class as his table would accommodate.
On the appointed day, as they arrived, they were shown
into a room ; and when the whole had met, he entered the
room with expressions of the utmost surprise at seeing
them there, declaring that he had no reason to expect the
honour of a visit from any one of them on that day. One
of them very warmly appealed to himself if he had not in
person invited them to dine with him. ' Oh, yes ! '
returned the clerical humorist. ' Oh, yes, my very goot
friend, I did invite you, and you, and you, to my dine,
but you all say, every one of you say, you no understand
one word I speak. Oh te ! very good, when I preach you
from my pulpit, you no understand my speak, but
when I invite you to my goot dine, you very well
understand.' It was instantly perceived that the
play-off was a good humoured joke upon themselves, and
a hearty laugh at each other was the prelude to the dinner
bell. By similar practices of pleasing cheerfulness, he iu
time conciliated his parishioners, and still more by being
commendably moderate in the exaction of his tithes."
Equipped for philosophy, and resolved to live for him-
self, thus did M. Dutens, at the ripe age of fifty years,
quit, for the first time in his life, the habits of a courtier,
and plunge into the dull routine of a country life, in a
solitary parsonage on the borders of Chevy Chase. But
the change was of transient duration. He soon embarked
anew on the stormy sea of the great world. For, almost
as soon as he had begun his new plans of life, he read in a
newspaper Lord Mountstuart's appointment as resident at
Turin, and instantly set all his engines of intrigue in
motion to get himself adopted as his private secretary.
This attempt was successful ; the spiritual cure of his
Northumbrian charge was banded over to a properly
qualified curate ; and he set out for Italy with the
ambassador's family in the capacity of what is usually
termed a factotum. He took charge of everything on the
route. He was, indeed, the chief of the expedition.
Nothing was undertaken or done without his advice and
consent. He was the oracle of the party, an invaluable
man in every department. He now travelled about the
Continent, sometimes with Lord and Lady Mountstuart,
sometimes alone, in which latter case he carried with
him a travelling library of select volumes in nine
different languages. He was received everywhere, and
particularly by princes, and most of all by the Grand Duke
of Tuscany, with the most distinguished attention. He
was entertained for some weeks in the most elegant and
sumptuous fashion by the family of Choiseul at their grand
mediaeval chateau ; he rubbed shoulders with the great
French Minister Turgot; and he shivered philosophic
lances with the celebrated encyclopedists D'Alembert and
Condorcet.
While thus pleasantly engaged, great was his astonish-
ment one morning to receive the melancholy news of the
death of his old friend and patron, Mr. Mackenzie Stuart,
coupled with the pleasing announcement that that gentle-
man had left him a third part of his personal property — an
equal share with his two nephews — amounting to £15,000.
This legacy at once placed M. Dutens on an independent
footing. He could henceforth afford to take his otium cum
dignitate. He gave up tuft-hunting for good and all, and
betook himself to quiet study for the remainder of his life.
Some of the fruits of his scientific investigations are now
before us, in the shape of solid quartos, octavos, and
duodecimos. His chief work is intituled "Researches
into the Origin ef the Discoveries of the Moderns,"
wherein it ia demonstrated that our most celebrated
philosophers have drawn a large part of their knowledge
from the works of the ancients, and that several important
truths regarding religion were known to the Pagan
sages. It was written originally in French, and pub-
lished in Paris in 1766. An English translation
appeared in 1769, a second French edition a few years
subsequently, and a third in quarto, considerably
enlarged, in London, 1796. It is one of those singular
books in which a vast amount of erudition is as good as
thrown away in an attempt to establish a plausible, but
;
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1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
325
untenable theory. The list of authors consulted in its
preparation ranges over all the letters of the alphabet,
from the Arabian historian Abulpharagius to the
Byzantine annalists Zonarus and Zozimus. If it were for
nothing but the copious quotations it contains, the book
is well worth reading. His "Memoirs of a Traveller now
in Retirement " — also published, we believe, both in
French and English (we have consulted the French
edition only) — extends to five vols. octavo, and appeared
in 1806. The year before that M. Dutens had published
another learned work in quarto, "Researches into
the Most Remote Time at which the Arch was used
by the Ancients." In this he endeavoured to
prove that the scientific construction of the arch was
known to the Egyptians, Babylonians, Etruscans,
and others, long prior to the age of Alexander the
Great, before whose days, however, there is every
reason to conclude that the arch was unknown. M.
Dutens managed to support his opinions by a great variety
of citations from ancient and modern writers, and by
arguments deduced from the actual remains of ancient
buildings, as well as from the descriptions extant of those
which are n&w no more.
M. Dutens died in London on the 3rd of May, 1812, in
the 83rd year of his age.
3tUag,
JlR. SAMUEL REAY, Mus. Bac., Oxon., one
of the series of eminent organists who gave
recitals on the new organ lately supplied to
St. Nicholas' Cathedral, Newcastle, was born at Hexham,
on March 17, 1822, his father at that time being organ-
ist of the abbey church
of that ancient town.
In early childhood
young Reay exhibited
an unusual aptitude for
music, and when about
eight years of age, his
father having meantime
removed to Ryton-on-
Tyne, he was admitted
to the then famous choir
of Durham Cathedral.
Under the late Dr. Hen-
shaw, he received a
thorough vocal training,
and laid the foundation
of that knowledge of church music which has been so
valuable to him in after life.
On leaving Durham, young Reay was placed under the
care of the late Mr. James Stimpson, who at that time
was organist of St. Andrew's, Newcastle-on-Tyne, with
whom be studied organ and piano playing, and the theory
of music generally. Such rapid progress was made that,
II H. SA1ICEL BEAT.
at the early age of seventeen, he became organist to the
late Rev. Thomas Gillow, of North Shields. Leaving
here, he officiated for some time at St. Michael's,
Houghton-le-Spring, and on Mr. Stimpson's promotion to
Carlisle Cathedral in 1841 he was selected from sereral
competing candidates to succeed his master at St.
Andrew's. Here, two years later, he established, in con-
junction with the late Rev. William Dodd, the first sur-
pliced and regular antiphonal choir in the North cf
England, outside a cathedral, with full choral service
and choral celebration, performed by an efficient staff cf
men and boys, the latter selected from the parish schools
and trained by the young organist. In 1845, the offer of
a considerably increased stipend induced him to accept the
organistship of St. Thomas's, Barras Bridge, where he
had the charge of a very excellent mixed choir.
Two years later, after a keen competition, Mr. Reay was
appointed organist of St. Peter's Church, Tiverton. Soon
after taking up his residence in this pleasant town, he
turned his attention to the composition of the part songs
which have rendered his name so famous, several of them,
" Sweet is the Breath of Early Morn," "The Clouds that
Wrap," "The Dawn of Day," and others, having been
written for the Tiverton Vocal Society, an amateur body
of which he was the conductor. He, therefore, may be
recognized as amongst the first of modern English writers
to devote himself to this class of music. About the same
time Mr. Reay conceived the notion of collecting
materials towards a history of keyed and string instru-
ments, which resulted in his delivering interesting lectures
on the subject at Tiverton, Exeter, Teignmouth, Durham,
Alnwick, and other places. He lectured on "Old English
Ballad Music," and cognate subjects at the Newcastle
Literary and Philosophical Society, in December, 1853.
In 1854, Mr. Reay was appointed, again after competi-
tion, organist of St. John's Church, Hampstead, and,
later, of St. Saviour's and St. Stephen's, Paddington. In
1859, he succeeded Dr. E. G. Monk (translated to York
Minster) as organist and precentor of St. Peter's College,
Radley, where there was a fine organ, a large choir, and
an excellent cathedral service. On resigning this post, he
became organist and chair-master, under the late Canon
Hornby, of the parish church, Bury, Lancashire, famous
for its choir and choral service. And on the retirement
of Dr. Dearie, in 1864, he succeeded him in the important
and ancient office of song schoolmaster of the parish
church, Newark.
Mr. Reay has written much music for the Church,
and his services and anthems and hymns have found an
acceptable place in the repertoires of many cathedrals and
" places where they sing." Among his latest work has
been "the genial task," as he describes it, "of putting
appropriate harmonies and symphonies to the songs and
.ballads contained in the interesting ' Northumbrian
Minstrelsy,' " edited by Dr. Bruce and Mr. John Stokoe.
326
MONTHL Y CHRONICLE.
' July
1891.
||HE town of Bellingham, built on sloping
ground on the left bank of the North Tyne,
five hundred feet or more above the level of
Hexham, and well nigh forty miles from
Newcastle, is just one of those places at which people who
are fond of a country with historic associations can profit-
ably spend a week-end. Many a valiant chieftain lived
about Bellingham in the time of the Scottish marauders.
There was no shirking obligations in those days ; for it
had been enacted in the Parliament called on October
9th, 1385, by Richard III., that all possessors of lands on
the marches beyond the river Tyne, whether lords or
others, should reside with them, except such as the kinjr
should think fit to dispense with. The town reposes now
in peace with the Scots and all the world, attracting to
itself every year an increasing number of tourists and
visitors.
It is perhaps worth while recounting in brief space
a few of the attractions which Bellingham can offer
the strange visitor. Foremost is the wild moor-
land country which surrounds it. How many happy
days can be spent roaming over the heather-
clad hills of the North Tyne ! But first let us
•nter Bellingham. It is picturesque and quaint by which-
ever way you approach it. Two of our illustrations show
pleasant adits to the village. One is the handsome
bridge of stone which forms the approach to the town
from the railway station ; and the other is a picturesque
wooden bridge in another direction, built in truly rural
style to avoid having to ford the stream that crosses the
road. The cottages and blacksmith's shop form a pretty
background.
Bollingham has aptly been described as the last town
in England, which description is accurate enough if you
are travelling by the Waverley route to Scotland. The
place even goes the length of having its own Town
Hall. It is built on a slope called Mug Hill, where
formerly the markets were held, and where many an old
quarrel was . settled or aggravated while the cry re-
sounded—"Tarset and Tarretburn! Yet! Yet! Yet!"
The accompanying sketch gives a representation of the
clock turret of the building, in which, on winter nights,
many an entertainment is given to the inhabitants of
Bellingham, to help to while away the tedium of the long
nights, when
Among their children comfortable men
Gather around great fires, and yet feel cold.
Bellingham is a town by Royal charter, though only
a small one, and fer its size does not exceed that of
many a Northumberland village; indeed I know many
villages in the county that would beat it hollow for
population.
The land about Bellingham is high, and little
adapted to the successful growth of cereal crops; hence
it has chiefly a pastoral appearance. Corn is grown
only at the foot of the valley, near the river, where the
soil is richer. The rest of the country, so far as it is
used for farming, is devoted to large pastures and sheep-
walks. There remain, besides these, only the woods and
plantations, principally of firs and different kinds of coni-
fers, that flank the river or cover the sides of the burns
and the uninclosed moor-
lands. Under the soil are
coal, iron ore, and lime-
stone; but these minerals
are not now worked.
Formerly an attempt was
made to turn Bellingham
into a mining centre, a
colliery shaft being sunk,
and iron mining opera-
tions commenced. But
the cost of winning the
minerals was too great,
and the ironworks that
were erected had to be
closed, owing to the in-
dustry being unprofit-
able. This was thirty
years ago, and traces of
the miners' work still re-
main. Three miles off,
the quiet hills are re-
minded of the every-
where pervading engineer
by the sound of the firing
Jubl
UN./
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
327
on the gun-trial ground of Sir W. G. Armstrong, Mitchell,
and Co.
Tradition says that Bellingham was one of the towns
through which the body of St. Cuthbert passed in its
wanderings. The parish church, which is dedicated to
that saint, is a quaint and interesting building, built
about the end of the eleventh century in the early
Norman style. In former times it was the general
place of refuge for the people of Bellingham, who
took their goods and chattels, their families and their
cattle, into the sacred building for protection from the
Scottish raider or the English freebooter of
the Borders. In the interior of the church
and in the graveyard will be found the stone
tablets that preserve for future generations
the memory of the progenitors of the leading
families of this part of the North Tyne.
These were what may be described as clans,
a common characteristic of the old Border
life, and four of these clans or families, or,
as they were called about Bellingham,
"graynes," dominated over North Tynedale.
So in the church and churchyard at Belling-
ham you can see inscribed the names of the
Charltons, the Robsons, the Dodds, and the
Milburns. These bold, reckless thieves did
not confine their lawless attentions to the
Scots over the borders ; amongst each other
they were continually at variance, stealing
and stabbing and killing. As late as the end
of the fifteenth century the Bishop of Durham
had to use the full measures of bis powers to
keep these Tynedale robbers in a semblance
of subjection to authority. Sentence of
excommunication was withdrawn only on
condition of their abstaining from all theft in
the future, that they should not wear a
jacket or knapescall (helmet), nor ride a horse
of the value of more than 6s. 3d., except
against the Scots or the king's enemies, and
that they should not appear in church with auy weapons
exceeding one cubit in length.
One of the main features of Bellingham Church is its
roof, formed entirely of stone (except that of the chancel).
It is said to be the only church in the county with such
a roof, except that at Thockrington there is a stone-
covered chancel. When the church was restored
thirty years ago, the Duke of Northumberland's
subscription was given only on condition that ths
floor was restored to its original level, and conse-
quently you enter the church by going down three
steps. The interior, as well as the graveyard of the
church, contains much that is interesting from an
antiquarian and historical point of view. Not far
from the entrance to the church, outside in the open
air, is the famous stone to which is attached ths well-
known story of the Loner Pack. Other stones near
this call to mind entertaining narratives of the
Milburns and Charltons, but to these I have not space
to refer at greater length. Another slab keeps alive
for the inhabitants of Bellingham the memory of Sir
John Fife, the eminent surgeon, who was Mayor of
Newcastle during an exciting period of the Chartist
agitation.
The pride of Bellingham is its Linn. Hareshaw Linn
is one of the few waterfalls which the county of North-
328
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
umberland possesses. The principal fall ie thirty feet high,
in a chasm between two picturesque red cliffs, with plants,
shrubs, and trees covering the ground all round. There
are three falls, in fact, and woodland beauties are in
profusion. Paths meander here and there, and the
wooden seats met with anon and anon show how
favourite a spot it is with lovers of romantic scenery. The
babbling stream that flows through the
pretty glen washes hundreds of moss-covered
stones, and the thousands of flowers that
carpet the sides of the dene give it a rich,
wild beauty that art cannot imitate. Accom-
panying these lines are sketches of two pretty
rustic bridges that cross the Hareshaw Burn
in the neighbourhood of the Linn. Not
many yards from one of these bridges, near to
the head of the glen, is the dancing green,
where, on Pic-nic Day, the great holiday
for the Bellingbam folks, young men and
maidens trip gracefully through the steps of
the old country dances.
One of the prettiest walks around Belling-
ham is that to Woodhead and down the slope
through the wood to Hesleyside, the old
family residence of the Charltons, who have
lived here since 1340, previous to which, as far
back as 1200, they held a tower at Charlton,
on the opposite side of the river, but of this no traces
now remain. Twice has their home suffered destruction
through 6re. The present building is of different dates,
.,- -.
*W"
•i--li-lU (.
JulyV
1891.1
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
329
the east wing and the terrace in front having been erected
in the last century by "Runaway Willie" (William
Charlton, obit. 1736), whose spirit is supposed to revisit
the hall every seven years, though there seems a proba-
bility that he is now at rest, as he has not been seen
or heard of lately. The south wing, in the centre of
which is an old stone-vaulted arch, which formerly gave
entrance to the spacious courtyard, now covered over,
is the oldest part now standing. Here is still carefully
preserved, under lock and key, the Charlton spur,
an instrument six inches long, with a rowel two
inches in diameter, which has been in possession
of the Charlton family for an indeBnite period. This
relic is the one which, with the standard (a glass cup
richly engraved, holding a quart of liquor, and attached
to which is a legend similar to that of the Luck of
Edenhall), crucifix, &c., still preserved at Hesleyside,
William Bell Scott, the artist, copied into his picture
in Wallington House when illustrating one of the
phases of life on the Border. In the picture the Border
chieftain is shown the emptiness of his larder and the
necessity for a foray by the spur in the dish, which is
brought up in place of dinner. This spur, and the old
sword of the Charltons, are represented in the sketches
given here. The house at Hesleyside is one which will
amply repay a visit to anyone interested in seeing the
home of an old Northumbrian squire.
As to the old owners of Hesleyside, they were
Royalists at the time of Cromwell, under whom they
suffered much, and Jacobites under the Hanoverian
kings.
THE POLKA.
The polka, a favourite round dance, is of modern origin.
It was first introduced into Newcastle about fifty years
ago, when Thome's show used to stand in the Spital. It
was customary at that time for all the performers, both
male and female, to appear in full theatrical costume on
the stage outside the show, and, after promenading for a
short time, wind up with the " Haymakers," "Speed the
Plough," or some other popular country -dance. Large
crowds used to assemble nightly when it became known
330
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
that the polka was to be danced. Mr. Henderson and
Mrs. Grainger, dressed in full Hungarian costume, were
the dancers, and they received unbounded applause for
their performance. NOVA, West Hartlepool.
of Goldsmith.'
heard of it."
"Pooh!" quoth the sage, "I never
ZEBEDEE, Durham.
THE DEVIL'S DUE.
Dr. John Egerton. on coming to the See of Durham,
employed one Due as his agent to find out the true values
of the estates held by lease under him, and in consequence
of Due's reports, he greatly raised both the fines and
reserved rents of his tenants. On this account the
following toast was often drunk in and about Durham : —
"May the Lord take the Bishop, and the Devil have his
Due 1" D. D.. Newcastle.
" JESSAMOND MILL."
Referring to the old song, "Jessamond Mill, "which
is printed in the Monthly Chronicle, 1891, p. 235, perhaps
the following notes may be of interest : — On March 20th,
1880, it was copied into the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle
(according to a note) from "The Goldfinch, "a collection
of songs published in Edinburgh in 1777. In 1806 we find
it in the " Northern Minstrel," published by Marshall, of
Gateshead, and there we get a glimpse behind "Prim-
rose," the signature under which the song originally
appeared. Marshall has .it— the spelling modernised —
" ' Jesmond Mill, ' supposed by P. Hodgson, late of New-
castle." In Bell's "Rhymes of Northern Bards," 1812,
the song also appears, and there "supposed by P.
Hodgson" gives place to "by Phil. Hodgson." After
this it appears with that signature in several local col-
lections. "The Ladies' Own Memorandum Book," in
which the song first appeared, according to Mr. Bell, was
printed by S. Hodgson. TYNESIDE.
JOHN FORSTER.
A London journal has lately related a story about a
celebrated native of Tyneside which is worth quoting.
Many years ago, says the writer, a certain youth at
Newcastle was very much indisposed to turn his mind to
the business which his mature advisers understood and
appreciated, but yearned to distinguish himself in
journalism and literature. To him said a local sage one
day, "You're just like a boy I knew whose father was
a butcher here, and had one of the best businesses in
the place. Do you think he'd follow his father, and be
a butcher too, and make himself a name ? Not him ;
nothing would do for him but to go to London, and take
up with newspapers and stuff. Trust my word, my lad,
or you'll come to the same end. His name was John
Forster, and I've never heard tell o' him since." " But,"
said the reprimanded boy, eager to show his knowledge,
Mr. Forster is a great roan. Ff» has written the ' Liff
A DURHAM COLLIERY EXPLOSION 182
YEARS AGO.
I take the following rather quaint account of a colliery
explosion, which took place over one hundred and eighty
years ago, from the " Transactions of the Royal Society of
London." It is significant that, although the catastrophe
occurred atFatfield, in the county of Durham, it is located
as "near Newcastle." The account is headed :—" Con-
cerning a Colliery that was blown up near Newcastle.
By the Rev. Dr. Arthur Charle.tt :> :—
On Wednesday, the 18th day of August, 1708, at Fatfield,
in the parish of Chester-le-Street, about 3 o'clock in the
morning, by the sudden eruption of a violent tire, which
discharged itself at the mouths of three pits with as great
a noise as the firing of cannon, or the loudest claps of
thunder, 69 persons were destroyed in an instant. Three
of them, viz., two men and a woman, were blown quite up
from the bottom of the shaft, 57 fathom deep, into the air,
to a considerable distance from the mouth of the pit ; one
of the men with his head almost off, and the woman with
her bowels hanging about her heels. The machine by
which the coals were drawn up, and it is of a great
weight, was blown off by the force of the blast; and
what is more wonderful, the fish which were in the rivulet
that runs 20 yards under the level, and at as great a dis-
tauoe from the mouth of one of the pits, were in great
numbers taken up dead, floating on the water, by several
of the inhabitants.
H. W. R., Seaham Harbour.
JOSEPH GLYNN, F.R.S.
The following portion of the Life of Joseph Glynn,
relating to his career as an author, was omitted from
page 251 :—
To the literature of Mechanical Engineering, Mr.
Glynn contributed several valuable books and papers. In
February, 1836, he received the gold (Isis) medal of the
Society of Arts for a paper on his method of applying
steam power to the draining of fens and marshes — a con-
tribution to the Society's "Transactions" which was
translated into French, German, and Dutch, and had a
wide circulation. He became a member of the society
shortly afterwards, and in later life was honoured by a
seat in the Council, and the office of vice-president. In
the "Transactions" of the Institute of Civil Engineers,
of which learned body he became a member in 1828, are
the following productions of his pen : —
1839.— Description of a Sawing Machine for cutting oft Railway
Bars.
1840.— On the Use of Mica as a substitute for Glass in the Win-
dows of Workshops.
1844.— On the Causes of the Fractures of the Axles of Railway
Carriages.
1847.— A Review of the Plans which have been proposed for con-
necting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by a Navigable Canal
185L — On the Isthmus of Suez and the Canals of Egypt.
In the fourth and fifth volumes of " Papers on Subjects
connected with the Duties of the Corps of Royal
Engineers," are elaborate contributions of Mr. Glynn's
upon the subject of cranes for the Royal Dockyards, and
he drew up a memorandum for the Lords of the
Admiralty, showing the advantage of applying the screw
propeller to ships of war. For Weale's Rudimentary
Series of Science Manuals he wrote two books, entitled : —
The Construction of Cranes, and other Machinery for Raising
Heavy Bodies, for the Erection of Buildings, and for Hoisting
Goods.
The Power of Water as applied to drive Flour Mills, and to give
Motion to Turbines and other Hydrostatic Engines.
Upon the occasion of his obtaining the Isis Medal of
the Society of Arts, the Literary and Philosophical
Juljl
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
331
Society of Newcastle, in whose proceedings as a youth he
had been an active participant, elected Mr. Glynn an
honorary member, and he was the first person so honoured.
Two years later he was elected a Fellow of the Royal
Society. RICHARD WELFORD.
$rrrtft=Cffimtrt>812ait& Rumour.
A CENSUS EXPERIENCE.
Enumerator (at Tantobie, on the Monday after Census
Day): "Got your paper filled up?" Jack: "Noa, aa
hevvent had time." Enumerator: "Let me have it and
I'll do it." Jack: "Aall reet, canny man." Enumerator:
" How many slept under your roof last night ?" Jack :
" Nebody ; we had a confinement !"
A DEAF WABDEN.
At the morning service of a large and fashionable
church in the North of England, its venerable rector, at
the termination of the service, announced that all those
having children to baptise were to bring them forward.
A warden, who was rather deaf, thinking that the
minister was announcing for sale the new prayer-books of
which he had charge, supplemented the announcement
by saying, " Aall them that hes nyen can be supplied
at 6d. each !"
"CANNY."
During the passage of a local steamer from the Thames
to the Tyne, a London gentleman, who was discussing a
political question with several of the passengers, was
accosted by his son, a lad of seven or eight summers, as
follows: — "Pa, what is canny?" "'Canny!' there is
no such word in the dictionary, my boy." " Oh, yes, pa,
there is ; because an old lady in the bunk next to ma's
keeps saying, 'Ma hinny, but aa it bad. Aa wish aa
wes in canny Newcassel agyen 1 ' "
THE WRONG PATIENT.
A servant girl went to a chemist's in Newcastle for
some castor oil, asking that it should be mixed with
something which would disguise its taste. " Do you like
soda-water ?" inquired the apothecary. The girl replied
that she did. Thereupon she was banded a glass of that
liquid, which she drank. But she still lingered in the
shop, and presently asked for the oil again, when the
chemist informed her that she had already taken it.
" My gracious," she cried, " aa wanted it for a lodger !"
THE HEAD OF THK HOUSE.
One of the workmen at a colliery situated a few miles
north of Newcastle was completely nonplussed with the
directions for filling up his census paper. So he took it
to his neighbour, and said to him : — "Lyukah heor, Jim;
gie's a hand wi' this confoonded thing." Jim at once saw
what was the matter. "Noo," he said, "ansorma ques-
tions. Forst — Hoo aad are ye?" " Thorty-fower, " was
the reply. "Noo, as regards the hoose, what are ye?"
"Oh! aa's the man." " Aa knaa that but what aa
want te knaa is — whe's the heed o' the hoose or the
family ?" " The wife, begox, the wife — not ine, onny-
way !"
=Cff ttittr i)
On the 9th of May, Mr. Matthew Kearney, J.P., D.L.,
formerly of the Ford, Lanchester, and latterly of Ells-
worth Terrace, Primrose Hill, London, died at Southsea.
The deceased, who was 76 years of age, was descended
from an old Roman Catholic family, and was a brother of
the late Very Rev. Francis Kearney, of the Brooms,
Lanchester, a Canon of St. Mary's Cathedral, Newcastle.
Mr. Joseph Walton, of West Mill Hills, Haydon
Bridge, chief partner in the firm of Lee Walton and Co.,
timber merchants, Langley Mills, died on the 10th of
May.
On the llth of May Lady Elizabeth Grey, widow of
Canon F. R. Grey, of Morpeth, and sister of the late
and aunt of the present Earl of Carlisle, died at Wool-
bedding, Midhurst, Sussex, the residence of her sister-in-
law, Lady Lanerton. The deceased lady acted in the
capacity ot bridesmaid at the marriage of the Queen on
the 10th of February, 1840.
Mr. Joseph Snowball, who was for many years Chief
Commissioner to the Duke of Northumberland, and land
agent to the Earl of Eidon and others of the landed
proprietors of Northumberland and Durham, died at
his residence, Seaton Burn House, on the 12th cf May, at
the age of 81 years. The deceased gentleman was a
magistrate for Northumberland, and a member of the
County Council, and held many other public offices.
On the 12th of May, at her seat, Ford Castle, North-
umberland, died Louisa, third Dowager Marchioness of
Waterford. The deceased lady, who was born in April,
1818, was the second daughter of Lord Stuartde Rothesay,
Minister at Brussels at the time of Waterloo. Her sister,
afterwards Lady Canning, of Indian fame, resembled her
in being a most rare type of female beauty. As a girl,
at the famous Eglinton Tournament, Lady Waterford
only escaped being proclaimed Queen of Beauty through
the force of an unwritten law, ruling that the honour be
borne by a married lady. At Eglinton she met for the first
time Henry, third Marquis of Waterford, to whom she
was married in 1842. They had no children. He was
killed in the hunting field near Curraghmore, Ireland, in
1859, and she left that country, making from this time
forward her lonely home between Ford Castle, the
dower-house "on the border," and Highcliffe, a Stuart
family place left to her by her mother, on the coast of
Hampshire. She did much for the improvement of both
places. At Ford the Castle was restored, the village
rebuilt, and the school-house decorated with masterly
frescoes of Bible subjects, painted by herself. (See
Monthly Chronicle, 1888, p. 130 ; 1891, p. 127.)
Mr. Richard Wright, a famous racehorse breeder of the
High Lodge Stud, Richmond, Yorkshire, died on the
12th of May, at the age of 86 years.
The death was announced on the 13th of May of Mrs.
Harrison, widow of Mr. T. E. Harrison, the eminent
railway engineer. She was a daughter of the late Rev.
John Collinson, once rector of Gateshead.
On the 14th of May the remains of the late Mr. Robert
332
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I Jv
\ 18!
Smith, boot and shoemaker, and a noted violin player,
were interred in Morpeth churchyard.
The death was announced, on the 15th of May, of
" Shute " Ord, an eccentric character in the city of Dur-
ham.
On the 19th of May, Mrs. Mary Drummond, widow
of Mr. Thomas Drummond, shipbuilder, and a lady of
highly cultured mind, died at Waterloo, Blytb, in the
87th year of her age.
A writer in the Newcastle Daily Chronicle of the 21st of
May recorded the death of Mr. Alexander Gordon, an old
and well-known second-hand bookseller in the Newcastle
Market. Mr. Gordon was an M.A. of Aberdeen Uni-
versity.
On the 20th of May, the Rev. Augustus Frederic Dash-
wood Ruxton, vicar of Well, Bedale, died in London.
The deceased gentleman was the eldest son of the late
Rev. F. W. Ruxton, rector of Willington, in the county
of Durham.
Mr. Thomas Dixon Stephenson, a retired gentleman,
residing at Willington, Durham, in the public affairs of
which place he took a prominent part, died on the 21st of
May.
On the 22nd of May, Dr. McCuaig, police sureeon and
consulting physician to the North Biding Infirmary,
Middlesbrough, died from typhoid fever and congestion
of the lungs. The deceased gentleman was at one time
the finest golf player in the North of England.
Mr. Thomas Bowman, a well-known auctioneer, died
at Darlington on the 23rd of May, at the age of 70
years.
At the age of 67 years, Mr. Henry Barry, shipowner
and steamship manager, having extensive connections
with the North of England, also died on the 23rd of May,
at Whitby.
On the 22nd of May, at the advanced age ot 81 years,
Mrs. Emery, relict of Robert Emery, printer, died at
her home in Pilgrim Street, Newcastle. Her husband was
born in Edinburgh in 1794, but came to Newcastle at an
early age, and served his apprenticeship as a printer in
company with the late Thomas Binney, the eminent Non-
conformist minister. Mr. Emery became famous as
the writer of several clever humourous songs.
Mr. George Edward Steele, watchmaker and jeweller
at Chester-le-Street, who took an active interest in local
affairs, died on the 25th of May. He was 70 years of
age.
On the 27th of May, the death was announced, at the
age of 41, of Mr. A, T. Shillinglaw, a sculptor of consider-
able local distinction, at Gateshead.
The death was announced, on the 28th May. of Mr. John
Gibson, shipowner, Blyth. The deceased belenged to an
old family connected with that port.
On the 28th of May, Sir Horace St. Paul, Bart., died
at Ewart Park, near Wooler, Northumberland. The
deceased was born in 1812, and succeeded his father in
1840. He was High Sheriff in 1851. In receiving, in that
year, one of her Majesty's Judges of Assize, he placed at
the service of his lordship an old britzka without heraldic
ornaments, and all the other paraphernalia usually attend-
ant on such ceremonies were dispensed with. The
deceased baronet married a daughter of Mr. G. A. Grey
of Milfield, and left an only daughter heiress to his pro-
perties in Northumberland and Staffordshire. Sir Horace
St. Paul was a Count of the Holy Roman Empire.
Miss Allan, a well-known member ot the Society of
Friends in the county of Durham, died at Bishop Auck-
land on the 30th of May.
On the 1st of June, the death was announced at Sunder-
land of Mr. George Foreman, who, many years ago, was
identified with shipping at that port. He was 77 years of
age.
Mr. Sebastian Henderson, of the firm of Messrs. S. and
R. Henderson, tea dealers, Newcastle, died on the 1st of
June. The deceased, who for over half a century had
been associated with the business and social life of the
city, was 74 years of age.
Mr. Robert Boston, fish-curer, and one of the oldest
members of the Berwick Town Council, died on the 2nd
of June.
Mr. F. W. Mildred, coal and lime merchant, and a
member of the Middlesbrough Town Council, died on tha
6th of June.
On the same day the death took place of Mr. Robert
Summers, flour merchant and grocer, and a member of
the Morpeth Town Council.
At the early age of 21, Mr. Septimus L. Reid, son of
Mr. Andrew Reid, the well-known printer and publisher,
Newcastle, died on the 8th of June.
On the 9th of June, Mr. William Clough, who for many
years acted as postmaster of Longhorsley, and was a cele-
brated trainer of greyhounds, died in the 77th year of his
age.
Hecrrrtt at
©cramncejf.
MAY.
11. — At a meeting held at Alnwick, under the presi-
dency of Mr. Albert Grey, a committee was appointed to
raise the necessary funds for the erection of a memorial to
the late Duchess of Northumberland.
— George Dixon, moulder, was fatally stabbed at South
Shields, and a woman named Harriet Harleigh, who had
been living with him, was apprehended on a charge of
having caused his death. She was committed for trial on
the capital charge by the coroner's warrant and by the
borough magistrates.
12. — The order of the justices of the county of Durham
committing Mr. Samuel Storey, M.P., for trial on a
charge of perjury in connection with the proceedings aris-
ing out of the evictions at Silksworth, was quashed by the
Court of Queen's Bench, on the ground that the borough
magistrates had been improperly refused permission by
the county magistrates to join in hearing the case. On
the 19th, a summons against Mr. Storey upon the same
charge was granted by the Sunderland borough magis-
trates.
— The will of the late Mr. Joseph Bainbridge Fife, of
Banks Terrace, Croft, Durham, was sworn at £28,444 17s.
13. — The Rev. S. Friedeberg was presented by the
Hebrew community in Newcastle with an illuminated
address and a gold hunting watch on his leaving the city
for Liverpool.
— Dr. G. W. Weir was elected medical officer of health
for the borough of Jarrow.
— In the church of St. John the Baptist, at AInmouth,
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
333
Mr. John Fleming Morrison, son of Mr. Robert Morri-
son, late of Newcastle, and grandson of the late Mr. John
Fleming, solicitor, was married to Miss Florence Emma
Stanton, second daughter of Mr. Cornelius Harrison
Stanton, of Newcastle.
14.. — A recognition meeting was held in the Church of
the Divine Unity, Newcastle, in connection with the
induction of the Rev. Sydney Street to the pastorate of
the Unitarian Mission at Byker. The charge to the new
pastor was delivered by his father, the Rev. J. C. Street,
of Birmingham, and formerly of Newcastle.
—At a sale of books in London, Surtees's "History of
the County of Durham " was sold for £38, and Hodgson's
"History of Northumberland " realised £43.
15.— It was announced that Mr. J. L. Hedley, of
Chester, had been appointed Inspector of Mines for the
Newcastle-upoc-Tyne District in succession to the late
Mr. Willis.
16. — Through the kindness of the Rev. R. Stewart
Wright, who had recently returned from the Tanganyika
district of Central Africa, a valuable and interesting
collection of ethnological objects from that district was
presented to the Natural History Museum in Newcastle.
— Owing to the somewhat improved condition of the
coal trade, the colliery owners of Northumberland with-
drew the demand, which they had made, of a reduction
of 3| per cent, in the wages of the men.
—The annual convention of the Irish National League
of Great Britain was opened in Newcastle, under the
presidency of Mr. J. F. Xavier O'Brien, M.P. On the
following day two public meetings were held, one in the
Gaiety Theatre, and the other in the Lecture Room. The
delegates were, on the third day, treated to a trip down
the river, and the proceedings concluded with a dinner in
the Grand Assembly Rooms, the chair being occupied by
Mr. T. D. Sullivan, M.P.
The Rev. L. Mendelsohn, from Melbourne, Australia,
entered upon duty as pastor of the Jewish Synagogue in
Newcastle.
—Mr. Arthur Rousbey's English Opera Company com-
menced a series of performances in the Town Hall,
Newcastle.
17.— An extraordinary meteorological phenomenon, the
season of the year being considered, was witnessed
to-day (Whit-Sunday). Snow and hail showers fell in
Newcastle and throughout the North of England at
intervals during the day, and the cold was exceedingly
keen. The snowfall reached a depth of half-an-inch at
Prudhoe, and the temperature at mid-day was 50 degrees.
The llth and 12th of the month were, on the other hand,
abnormally warm, the thermometer, exposed to the full
glare of the sun on the latter day, registering 116 degrees.
— Mr. H. M. Stanley, the eminent explorer, delivered
to a large audience m the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, his
new lecture, entitled " Twenty -Three Years in Africa."
—The Rev. Charles Blackett Carr was inducted as the
first Vicar of Longfrainlington with Brinkburne, on its
separation from Felton and its formation into a new
ecclesiastical district.
18. — After a lapse of two years, a horse procession,
under the auspices of the society formed on the occasion
of the Stephenson centenary in 1881, took place in New-
castle, Whit-Monday being, as usual, chosen for the
display. The total number of entries was 352. The
animals were divided into 17 classes, one of which was
devoted to pit ponies, the prizes in this department being
the gift of Uncle Toby of the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle.
In the afternoon, the prizes were presented in the People's
Palace by the Mayoress, Mrs. J. Barker Ellis, the chair
being occupied by the Mayor (Mr. Jos. Baxter Ellis),
who is also president of the society. A beautiful silver
salver was, as a memento of the occasion, presented to the
Mayoress. At a later hour, the Mayor entertained those
who had taken a leading part in the arrangements to
dinner at the Crown Hotel ; and, in the course of the
evening, his Worship was presented, on behalf of the
subscribers, with a magnificent candelabra and epergne.
On the same day, similar processions were held at Sunder -
land and West Hartlepool, and on th« 25th, after a lapse
of five years, at Jarrow.
— The Right Rev. Dr. Wilkinson, Bishop of Hexham
and Newcastle, laid the foundation stone of a new Roman
Catholic Church at Carlisle.
— The members of the Tyneside Geographical Society
and their friends, to the number of about 200, held their
first excursion for the season, visiting Rothbury and
Cragside,
— Several friendly and other societies commenced their
Whit-week meetings to-day. The Annual Movable
Delegation of the Order of Druids was opened in New-
castle by a reception of delegates, the active business
commencing in the Northumberland Hall, in the same
city, on the following day, under the presidency of the
Grand Master, Brother James Neal, of Newark-on-Trent.
Mr. Robert Mellor was chosen Grand Master for the
ensuing year. The sittings of the Annual Movable Dele-
gation of the Ancient Order of Free Gardeners were held
in the Irish Institute, Newcastle. The annual general
meeting of the delegates of the National United Order of
Free Gardeners was held at North Shields, under the
presidency of the Grand Master, Bro. George Venables,
Sandbach district. Bro. J. J. Wilson, Boldon district,
was elected Grand Master for the ensuing year. The
triennial conference of the Amalgamated Society of
Engineers took place at Sunderland, Mr. James Hender-
son, of that town, being in the chair.
—A united gathering of the contributors to the Weekly
Chronicle, the first of its kind, was held in Newcastle.
Between four and five hundred ladies and gentlemen from
various parts of the country took part in the interesting
proceedings, which extended over the entire day. (See
p. 311.)
19. — It was announced that the Queen had been pleased
to approve the nomination of the Right Rev. Dr. William
Dalrymple Maclagan, Bishop of Lichfield, to the Arch-
bishopric of York. His lordship, who was born in Edin-
burgh in 1826, commenced life as a soldier, retiring with
the rank of lieutenant in 1852. The right rev. gentleman
was ordained deacon in 1856 and priest in 1857.
20. — At the village of Fawdon, near Gosforth, Mrs.
Stoker (the wife of Mr. W. Stoker, coal hewer), was
delivered of three sons.
— The Free Libraries Act was adopted at a public
meeting at Hartlepool.
— During a brief thunderstorm at Alnwick, the light-
ning struck the chimney of the armoury magazine and
stores of the 3rd Northumberland Fusiliers, demolishing it.
21. — In the New Assembly Rooms, Barras Bridge,
Newcastle, Mrs. Albert Barker, of London, gave a series
of recitals in aid of Dame Margaret's Home for Waifs
and Strays, Washington.
— In continuation of the recitals in connection with the
334
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
opening of the new organ in St. Nicholas' Cathedral,
Newcastle, a performance was given by Mr. Samuel
Reay, Mus Bac., organist of the Parish Church, Newark.
(Seep. 325.)
22.— A letter from the Rev. Dr. R. E. Hooppell, Byers
Green Rectory, Spennymoor, appeared in The Times,
stating that, within the past few days, a Roman altar had
been unearthed by the workmen of Mr. J. E. Newby, of
Binchester Hall, near Bishop Auckland, who was having
water pipes laid through the heart of the old Roman town
at that plnce. The altar was of largo size. 4ft. Sin. in
or Transmarine. Mothers, Pomponius Donatus, a Bene-
ficiary of the Consul, in gratitude for the safety of himself
height, by 1ft. 2iin. in breadth, and 1ft. O^in. in depth,
and it was in excellent preservation. It had, sculptured
on its sides, the four principal sacrificial implements — the
"securis," or axe, the " culter," or knife, the "patera," or
dish, and the "praefericulum," or jug. Besides this it
has n long inscription, the lettering of which was perfect.
It ran as follows :—
I o M
E T MATKIB
VS OLLOTO
TIS SIVB TKA
N8M ARINIS
POMPONIVS
D O N A T V S
BF COS PRO
8ALVTE 8VA
KT SVOKVM
VSLA
Expanded the inscription reads: — "Jovi Optimo Maximo,
«t Matribus Ollototis, sive Transmarinis, Pomponius
Donatus, Beneficiarius Consulis, Pro Salute Sua et Suornm,
Votum solvit Hbenti animo." In English it signifies—
"To Jupiter, the Best and Greatest, and to the Ollototian,
and those belonging to him, has paid his vow with a
willing mind."
— A large shoal of porpoises were seen at the mouth of
the Tyne.
—The Russian Princess Tenigcheff, with her young
son, paid a visit to Newcastle.
23. — It was found, as the result of the official ascertain-
ment in connection with the North of England Iron
Trade, that there would be a reduction of 3d. per ton on
puddling, and 2i per cent, on all other forge and mill
wares, to take effect from the 30th of May.
—A new Primitive Methodist Chapel was opened at
Throckley.
24.— A new Beth-Hamedrush (House of Learning), in
Wcatgate Road, Newcastle, was opened by the president
of the Hebrew congregation.
25. — During a severe storm, the steamer Napier ran
ashore on thp Black Middens at the mouth of the Tyne,
but was eventually floated and taken up the river.
26.— St. Aidan's Parochial Hall, Newcastle, which had
been erected at a cost of £1.000, Mr. Westmacott contri-
buting £700 of the amount, was publicly opened, the chair
being occupied by Mr. J. M. Falkner.
—Mr. Herbert Gladstone. M.P., and son of the Right
Hon. W. K Gladstone, M.P., addressed a public meet-
ing, under the auspices of the Durham County Liberal
Federation, at Sunderland.
— An Australian liner, named the Wooloomooloo, was
.Inly 1
1891./
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
335
launched from the Neptune Shipyard of Messrs. Wigham
Richardson and Co., Low Walker, the vessel being the
eighth screw-steamer built by the same firm to the order
of Mr. W. Lund, of London.
— It transpired that the portion of the library of the
late Bishop Lightfoot left to the University of Durham
consisted of about 1,700 volumes.
— Mr. Watson Askew-Robertson and the Hon. Mrs.
Askew-Robertson were presented with handsome por-
traits in oil of themselves by the members'of the Pallins-
burn Reading Boom.
27. — At the fifty-second annual meeting of the friends
of the Newcastle Royal Asylum for the Blind, a report
from the committee recommending the sale of the present
premises in Northumberland Street, and the erection of a
suitable building in the suburbs, was unanimously
adopted.
—The Rev. Warren Trevor, Rector of Machynlleth,
Wales, nominated the Dowager Marchioness of London-
derry as his churcDwarden, and her ladyship accepted the
office.
— An inquiry, ordered by the Home Office, was held on
board the Wellesley Training Ship by Colonel Inglis, her
Majesty's Inspector of Reformatories and Industrial
Schools, and Mr. Henry Rogers, assistant-inspector, into
the system of punishment pursued on board that vessel
for breaches of discipline.
28. — In the Lovaine Hall, Barras Bridge, Newcastle,
Professor Aiminius Vambery, the celebrated Eastern
traveller, delivered a lecture, under the auspices of the
Tyneside Geographical Society, on "Modern Asian Tra-
vellers. "
—The first meeting of the Robson Trust was held in the
Guildhall, Newcastle. The charity was the outcome of
the liberality of James and Mary Elizabeth Robson, who
carried on business some years ago as drapers and
milliners in Mosley Street, and who left £11,000 to be
devoted towards the maintenance of widows or elderly
daughters of Newcastle or Gateshead tradesmen who
might be in necessitous circumstances. Trustees were
appointed, and Mr. Joseph Shepherdson was elected
chairman of the fund.
29. — The annual meeting of the Midland branch of the
British Dental Association was held at Darlington.
30. — The twenty-first annual meeting of subscribers to
the Central Exchange News Room and Art Gallery was
held in the reading-room, the chair being occupied by the
Sheriff of Newcastle, Mr. Stephen Quin. Mr. Charles
Barkas, the junior lessee, reported the recent formation
of a chess club in connection with the gallery, Mr. G. C.
Heywood, chess editor of the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle,
being chosen as president.
—The second annual horse procession took place at
Berwick.
31 — Service was conducted for the last time, as a pri-
vate place of worship, in the Lady Chapel, Seaton Dela-
val. The building was thereafter used as the parish
church of Seaton Delaval.
— The first of the summer season's series of Sunday
sacred concerts was given in the Rockcliff Cricket Field,
Whitley, by Mr. Amers's Exhibition Band.
JUNE.
1. — Mr. W. 8. Daglish, solicitor, was entertained to a
banquet, and presented with a handsomely illuminated
address, in recognition of his having completed twenty-
five years of his connection with Jarrow in the capacity
of Clerk to the Local Board, Town Clerk, and Magis-
trates' Clerk.
— Inspector Edward Harris was appointed Chief-
Constable of Gateshead, in succession to Mr. John
Elliott, resigned. Mr. Harris had been 17 years in the
police force of the borough, and had passed through every
grade of the service.
—The will of the late Mr. Thomas Wilkinson, of Rose
Dene, Sunderland, and Alwinton, Northumberland, was
sworn, and the personalty was valued at £45,124.
— David Eadington, 15 years of age, son of Mr. James
Eadington, manager of the Blyth and Cowpen Gas
Works, was drowned while bathing at Blyth.
2. — A destructive fire broke out in a joiners' shop con-
nected with Messrs. J. T. Eltringham and Co.'s ship-
building and boiler-making establishment at Stone Quay,
East Holborn, South Shields.
— A marriage was solemnized in Holy Trinity Church,
Stockton, between Mr. Edward Jones Trustram, son of
the late Mr. W. P. Trustram, of Tunbridge Wells and
London, and Miss Florence Elizabeth Appleton, eldest
surviving daughter of the Mayor and Mayoress of Stock-
ton, Mr. and Mrs. R. H. Appleton.
3.— At a meeting of the Newcastle City Council, a
report of the Town Improvement Committee, recommend-
ing the provision of lodging-houses under Part IIL of the
Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, was unani-
mously adopted.
— At the monthly meeting of the Norham and Island-
shire Petty Sessions, there were no cases for trial, and
the chairman (Mr. Selby, Pawston), was presented with a
pair of white kid gloves.
— The annual garden party given by the Vicar of New-
castle (Rev. Canon Lloyd) was held in Jesmond Dene.
— John Grehan, aged 47, a draughtsman, from Carlisle,
died in Newcastle Infirmary from the effects of injuries
alleged to have been received by being knocked down at
Blaydon on the 14th of May, and a verdict of manslaughter
was afterwards returned against a man named Felix
Wood.
— It was stated that, as the outcome of the late census,
the population of Newcastle had been found to be 186,300,
being an increase in the ten years of 28'2 per cent. The
enumeration of Sunderland showed a total of 130,900
inhabitants, or an increase of 12'3 per cent., but there
were complaints of defective census-taking in the case
that town.
4. — William Middlemiss, and another man named
Brown, who had gone to sea to fish, were drowned by the
upsetting of their boat off the Tyne. On the same day,
David Dnas, also a fisherman, was accidentally drowned
in Shields harbour.
— The singular discovery was made, while the oil-painted
portraits of Charles II. and James II., the property of the
Corporation of Newcastle, were in process of being cleaned,
that the head and part of the bust of each had, at some
time or other, been cut out, and afterwards so neatly and
skilfully restored that the mutilation had until now
escaped detection.
— As the result of a poll of the ratepayers of Hartlepool,
it was found that there had voted for the adoption of the
Free Libraries Act 1,418, and against it 478.
— Chopwell School Board election took place, Mr. Oliver
being at the head of the poll.
— The Rev. Jasper B. Sinclair was ordained and inducted
336
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
to the pastorate of Church Street Presbyterian Church,
Berwick.
5. — A verdict of manslaughter was returned by the
coroner's jury in Newcastle against Benjamin Pearson for
having caused the death of Thomas Feargus O'Connor
Townshend, by stabbing him in a public-houae on the
2nd inst.
6 — A large number of workmen were suspended at the
shipbuilding yard of Sir C. M. Palmer and Co., Jarrow,
owing to a dispute between the fitters and plumbers as to
the class of work which each should execute.
— The under-managera, fore-overmen, back-overmen,
and masters-shifters connected with the Northumberland
Coal Trade resolved to form themselves into an association.
— The foundation stone was laid of a new Primitive
Methodist Church and Schools in Bank Street, Askew
Road, Gateshead.
8. — A handsome drinking fountain, the gift of Mr.
Adam Robertson, and erected on Bondgate Hill, Alnwick,
was unveiled by Earl Percy.
9.— A new Roman Catholic Church, capable of accom-
modating 500 persons, was opened at South Stockton.
— The residential estate of Broadwood and Hamsteels,
in the county of Durham, was sold to Mr. T. Taylor
Smith, for £8,500.
— The annual meeting of the Incorporated Gas Institute
commenced at Carlisle, under the presidency of Mr.
Joseph Hepworth, manager of the Carlisle Corporation
Gasworks.
10. — It was announced that the King of Sweden and
Norway had conferred the order of Wasa of the first
degree upon Mr. Thomas Bell, ex-Mayor of Newcastle,
and a member of the firm of Pyman, Bell & Co.
— A cycling exhibition was opened in the Aquarium at
Tynemouth by his Honour Judge Digby Seymour.
©trar rentes!.
MAY.
11. — A native policeman attempted to assassinate the
Czarewitch of Russia near Kioto, Japan.
16. — Mr. John Bratiano, the Roumanian statesman,
died.
17.— Serious disturbances between Irish demonstrators
occurred at Kanturk, county Cork.
18. — Lord Edward Cavendish, M.P., died at Devon-
shire House, Piccadilly, London, in his 53rd year.
— Queen Natalie was expelled from Servia by the
Government.
—Prince Angao Lena, known as Senaputti, was arrested
in connection with the massacre of British subjects in
Manipur.
19. — The mutilated remains of a boy named Nicholas
Martin were found in the Liverpool Docks. A man
named John Conway was arrested in connection with the
affair, and at a coroner's inquest subsequently held a
verdict of wilful murder was returned against him.
20. — Lord Salisbury was presented with the freedom of
the city of Glasgow.
21. — The Queen visited Derby and laid the foundation
stone of a new Infirmary.
22 —Sir Robert Nicholas Fowler, Bart., M.P., died.
23. — News was received that serious fighting had taken
place between an English expedition and the Portuguese
on the river Masheke, in South-East Africa.
—A fire occurred at 38, Egerton Gardens, London,
the residence of Lord Romilly, who upset a paraffin lamp.
His lordship and two of his servants died from suffocation.
24. — M. Turpin, the inventor of melinite, and M.
Tripone, who was employed in the manufacture of the new
explosive,*were arrested in Paris on a charge of having
sold the secret of the manufacture to the firm of Sir
William Armstrong & Co., of Newcastle.
26. — A fire broke out at the petroleum refinery at Conde-
kerque, Dunkirk. Teu persons were killed, and numerous
others severely injured.
29. — The result of a Parliamentary election for North
Bucks was declared as follows : — Mr. H. S. Leon (Glad-
stonian Liberal), 5,013; Mr. Evelyn Hubbard (Conserva-
tive), 4,682.
30. — Serious disturbances arose at Bilbao in connection
with the dispersal of a meeting of strikers by tbe
authorities.
30. — The Orient express from Constantinople to Paris
was wrecked by brigands near Adrianople. Four first-
class passengers were captured, a ransom of £8,000 being
afterwards claimed for their release.
31. — It was reported that, during a gale on Lake Iluieu,
Russia, nineteen vessels were lost with all hands.
JUNE.
1. — The result of a Parliamentary election at Paisley
was thus declared :— Mr. William .JJimn (Gladstonian
Liberal), 4,145; Mr. K. M. McKerrell (Unionist), 2,807.
— Sir William Gordon Cumming brought an action
against Mrs. Arthur Wilson and her son Mr. Arthur
Stanley Wilson, together with three guests who had
visited their residence at Tranby Croft, near York, to re-
cover damages for slander, the defendants having charged
him with cheating at cards on September 8 and 9, 1890.
Amung the witnesses called was the Prince of Wales, who
bad acted as banker at the game of baccarat in which tbe
alleged cheating took place. Sir Edward Clarke, the
Solicitor-General, in summing up for the defence, delivered
a most powerful speech. After seven days' hearing, the
jury returned a verdict in favour of the defendants.
Much excitement followed, the conduct of the parties to
the transaction, especially that of the Prince of Wales,
being made the subject of great censure in the press of
the country.
5. — An action brought by Miss Josephine Smith, who
claimed £20,000 under an alleged covenant in a will of Mr.
J. W. Park, was dismissed by Mr. Justice Homer in the
Chancery Division.
6. — A general strike of the drivers and conductors of
omnibuses was commenced in London at midnight. A
settlement was effected on the 12th.
— Sir John A. Macdonald, Prime Minister of Canada,
died, aged 76. The deceased was born in Scotland, and
emigrated at an early age with his father to Canada.
7. — Several people were killed by an earthquake in the
province of Verona, Italy.
10 — The mutilated body of a little girl named Barbara
Waterhouse was discovered in Leeds.
— News was received that the members of a French
expedition to Lake Tchad, Africa, bad been massacred by
natives of the Matonga country.
Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling-on-Tyne.
tlbe /Ifoontbl£ Chronicle
OF
NORTH-COUNTRY*LORE*AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 54.
AUGUST, 1891.
PRICE GD.
in the fJ0rtfc.
| HE North of England was the scene of a
formidable rebellion which broke out in the
twelfth year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth
(1569). The re-establishment of the Re-
formed faith shortly after the Queen's accession had caused
much dissatisfaction there. The old order of things,
indeed, seemed passing away; but there were many
thousands of Englishmen throughout Yorkshire, Lanca-
shire, Durham, Northumberland, and the other Northern
Counties, still sincerely attached to the religion of their
ancestors.
The arrival in England of that most unfortunate of
queens, Mary of Scotland, who was at once a devout
Catholic and the nearest heir to the English crown, gave
the discontent of the Catholics a definite aim and purpose.
A series of intrigues was therefore commenced, with a
view not only to secure the quiet succession of the Queen
of Scots on Elizabeth's demise, but to invest her with ad-
ditional dignity by an honourable marriage.
The Duke of Norfolk was the only English peer who at
that time enjoyed the highest title of nobility ; and as
there were then no princes of the blood, he was beyond
comparison the first subject in England, owing to the
splendour of his family, the opulence of his fortune, and
the extent of his persona) influence. His grandfather and
father had long been regarded as the leaders of the
Catholics, and this hereditary attachment, joined to the
alliance of blood, had procured him the friendship of the
most considerable men of that party ; but as be hud been
educated among the Reformers, and was sincerely attached
to their principles, he enjoyed the rare felicity of being
popular with both factions in the State. The scheme now
set on foot was to bring about a marriage between
Norfolk, who was a widower and of a suitable age, and the
beautiful and accomplished Queen of Scots, who was then
imprisoned at Tutbury, under the custody of the Earl of
Shrewsbury.
This match was proposed to the most considerable
of the English nobility, and among the rest to the
Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, both of
whom were Catholics, and very powerful in the
North. The plan was likewise communicated to the
French and Spanish Courts, which warmly encouraged it.
The Earl of Leicester. Elizabeth's favourite, undertook to
break the matter to her Majesty ; but before he could find
an opportunity to do so, inklings of it had come to her ear
by other hands, not in the most pleasant shape ; and she
was thrown into so violent a passion by the intelligence
that all hope of getting her consent was dispelled.
The Duke of Norfolk, when the Queen taxed him with
it as almost an act of treason, essayed to pacify her by a
sneer, glancing at the fate of Mary's first husband, and
affecting to prefer his own proud position, as an English
nobleman, to that of king of so poor and miserable a
realm as Scotland ; but he did not succeed in reassuring
her. On the contrary, he was committed to the Tower
with several of his friends. Lesley, Bishop of Ross, the
Queen of Scots' ambassador, was examined as to what he
knew of the affair, and confronted with Norfolk, before
the Council, in order to get at the truth. Arundel,
Throgmorton, and Lumley were also taken into custody.
The Queen of Scots herselt was removed to Coventry ; all
access to her was, during some time, strictly prohibited ;
and Viscount Hereford was joined to the Earls of Shrews-
bury and Huntingdon in the office of guarding her.
In the meantime, a rumour had been diffused in the
22
338
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/An Km t
1891.
North of an intended rebellion, the leaders of which, it
was stated, were to be the two earls above-named.
Both these noblemen were in their way remarkable men.
Thomas Percy, Earl of Northumberland, was the seventh
who had borne the title. He is the Blandamount of
Spenser's "Fairy Queen." His father, Sir Thomas Percy,
had taken part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, or Aske's
Rebellion, in 1536-7, and paid the last penalty of the law
for doing so on the scaffold at Tyburn. The earl was,
though by no means a craven, constitutionally no warrior.
About ten years before the time we write of, he had been
superseded in the wardenship of the Middle March. He
was, therefore, not very well disposed towards Elizabeth's
Government. Being privy to the intended match
between the Queen of Scots and the Duke of Norfolk,
and having discovered to the duke a design formed by
Leonaid Dacre — one of the Dacres of Naworth— to get
Mary out of confinement, he grew sensible of his danger.
So he submitted himself to the Earl of Sussex, at that
time President of the North, begging the favour of his
mediation with Elizabeth in his behalf. Sussex promised
to do this ; but, shortly afterwards, learning that North-
umberland, Westmoreland, and others, were having fre-
quent secret interviews, he suspected there was something
wrong. Sussex sent for them, Camden tells us, and
" examined them on that head." They flatly denied the
existence of any plot, and made the moat solemn assevera-
tions that they were ready to venture their lives for the
Queen. However, jealousies of their behaviour increased
to such a degree that the Queen commanded Sussex to
summon them to London, there to clear themselves of
suspicion. The Lord-President seems to have wished to
get the earls into his power before further alsrming them,
for he sent them word that be was desirous of seeing them
at York, to "consult about the affairs of his province,"
"on what design it is hard to guess at," says Camden,
But the earls had already proceeded so far that they
dared not trust themselves in the hands of the Queen's
lieutenant. They had, it seems, prepared for a general
using — had communicated their designs to Mary and
her Ministers — had entered into correspondence with
the Duke of Alva, governor of the Low Countries—
liad obtained his promise of a reinforcement of troops,
and of a supply of arms and ammunition — and had pre-
vailed on him to send over Chiapino Vitelli, one of his
most famous captains, on pretence of adjusting some
differences with the Queen, but in reality with a view to
his putting himself at the head of the Northern rebels aa
soon as the plot should be ripe.
The second summons sent to the earls precipitated the
rising. They were far from being yet fully prepared, but
the secret would keep no longer. The Queen's letter,
containing her peremptory orders to appear presently
before her, " all excuses and pretences apart," left thetn
no alternative but unconditional submission, or the
immediate hoisting of the standard in the face of all risk.
As soon as the Earl of Northumberland, who was then
staying at his house at Topchffe, in Yorkshire, had read
this letter, Camden tells us that "between the softness of
his nature and the consciousness of his guilt — the bigotry
of his persuasion and the violence of bis resentment for a
conceived wrong done to him in relation to a rich copper
mine found upon his estate by virtue of the Queen's right
to royal mines — he seemed to labour under very great
suspense, whether it were best to apply to her Majesty or
to seek his safety by flight, or to turn rebel." But all
hesitation was soon as an end. For, as Camden relates,
"the earl's friends and servants who were ripe for
mischief and sedition, observing their master's irresolu-
tion, alarmed him at midnight with the surprising cry
that Oswald, Ulstrop, and Vaughan, his enemies, were
ready with arms and men to take him prisoner. They
entreated him not to betray himself, his friends, and the
faith of his ancestors ; and represented to him that
the Catholics were ready all England over to
assert the Romish religion, and that the bells
were being rung backwards, almost in every parish, to
encourage people to an insurrection. The earl, getting out
of bed, withdrew toalodge in his own park, near Topclilfe;
and the next night retired to Brancepeth, a seat of the
Earl of Westmoreland, where he found a great number
of people."
The Earl of Westmoreland, Charles Neville, theParidal
of the "Fairy Queen, " was constitutionally about as unfit to
lead an army as his cousin Northumberland was. But his
friends and vassals had gathered round him on receipt
of the Queen's letter. "To arms without delay! to
York and London ! " were the cries of the multitude.
Numbers of the common people came in to swell the
array, and the chiefs accordingly set up their standards.
The common banner of the rebels bad a crucifix woven
into it, with the representation of a chalice and of the five
wounds of Christ, with the name of Jesus wrote in the
middle. It was borne by an ancient gentleman, with
venerable white hair, Richard Norton, Esquire, of Norton
Conyers, who, with his nine sons, had devoted themselves
to the cause, and whose daughter, "a solitary maid," had
wrought it at the request of her father.
The insurgent earls lost no time in publishing a mani-
festo, in which they declared that they meant to attempt
nothing against the Queen, to whom they still professed
unshaken allegiance. Their sole aim, they said, was to
re-establish the religion of their ancestors, to remove evil
councillors from the royal presence, and to restore the
Duke of Norfolk and other faithful peers, then in prison
or disgrace, to their liberty and the Queen's favour. They
likewise declared their intention to have the succession
of the Crown firmly settled, and to obtain guarantees
against the destruction of the ancient nobility, and the
unwarrantable promotion of base-born persons by the
abuse of the royal prerogative.
The malcontents, when they set out from Brancepeth,
August 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
339
amounted to some fifteen hundred men only, but in their
progress southwards the number was swelled to about four
thousand foot and sixteen hundred horse. Their leaders
fully expected the concurrence of all the Catholics in Eng-
land, so soon as the news should be spread abroad that
they had raised the standard of the true cross. They had
sent letters to the Catholic nobility and gentry all round
the kingdom, advising them to come to their assistance ;
but most of the parties sent the letters they had received,
•with the bearers thereof, to the Queen.
When word was brought to Elizatuth that the earls had
actually risen, we are told that —
She turned her round about,
And like a royal queen she swore :
I will order them such a breakfast.
As never was seen in the North before.
Whether true or not, this is quite in character, for her
grace would sometimes swear at her bishops, let alone her
nobles, as well as box their ears. At any rate she was not
negligent in her own defence ; and as she had beforehand,
from her prudent and wise conduct, acquired the general
goodwill of such of her people as preferred a steady, firm
government to perpetual changes — the best security of a
sovereign — even the Catholics in most counties, content
in the meantime with the measure of toleration accorded
to them, disapproved of this hasty, ill-advised rising.
Indeed several of them went so far as to volunteer their
services to help to put it down. Norfolk himself, though
he had lost Elizabeth's favour, and lay in confinement,
was not wanting, so far as his situation permitted, in the
promotion of levies among hia friends and retainers.
Still, the danger was very great, and the alarm corre-
sponding. The Earl of Sussex wrote frankly to Elizabeth,
a short time before the actual outbreak, that "there was
not ten gentlemen in Yorkshire that did allow (approve)
her proceedings in the cause of religion. " Fortunately he
waa as brave as he was frank, and as cool as he was loyal,
and he held York stoutly, giving way to no panic ; while
Elizabeth deprived the revolt of its most active weapon by
hastily removing Mary to a new prison. It took all the
heart out of the more powerful men of the party, when
they learned that the Queen of Scots had been transferred
from Tutbury to Coventry, a distant and strongly fortified
town, in the midst of an unfriendly population, who would
give no material or moral aid, but the contrary, for her
deliverance.
The first efforts of the insurgents were directed against
Durham. Entering that city unopposed on the 13th
November, they caused high mass to be said once more
on the altar of St. Cuthbert.
From Durham, the main body moved southwards by
easy journeys, through Darlington, Richmond, Ripon,
and Boroughbridge, reinstating the old religion as they
went, their cry being to " reduce all causes of religion to
the old custom and usage. ' A party was detached to
occupy Hartlepool, in order that they might have a
harbour in which to receive the Spanish succours which
they looked for, but which never came. The furtLes'
point the rebels reached was Bramham or Clifford Moor,
near Weatherby, where, according to one ballad -writer,
they numbered thirteen thousand, which another raises to
sixteen thousand men, doubtless a gross exaggeration.
Such as their numbers were, it was an undisciplined
tumultuous force, totally unequal to cope with well-led
regular troops.
Meanwhile, Sir George Bowes was raising a power in
the bishopric in the rear of the insurgents. The Earl of
Sussex was in their front, with three thousand picked
men ; and a short way behind him was a much larger
array, under the Earl of Warwick, who had been busy
levying troops in the Midland Counties.
The original intention had been to proceed direct to
York, and thence to London, raising the country as they
went ; but, after a hasty council of war. held in a cottage
on the moor-edge, they resolved to fall back upon
Barnard Castle, the key to the natural fastnesses of
Teesdale, Weardale, and South Tynedale. Indeed there
was nothing else for it. For the two earls, who bad
spent their large incomes in old-fashioned hospitality, and
were on that account extremely well liked, were masters
of very little ready money. Northumberland had brought
only 8,000 crowns with him, and Westmoreland nothing
at all. So they had no means of maintaining their troops,
and were unable to undertake any long march away from
home. The mass of the Catholics, too, throughout the
country showed no disposition to join them. In these
circumstances Westmoreland, who, " though lie bore a
valiant name," had "a heart of a timid frame," began
so visibly to despond that many of his men slunk away
home. Barnard Castle was bravely held for eleven days
by Sir George Bowes, by whose orders the bridge over
the Tees had been broken down; and by the time the
rebels had taken the old castle, all chance of making head
against the royal troops was gone. Yet Northumberland,
as well as Norton, still kept up his courage, and remained
master of the field till the 13th of December, when thu
Earl of Sussex, who had marched out of York at the head
of 7,000 men, reached the Aucklands, while a still larger
army, under the command of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of
Warwick, was only a short way further off. The rebels,
therefore, fearing to be cut to pieces, broke up their camp
on the banks of the Tees, and fled northwards across the
moors, "in great consternation," to Hexhaui. From t,he
latter place they straggled in companies, over the dreary
Northumbrian and Cumbrian wastes, to Naworth Castle,
the ancient seat of the Dacres, within a few miles of Scot-
land. Here, receiving intelligence that they were closely
pursued by 12,000 men, under the Earl of Warwick and
Lord Clinton, the earls disbanded their remaining fol-
lowers, and made their escape separately across the
Debateable Land into Liddesdale and Teviotdale, be-
yond the reach of pursuit.
The bulk of the country folks who had joined the insur-
340
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f
Will.
pents had already fled to their several homes. When
Northumberland resolved to withdraw into Scotland, he
hoped to find an inviolable asylum with one Hector of
Harlaw— "a gentle Armstrong," the ballad calls him,
but really a Graham — who dwelt close to the Border on
the Scotch side. This man, who had been under great
obligations to the earl, had engaged his honour, it seems,
to be true to him. But the faithless wretch betrayed his
guest for a sum of money to the Earl of Moray, Regent
of Scotland, who sent him a prisoner to Lochleven Castle,
then belonging to William Douglas. Here he continued
till the accession, after Moray's assassination, of hi* old
friend James Douglas, Earl of Morton, to the Scottish
Kegenoy. Morton, forgetful of the kindnesses be had
received from Northumberland during his exile in Eng-
land, and intent only on pleasing Elizabeth, sold his
unhappy prisoner to the Queen of England, "for a
certain price agreed upon"; and the earl was accord-
ingly handed over at Berwick, in May, 1S72, to Lord
Hunsdon, Warden of the East March; Sir John Foster,
Warden of the Middle March, and Sir Robert Drury,
Governor of Berwick. He was thence carried to York,
and there suffered death, on the 22nd of August in the
same year, avowing in his last hour the Pope's supre-
macy, affirming the realm to be in a state of schism,
and stigmatising such Catholics as were the Queen's
obedient subjects as no better than heretics.
All the writers of the time (Caraden, Hollingshed,
Carleton, &c.) assure us that Hector of Harlaw, who
was " passing rich " before then, fell shortly after tbis
act of treachery into squalid poverty, and became so
infamous that to " take Hector's cloak " grew to be a
proverb, to express a worthless fellow who betrays his
friend.
The Earl of Westmoreland, more fortunate than his
brother earl, got safe over the Fells into Jed Forest,
where he found shelter at Ferniehirst, near Jedburgb,
with Sir Thomas Ker, one of the chiefs of the clan of that
name, who were devoted partisans of Queen Mary. He
persuaded the allied Kers and Scots to make an inroad
into England, with a view of exciting a quarrel between
the two kingdoms. But after they had committed great
ravages, they retreated to their own country, as was their
usual custom, to secure the spoil they had gathered. In
his wild sanctuary on the banks of the Jed, Westmore-
land remained till the autumn of 1570, when he set sail
from Aberdeen to seek the protection of Spain. He got
safe across the sea to Flanders, and there went through a
variety of adventures, which are detailed, with obvious
exaggeration and a large spice of pure fiction, in a con-
temporary ballad. He died in extreme old age, as Sir
Cuthbert Sharp has ascertained, in 1601.
The Nortons, four in number, the father and three sons.
Francis, Sampson, and George, were among the fugitives
demanded of the Regent of Scotland by Lord Sussex,
The elder Norton, who was seventy-one years of age when
he joined the insurrection, remained in hiding on the
Borders for some time. After that, the old man, with
Francis and Sampson, got over the water and partook of
Spanish bounty — miserably scant, it is true. William
Marmaduke and Christopher Norton were taken and
executed, with their uncle Thomas. What came of
George we do not know.
Sixty-six of the rebels were executed at Durham by
Sussex's orders ; many others at York and London.
They were put to death under martial law, without any
regular trial. Sir George Bowes made it his boast that,
for sixty miles in length and twenty in breadth, between
Newcastle and Weatherby, there was hardly a town or
village where he had not executed at least one of the
inhabitants. Among those who were put to death at
Durham were Flumtre*, a priest ; Struther, an alderman ;
and several peace-officers or constables, who had acted
under the insurgents' orders. No fewer than eight
hundred persons are said to have suffered at the hands of
the executioner.
Wordsworth's "White Doe of Rylstone " deals with
this unfortunate affair, which likewise became the subject!
of a great number of ballads.
!|HE Elliots of Minto are an offshoot of an old
Border house which gave in mediaeval times
a chief to the clan of the same name. Ill
the fifteenth century they were settled in
considerable numbers on both sides of the Tweed, and
the leading family among them was held responsible for
" good rule in Liddesdale."
Gilbert Elliot of Stobs, the first of the family of whose
individuality we can be absolutely sure, was born about
the end of the sixteenth century. The Borders were then
passing through a troubled phase of their history— the old
bonds which had held society together were broken, and
internecine feuds bad taken the place of a national cause.
The young laird of Stobs, brought up in the midst of
martial surroundings, grew up to manhood a tall, strapping
fellow, guiltless of book-learning. In due course he found
a suitable wife in Margaret Scot, of Harden, and the law-
less state of the country may be gathered from the tradition
that the bride's dowry consisted of "half a Michaelmas
moon " — in other words, half the produce of a foray carried
out under the bright light of a September moon. None of
the guests assembled at the wedding were able to read or
write ; even their names, though among the best in the
Border, were far less familiar to friends and neighbours
than the appellations founded on personal qualities
or peculiarities. Thus, for instance, Gilbert Elliot was
known to everyone in the district as "Gibbie wi' the
gowden garters," while his wife rejoiced in the soubri-
August 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
341
quet of Maggie Fendy (Anglice, handy). It is difficult
to understand why these cognomens were given, as
unfortunately no record can be found of any occasion on
which Gibbie displayed hia golden decorations, nor are
we informed what particular form of dexterity caused his
wife to be called " Fendy " ; though the names of her
mother, who was known as the " Flower of Yarrow," and
that of her sister-in-law, "Muckle Mou'd Meg," are in-
telligible enough, and preserve for them with posterity
the rough but kindly familiarity with which they were
regarded by their contemporaries.
The rapidity with which these wild, untutored chieftains
were converted into statesmen and soldiers was astonish-
ing. We find, with some amazement, that two sona of
this illiterate couple achieved hereditary distinction ;
others became members of Parliament and colonels in the
army ; and most of their descendants not only showed
great native ability, but, aiming at a high standard of
mental excellence, became celebrated for their intellectual
gifts. Genius has many forms even in the same family,
and in the heart of Yarrow was born in 1727 a gentle
singer whose name has come down to us immortalised by
a single song.
Jean, daughter of the second Sir Gilbert Elliot, shared
to a large degree the cultured tastes and accomplishments
of her father. Like him, she was a great reader, and to a
considerable knowledge of the classic authors of France
and England she added an intimate familiarity with the
poetical legends of the surrounding hills and valleys. While
her nature was enlarged by a kindly contact with the
dwellers in the scattered hamlets and shiels of a country-
side famous for its romantic associations, her acquaint-
ance with country life and incidents taught her to sym-
pathise with and express the feelings of men and women
who were shepherds and small mountain farmers in the
very language and phrase used at their firesides.
Jean also played her part in a little drama which must
have revived recollections of the not so long by-past time
when her forebears were either engaged in breaking the
law or in evading it In 17W, when Prince Charlie was
on bis way to Carlisle, a party of his followers suddenly
arrived at Minto, the family seat of the Elliots. Sir
Gilbert, who was extremely unpopular with the Jacobites,
barely received notice of their approach when they
appeared before the house. Happily his daughter Jean
was equal to the occasion. Receiving her unwelcome
guests with graceful hospitality, she detained them
within doors until her father found time to ren.ch
the refuge of some neighbouring crags. There he lay
concealed among boulders, ivy, and brushwood, nor did
he leave his hiding place till he saw the last of the troop
cross the ford over the Tev-iot and take the road leading
to Cumberland. Afterwards Sir Gilbert was wont to say
he owed his life to his daughter's presence of mind, for so
exasperated were the rebels against him on account of his
office as Lord Justice Clerk that he would not have been
safe if he had fallen into their bands.
Brought up in the very sanctuary of song, the haunt*
of the Muse as yet unprofaned by the introduction of
manufactures, Jean Elliot picked up from seme old cottier
the "owre word " or refrain which was all that remained
of the lament dirge for the Ettrick Forest men who died
at Flodden, and wove it into a pathetic strain which
breathes the purest spirit of antiquity. The tune of the
ballad is ancient, as well as the first line of the opening
stanza, and the oft-recurring line which ends each verse—
I've heard them lilting at the ewes milking
The flowers of the forest are all wede away.
Admitting so much to be old, the merit of reviviug a
ballad in the ancient spirit seems to require as much skill
as to create a completely new one. The clever and minute
manner in which Jean copied the ancient turn of thought
and speech led to its being taken by many as a genuine
production of some long-forgotten minstrel. Bums, how-
ever, was not deceived. He pronounced it a palpable
imitation, and Jean Elliot stood revealed as the writer of
one of the most touching of all our Border ballads. "The
whole lament," says Allen Cunningham, " comes with a
cry in our ears as from the survivors of Flodden Field,
and, when it is sung, we owe little to imagination when
we associate it with the desolation of the Forest and hem-
in it the ancient wail of its maids and matrons." Indued,
it is so beautifully pathetic as almost to make up for the
hopelessly lost original dirge.
Little is known of Jean Elliot's later life. She lived
principally with her brother, Lord Minto, and died nt his
residence, Monteviot, in 1805. Previous to her death we
find her spoken of as "a tall, stately old lady, conversing
with a certain quiet dignity." The house she resided in, iu
Edinburgh, is occasionally pointed out ; but, save for the
memory of that one song, she passed away as though she
had never been, if we except the compliment in ver.°e paid
to her by the Wizard of the North, who, in "Marmion,'
tells us of :—
One of those flowers whom plaintive lay
In Scotland mourns as " wede away."
A well known critic, when he was seeking for the
original sources of our ballad poetry, asserted that
"the lyric Muse has confined her melting and
heroic breathings to a long, narrow, and some-
times barren strip of Border country." This seems
strange, but it is even stranger to find that nearly all our
pastoral poets not only spring from one part of the
British Islands, but in many cases own a common kinship,
generally on the maternal side. For instance, Jean
Elliot was a cousin of Lady Grisel Baillie, through her
grandmother, a Carr of Cavers ; while Alison Rutherford
— the author of the second set of verses written to the
original air of "The Flowers of the Forest" — was a
native of the same district, a connection of the Elliots, a
342
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/August
\ 1891.
relative of Lady Anne Lindsay, and a distant cousin of
Sir Walter Scott's mother. Fairnielee, the birthplace of
Alison, is situated on the verge of Ettriok Forest. She
took up the same strain as Jean Elliot, and adapted it to
a calamity, recent in her time, which had overwhelmed
with ruin many of the lairds of the Forest. Both songs
are widely known and admired, and both are remarkable
for elegiac tenderness. Of the two sets of verses Miss
Rutherford's is perhaps the most popular, on account
of the absence of many obsolete words found in the first
version. It is said that a young gentleman, while
roaming among the hills and valleys of Selkirkshire,
lost his way, and, after long wandering, came in
sight of an aged shepherd, seated by a name-
less stream playing on a rustic pipe while he
watched his flocks. Many were the wild and unknown
tunes played by this moorland Orpheus. Luckily his
wondering auditor had skill enough to carry away the air
of one of the pleasing melodies. He next had the good
fortune to meet with Miss Rutherford, who listened to,
and admired, the sad, strange music, which she speedily
wedded to suitable verse. Such is the story. The pro-
bability is that the air was a common one, that both the
ladies heard it, as well as the fragment of the ancient
dirge, and that each of them brooded over it to good
purpose.
Miss Rutherford, at an early age, married Mr. Cockburn,
of Ormiston. After his death, she took up her residence
in Edinburgh, where she became a well-known and
popular character in the most cultured society of her
time. "I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling,"
though the most celebrated, was by no means the only
note she struck on the poetic harp. Other literary efforts
followed, and her letters are numerous and brilliant. In
one of them, dated " Edinburgh, Saturday night, 15th
of the gloomy month when the people of England
hang and drown themselves," she gives an amusing
account of Walter Scott at the age of six. The
precocious boy read, recited, and talked with an
understanding and expression beyond his years.
When taken to bed at night he said he "liked that lady."
"What lady?" "Why, Mrs. Cockburn, for I think she
is a virtuoso like myself ! " "Dear Walter, " said his aunt,
"what is a virtuoso?" " Don't ye know ? It's one who
wishes and will know everything." Such was the child's
verdict, and it is interesting to find that that greatest of
all Border writers continued throughout his life to love
and admire his early friend. Some years after her death,
when quoting from her poem, Sir Walter paid the follow-
ing touching tribute to her memory: — "Even at an age
advanced beyond the usual bounds of humanity, she
retained a play of the imagination and an activity of
intellect which must have been attractive and delightful
in youth, but was almost preternatural at this period of life.
Her active benevolence, keeping pace with her genius,
rendered her equally an object of love and admiration."
The old peel tower of Fairnielee, where Alison Ruther-
ford passed her childhood, still adorns the bank of the
Tweed. Forlorn and forsaken, the lonely mansion, with
its mouldering walls and deserted chambers, not only
affords a commentary on the sad verses penned there, but
appears imbued with the very spirit of the plaintive poem
first sung beneath its sheltering roof.
I've seen tbe smiling: of fortune beguiling,
I've felt all ita favours and found its decay ;
Sweet is her blessing and kind her caressing,
But soon it is Bed— it is fled far away.
Sir Walter Scott expresses his astonishment at the num-
ber of good songs written by "North-Countne" ladies of
rank and position, and, after mentioning the compositions
of Lady Grisel Baillie, Lady Anne Lindsay, Miss Elliot,
and Mrs. Cockburn, adds: "I wonder if we masculine
wretches can claim five or nix songs equal in elegance or
patboa out of the long list of Scottish minstrelsy."
M. S. HARDOASTLE.
3Tfte i3crrtft=€mmtrp (garlantt
at
£tokoe.
THE KEACH I' THE CREEL.
JH IS old and very humorous ballad has long
been a favourite on both sides of the Border,
but never appeared in print until about 1845,
when a Northumbrian gentleman printed a
few copies for private circulation, from one of which the
following is taken. In the present impression some
trifling typographical errors are corrected, and the
phraseology has been rendered uniform throughout.
"Keach i' the Creel" means the catch in the basket.
When first printed, the ballad was unaccompanied by the
melody, which is both lively and tuneful, and admirably
suited to the humorous character of the piece. It was
discovered by the writer in the manuscript book of tunes
collected by the late Mr. James Telfer, the schoolmaster
of Saughtree, in Liddesdale, now deposited in the
archives of the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries.
A fair young May went up the street, Some
white flsh for to buy, And a bon-ny clerk's fa'n in
love wi' her, And he's fol- lowed her by and
August!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
343
by, by ; He's fol • lowed her by and by.
A fair young May went up the street,
Some white fish for to buy ;
And a bonny clerk's fa'in i' luve wi' her,
And he's followed her by and by, by,
And he's followed her by and by.
" O ! where live ye, my bonny lass,
I pray thee tell to me ;
For gin the nicht were ever sae mirk,
I wad come and visit thee."
" O ! my father be aye locks the door,
My mother keeps the key.
And gin ye were ever sic a wily wicht,
Ye canna win in to me. "
But the clerk he bad ae true brother,
And a wily wicht was he ;
And he has made a lang ladder
Was thirty steps and three.
He has made a creek but and a creel,
A creel but and a pin ;
And he's away to the chimley-top,
And he's letten the bonny clerk in.
The auld wife, being not asleep,
Though late, late was the hour ;
" I'll lay my life, quo' the silly auld wife,
"There's a mam' ourdochter's bower."
The auld man he gat owre the bed
To see if the thing was true :
But she's ta'en the bonny clerk in her arms,
And covered him owre wi' blue.
• O I where are ye gaun now, father ?" she says,
" And where are ye gaun sae Ute ?
Ye've disturbed me at my evening prayers,
And O ! but they were sweit "
" O ! ill betide ye, silly auld wife,
" And an ill death may ye dee ;
She has the muckle buik in her airms,
And she's prayin' for you and me."
The auld wife she gat owre the bed,
Tu see if the thing was true ;
But what the rack teuk the auld wife's fit ?
For into the creel she flew.
The man that was at the chimley-top,
Finding the creel was fu',
He wrappit the rape round his left shouther,
And fast to him be drew.
" O, help ! 0, help ! O. hinny, now, help 1
O, help ! O, hinny, do !
For him that ye aye wished me at.
He's carry in ' me off, just noo. "
" O 1 if the foul thief's getten ye,
I wish he may keep his baud ;
For a' the lee lang winter nicht,
Ye'll never lie in your bed."
He's towed her up, he's towed her down,
He's towed her through and through ;
"O, Gude, assist," quo' the silly auld wife,
" For I'm just departin' noo."
He's towed her up, he's towed her down,
He's gien her a right down fa' ;
Till every rib \ the auld wife's side
Played nick-nack on the wa'.
O ! the blue, the bonny, bonny blue,
And I wish the blue may do weel ;
And every auld wife that's saejealouso'berdochter,
May she get a good keach i' the creel, creel ;
May she get a good keach i' the creel.
dFatal
dFUgftt.
| T happened in the year 1840 that a poor fellow
named Frank Pickering had the ill-luck to be
sent to the House of Correction at Hex hum for
some breach of the poor-laws. The keeper of the prison,
John Macpherson, who was a good, worthy man, was
accustomed to indulge his prisoners, now and then, by
getting them to carry in coals from the door. On July
23rd, when Pickering had been confined several weeks,
but bad yet a few more to wait, he was set to perform
this little task ; but, instead of returning to durance vile
when it was done, he ran off, as fast as his legs could
carry him, to Tyne Green. A local notability, Tom
Jeffer, was at his usual post that day at the corner of
the Green ; and Tom, having often been in prison him-
self, felt kindly -disposed towards the runaway. So he
advised him to take the water, though it was muddy
and swollen with the late rains. Frank seemed to hesi
tate for a moment, but never stopped in his flight. At
first he ran towards the Spital Lodge, but soon, hearing
that Macpherson and his dog were getting threateningly
close to his heels, he was forced to turn back, or double,
like a bunted hare. So he crossed the Green, passed
the mill-dam by the sluice at its higher end, and
reached the main stream of the Tyne a little below the
(pot where, since 1771, a piece of the old bridge has
marked the rise and fall of the water, as it appears or
disappears. Necessity now obliged the fugitive to take
the only course left for him, which was to ford the river
where a number of large stones, set in order for crossing
purposes when the water was low, and locally known as a
penning, bad been laid down across its bed. This he be-
gan at once to do, though already much exhausted by
running. For a time he went on well, keeping his feet
wonderfully. But on coming to a breach in the penning,
which could not be forded, he felt for an instant as if he
had finished his earthly race. Eagerly was he watched
from the bank, however, as in sheer despair he attempted
to clear the breach. The poor fellow was seen to dis
appear in the rushing waters. He was then visible for
an indtaut only a little lower down the stream, and that
was all. Three poplar trees on the north side of the Tyne
used to be pointed out to visitors by that venerable Non-
conformist, the late Mr. John Ridley, as marking the spot
where Frank Pickering was drowned. Frank's mother,
we are told, kept a small inn at Bardon Mill, and two or
three men who felt deep sympathy for her came down
from the west as soon as the news reached them, and
344
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
I August
\ 1891.
searched for his corpse next day. Some imagined, against
all probability, that he had got out on the other side, and
reached some safe hiding-place ; and accordingly little
seems to have been attempted the day after for the
recovery of the body. But on the following Sunday
morning Richard Muse, a tanner, working in Gilligate,
Hexhani, who had often done good service on occasions
like this, being an expert diver, succeeded, with some
help, in finding the body, which was fished out from
near the Hermitage, a little below the place where the
fugitive was drowned. It was taken to Tyne Mills in
the first place, and subsequently, after the inquest, when
a verdict of "Death by misadventure" was returned, in-
terred in Haltwhistle parish churchyard.
at Hi<:ftni0tTtt Cattle.
IEWS of Richmond have already been given in
the Monthly Chronicle (see pp. 119, 151). The
most prominent object in the town is the Nor-
man keep, which rises above the other portions of the old
castle in solitary grandeur. Though without external
decoration, it is an interesting object on the score of
its associations. It is one of the few great towers built
by the chief tains of the Conqueror that now remain
entire. The walls of the keep are of extraordinary
thickness, and, though scarred and stained by the weather,
they have undergone no material change since they were
erected. The total height is ninety-nine feet. A
massive octagonal column, with circular-groined arches
springing from it, supports the lower storey in the centre.
A well of water, which has evidently been formed when
the tower was constructed, is found at the foot of the
pillar. Our drawing, which has been reproduced from an
etching kindly lent to us by Mr. Hick, of the firm of
Messrs. Austin, Johnson, and Hick, architects, Royal
Arcade, Newcastle, gives a very fair impression of this
portion of the interior of the keep as it appeared previous
to being adapted as a guard-room for the North York
Rifle Regiment.
Efte Village at ffiittavtt.
JIN the olden times the town of Mitford, which
was a place of greater importance than Mor-
peth, consisted of two parts, half a mile
distant from each other. There was the
"street called the Newgate," . which abutted upon
the castle lands in the vicinity of the old manor-house,
the church, and the vicarage. Then there was the
of foe "rTfiefiUichMonp Gasflt
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
345
"street leading to Newton Park," which was on the north
side of the Wansbeok, seated across the angle formed by
the junction of that river with the Font. The former has
vanished, but the latter still remains, though much
reduced in size, and at present consists of a quaint old
iun and a few pretty cottages which are well represented
in our sketch.
The picturesque bridge of one arch over the Font here ia
a very old one. It occupies the site of a bridge which was
probably contemporaneous with the castle, as it is in-
directly alluded to in 1377. In this year an inquest found
that one Walter de Swinhoe held forty acres of land in
the manor here by the service of guarding the south bridge
of Mitford, which was then called the Fouse Bridge, on
the eve. and day of Ascenaion. "This Fouse Bridge,"
says Hodgson, " I suppose to have had its name from its
standing across the Wansbeck, opposite to the outer gates
of the castle, a little below the site of the present bridge,
and where the river formed part of the foss of the castle.
It was situated south of the bridge now called the Font
Bridge. "
The High-ford Bridge over the Wansbeck— a fine struc-
ture of two arches, which we cross in coming from Mor-
peth— only dates from 1829-30.
The history of the village cannot well be dissociated
from that of the castle, which has been told in the Monthly
Chronicle for 1887, p. 152. An account of the church also
appears in the volume for 1890, p. 150-2.
Three short stories, however, about the people of Mit-
ford in the bygone centuries, may fitly find a place here.
The first story is from a work by Reginald, a monk of
Durham, who lived in the reign of Stephen, and wrote
about the miracles of St. Cuthbert after the time of Bede.
About the year 1006 a preaching-friar named Silvanus,
and his servant Udard, the bearer of some relics of St.
Cuthbert, were passing through Mitford when a young
man came after them and told them that an old matron
in the place, who had lost her sight for fully six months,
believed she could recover the use of her eyes if they were
bathed with the water in which a portion of the relics of
St. Cuthbert had been immersed. The dish of a neigh-
bouring well was immediately filled with water, and the
monks laid in it a piece of cloth that had wrapped the
body of St. Cuthbert for the space of 418 years.
Strange to relate, though covered with the water,
it remained, quite dry. Udard, perceiving the
miracle, and having been for ten years afflicted with
dysentery, drank of the liquid, and found himself
instantly healed. The old woman, too, on her eyes being
bathed with it, recovered, as she had anticipated, her
former vision. These three miracles, the author gravely
asserts, he could most certainly prove to have happened
all on the same day. On the supposed site of the well
where the miracles are averred to have taken place
Colonel Mitford has erected a stone drinking-fountain. '
The second story is taken from the Rolls of Parliament
346
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/August
1891.
for 1293, and is as follows : — In the year 1284, Hugh de
Eure, of Tbropbill, and Robert de Stutteville, of Mitford,
were at variance about a tenement at Throphill. While
the dispute was pending certain persons of De Eure's house-
bold—Stephen the Baker, Roger le Ken, and Robert Scot —
having come to Mitford on the evening of Sunday, March
26, 1284, Roger of Heley, Reynold the Brewer, Richard
le Graper, and Robert of Tindale, four ruffianly fellowi
retained by De Stutteville, fell upon them with swords and
bows and arrows, whereupon they took refuge in the
house of Agnes of Bencrifrg, in the street in Mitford
which led to Mitford Park, barring the door behind them.
Reynold the Brewer then set fire to the house, several
of De Stutteville's retainers and servants the meanwhile
preventing the people of the village from extinguishing
the flames. As the inmates attempted to escape, they were
attacked by De Stutteville's hirelings again, and in the
fray which ensued, Stephen the Baker was killed by
Roger of Heley. The rascals, not content with this
outrage, proceeded to ill-treat the owner of the house,
Agnes of Benerigg, beating her with swords and clubs.
They also broke into a coffer and took from it four deeds
of tenements belonging to the lady and her brother, two
tallies for half a mark each, four silver necklaces, and two
gold rings. In the trials which followed Robert de
Stutteville and his wife, who were indicted for aiding and
•betting the perpetrators of this murder and felony, con-
trived to get themselues acquitted.
The third story is from the proceedings of the Ecclesias-
tical Court at Durham. About 1570, the curate of Mit-
ford bad incurred the displeasure of some of bis
parishioners "concerninge the orderinge of certane
stalles." One Sunday he was admonishing them to quiet-
ness when Gawen Lawson, one of the churchwardens,
snid openly, "Come downe and leave thy prathnge,"
causing, as we may readily imagine, a great disturbance
in the church. Also, on Easter day this Gawen Lawson
and George Walby, with several others, " at the redinge
of the firste lesson did sckofe, laugbe, & gest
at such as did coughe then & ther, that the minister could
not say fourth God's service, but was compelled to leave
off for that time of praier, to the dishonouring of God &
the defasingn of the Queues lawes." The matter was
brought before the Ecclesiastical Court. One of the per-
sons examined, Edward Robinson, a weaver, of Mitford,
accounted for the "sounding noise" in the church by the
fact of its being "a very could yere, & many one ther
evill trobled with a boost (a shore, tickling cough) which
was so farvent that many other smiled & laught ther at."
A very unruly person in the parish of Mitford at this
time was John Dotfenby, of Figdon. Being in the
church at morning prayer, he commenced to brawl with
one Roger Fenwick, threatening to break his heat1 and
calling him " theffe of kyne, and saying t d in thy
teithe, and that he wold lay his wyniarde on his pallet,
with dyvers such like evill, ungodly, and unlawful words
to the unquietinge of the hole parislie and evill example
of others." Fenwick retorted with "divers other
blasphemous and slanderous words in the church."
Doffenby was excommunicated, but he still persisted
in coming to church. Being requested to leave, he
became very violent, saying that he cared not for
the "commissary" and his laws, nor for the curate, and
biddinr those who durst come and carry him out of the
church for they would " first have to bind his hands and
bis feet." Another charge against this man was that be
did " quarrell, chide, and brail" with Mark Ogle, of Pon-
teland, in the churchyard, striking at him with a lance-
staff or javelin, the other meanwhile drawing his sword.
Doffenby is a type of parishioner that was very common
during the 16th century in Northumberland. It was
among people like Doffenby and Lawson that Bernard
Gil pin, "the Apostle of the North," at this period
accomplished so much good.
Looking at Mitford now as it lies so peacefully by the
murmuring Font, it is difficult to realise that it should
ever have been the scene of dissension and discord. In
the earlier days of its history, when King John and his
Flemish mercenaries ravaged the lands of his disaffected
barons, when the kings of Scotland led their great armies
across the Borders and wild bands of mosstroopers
roamed over the country, Mitford lay too often in ruins,
and the beautiful valley amid which it is seated was a
picture of desolation. " But the times are changed, and
we are changed with them" — yes, changed very much for
the better we cannot but admit an we contrast the present
with the past of a place like Mitford.
W. W. TOMLINSON.
^ Italy wan.
pAMES CROSBIE HUNTER, who died at
South Bank, Yorkshire, on December 23, 1890,
was born at North Shields, on October 26,
1820. Consequently, at the time of his death, be would be
in his seventieth year.
From some interesting memoranda supplied by Mr. De
Ville, a member of the late showman's company, it ap-
pears that, as early as 1843, Mr. Hunter commenced his
career as a wandering showman by entering into partner-
ship with Mr. W. H. Wynne, a noted actor of his lime,
which partnership was not prosperous, and soon ended.
I recollect about that time Wynne's booth coming to the
Forth, Newcastle, and opening near the Infirmary on
ground now occupied by the North-Eastern Railway
Company. If Mr. Hunter was a partner then, his ex-
perience must have been disheartening. I raised the
necessary twopence, and entered the booth. The piece
was "The Bride of Lammermoor," but so scanty was the
audience that Mr. Wynne had to announce that the com-
pany could not play, but would give tickets to admit the
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
347
following night ; but if any one preferred bis money back,
be could get it. I recollect that, small as the audience was,
some individuals had contrived to slip in without paying
by making an opening in the canvas at the side. These
persons now made a great noise, and shouted, "Ne tickets
— we want wor money back." It was the same Mr.
Wynne who, a few years later, theatrically changed
William Knowles, a Newcastle lamplighter, into a Ger-
man. Kuowles, who had a passion for the stage, acted as
super at nights at the Theatre Royal. Knowles's favourite
piece was the "Dumb Man of Manchester." When he
was engaged to appear in it at Wynne's booth, the pro-
prietor announced him as "Herr Knowlsey, the renowned
artiste from Berlin."
For some five years after the partnership, Mr. Hunter
"knocked about" in the profession. In July, 1850, he
joined Mr. Du Piegn's travelling company at Glasgow,
travelling on foot the best part of the distance between
North Shields and Glasgow. Here he remained about
five years, and, although his share or weekly salary for
the first six weeks only ranged from 6s. 3d. to 16s., yet
"love that laughs at locksmiths" appears not to have been
frightened by the poor prospect. Towards the end of the
year he married Miss Hurst, whom he met at Glasgow.
Returning to North Shields in February, 1855, he con-
trived to raise his first booth, and opened at Newcastle,
probably at the Easter hoppings. Billy Purvis had been
dead a little over a year ; his company was dispersed,
leaving the field open for his young successor. With the
usual theatrical ups-and-downs he pushed on until, in
1859, he arrived at Middlesbrough. Here he took the
"flood that led to fortune," his portable theatre
becoming a large permanent building. Mr. Hunter
brought in turn the highest theatrical talent to Middles-
borough, and had amongst the regular members of his
company Mr. Wilson Barrett, then a young man, who
was " doing the provinces." For ten years he ruled at
Middlesborough. Then the tide of fortune turned.
Middlesborough had to be left ; from the wreck he con-
trived to raise a small portable theatre, and with it began
again his old travelling life.
In the course of years his affairs became more pros-
perous. In 1883 he had a large booth again, and was
doing a good business at High Walker, where he intended
staying until the Temperance Festival on the Town Moor,
Newcastle, began. How misfortune again overtook him
many will remember. The Weekly Chronicle of June 4,
1883, recorded the fact that bis large portable theatre, and
a smaller one also, were burned to the ground.
Mr. Hunter's upright character now stood him in good
stead. His friends rallied round him. Mr. Wilson
Barrett, and many prominent theatrical people that had
been engaged by him at Middlesbrough during his pros-
perous days, helped him, and at the Temperance Festival,
although sadly shorn, be contrived to "come to time."
Despite the kind help thus rendered, the fire was a heavy
blow. He rallied but slowly ; bad luck followed him,
and at Bedlington his place was blown down. Then the
great snowstorm of March, 1886, came when he was at
Langley Moor, and closed him up so completely that it
was November before he re-opened. So he struggled on,
going into Yorkshire, where, as he said, he only contrived
" to keep the wolf from the door," and bad his booth lifted
by a whirlwind. At Bedlington, in the summer of 1890, he
had the only gleam of fortune which had brightened his
path since 1884, su he wrote but a short time ago to a
friend. And now his wanderings are over, the last act has
been played, and he rests in South Eston Cemetery.
THESPIAN.
fietoratftl* airtr Carlisle :
Canal aittr tht 3&atlrrralr.
|E read in the "Memoirs of Ambrose Barnes,"
the famous Newcastle Alderman (Surtees
Society, vol. 50), that "he set some useful
methods on foot for advancing the trade of
lead and coles, but he never cared for medling in
chimerical projects. When it was proposed to make the
river Tyne navigable to Hexham, sixteen miles above
Newcastle, he dissuaded the projectors from their inten-
tion, showing that, besides the vast expense of making and
upholding so many damms, locks, and sluices as such a
work would require, the thing itself was impracticable,
nor would it answer any useful end."
The date of the design in not given, but it must have
been earlier than March 23, 1709-10 ; for on that day died
Ambrose Barnes. There was afterwards a new Parlia-
ment, in which the enterprise was revived. On the 20th
of February, 1710-11, a petition was presented to the
House of Commons from the Justices of the Peace of
Northumberland, and the Grand Jury, assembled at the
quarter sessions in Morpeth on the llth of January,
setting forth that they conceived the making of the Tyne
navigable from Newburn to Hexham would be of great
advantage to the inhabitants of the county " in carrying
their produce to Newcastle " ; that John Errington, Esq.,
had proposed to undertake the navigation at his own
charge, provided he might have the sole profits arising
thereby ; and praying that leave might be given to bring
in a Bill for making the river navigable from Newburn,
"the place to which it now flows," to Hexham. Leave
was granted accordingly ; and it was ordered that Mr.
Wrightson, colleague of Sir William Blackett in the re-
presentation of Newcastle, and Sir Robert Eden, who,
with Mr. William Lambton, "Old True Blue," repre-
sented the county of Durham, should prepare and bring
in the Bill.
The Bill, prepared accordingly, was introduced by Mr.
Wrightson on the 27th of February, conferring powers to
348
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
make the Tyne navigable from Newburn to Hexham, "or
to any other places between." It was read a first time
on the 28th, and order made for a second reading; of
which, however, we find no mention in the Journals of
the House of Commons.
All honour to Mr. Errington and the County Justices !
Their project flourished not ; it wan before the time ; but
the object which they had in view in the first decade of
the century was kept in view to the last, and had its ac-
complishment in a form which they had not foreseen. In
the autumn of 179*, there was an agitation on foot for the
construction of a navigable waterway from sea to sea.
Public meetings were held in the East and the West ; a
subscription was opened for a survey ; and there were
sanguine hopes of "a practicable navigation between
Newcastle and Carlisle, and from thence to Sandsfield."
Canals were among the great works of the time, and the
North of England took part in the movement. Tyneside
was keenly in earnest for the union of the seas. Contro-
versy was eager. Some there were who preferred this
side of the river, others advocated that ; and there was also
difference of opinion on the Tyne whence the canal should
start. Mr. B. R. Dodd was active in the enterprise.
With an admirable pen for a prospectus he portrayed its
merits ; and in one of his passages we have a picture of an
excursion between Newcastle and Hexham : — "The canal
will afford an opportunity for the establishment of market
and passage boats between Hexham and Newcastle,
which, in other concerns, have been attended with much
profit and public convenience. The packets will be
divided into different apartments, with corresponding
prices. Tea, coffee, wines, &c., will be provided for the
accommodation of the company, as usual at the Bridge-
water, the Chester, the Ellesmere, the Forth and Clyde
Canal; the price not more than half the fare by land,
and totally free from the dust, heat, and fatigue incident
thereto."
The effusion of words, however, all stopped short of
action. Pen and speech were not followed by pick and
spade. The year 1795 wore away without molestation of
turf. Woodroof's " single-horse chaise " kept jogging
quietly along, twice a week, at 4s. a passenger, between
the White Hart in the Flesh Market and the town of
Hexham, its equanimity undisturbed by the prospect of
the rival barge; and there was "expeditious travelling"
between Newcastle and Carlisle, by Mr. Sunderland's
" new diligence, " at 14s. a-head ; the rapid vehicle, with
its " three insides," leaving the Crown and Thistle in the
Groat Market "at half-past 8 o'clock in the morning,"
and "arriving at the Bush Inn, Carlisle, at half- past 8 in
the evening."
Ere the century expired, a sagacious citizen raised bis
voice in the agitation for a waterway, and asked its
advocates whether it were not better to make a railroad.
This suggestion came from Mr. William Thomas, of
Denton Hall, an active member of the Literary and
Philosophical Society of Newcastle, who read a paper on
the subject to his fellow-members in the month of
February, 1800. He proposed an adaptation of the old
waggonway of the collieries to general traffic, including
the transport of travellers. But the age was not yet ripe
for the far-seeing proposal of William Thomas. Men
went on canvassing the merits of a cross-country canal — a,
navigable way, accompanying the remains of the Roman
Wall — till at last the rail came seriously to be considered
as a rival road.
A county meeting was called in Newcastle on August
29, 1817, "to consider the comparative expediency of
accomplishing the projected communication by canal,
railway, or other means." All were agreed as to the
necessity of canal or rail. Mr. William Armstrong (father
of Lord Armstrong), who was friendly to a canal, stated
the remarkable fact that corn could be brought to the
Tyne more cheaply from the Cape of Good Hope than
from Carlisle to Newcastle ; and, in the same year, Mr.
Curwen said that every stone of grain that passed between
the two towns cost fourpence for transport ! "The preva-
lent opinion," says the Tyne Mercury, "was in favour of
a canal. " The Newcastle Chronicle, commenting on the
proceedings, remarked that among the county gentlemen
there was a considerable bias for a railway : amongst the
merchants of the town, a canal had the preference.
In the month of July, 1824, when the Stockton and
Darlington Railroad was approaching completion, a re-
quisition was addressed to the High Sheriff, Mr. Edward
Collingwood, for "a meeting of the nobility, gentlemen,
clergy, and freeholders of the county of Northumberland,
to consider of the expediency of taking means to effect a
communication by railway between the town of New-
castle and the city of Carlisle, to be held at the Moothall
on a convenient day during the assizes." The requisi-
tionists were twenty-one in number, viz. : —
Charles John Brandling, M.P., Charles Loraine, Thomas
Clennell, Charles William Bigge, John Blenkinsopp
Coulson, Thomas Wailes, Robert William Brandling,
Henry Bell, William Wright, Dixon Brown, John Ander-
son, William Burrell, William Ord, M.P., George Dun-
combe Shafto. George Silvertop, John Davison, Charles
John Clavering, John Wright, William Linskill, Thomas
Burdon, Addison John Cresswell Baker.
The memorable meeting, thus influentially requested,
was appointed for Saturday, the 21st of August. Colonel
Coulson led the way for a railroad ; Mr. Armstrong was
for a ship canal ; and Sir Matthew White Ridley proposed
an inquiry by committee into the respective merits of the
two modes of communication. The first resolution of the
meeting was in favour of a more speedy and easy com-
munication than the one in existence. The second was to
inquire " whether it would be most advantageous to carry
it into effect by a railway or a canal " ; and a committee was
appointed accordingly, and held a conference at the close
of the meeting. The inquiry was thus fairly under way ;
canal and rail — water and fire — barge and horse — con-
tended for supremacy ; and on the 6th of November there
Aueustl
11. /
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
349
was an article in the Mercury, afterwards reprinted in a
separate form, the editor taking for his topic the report of
Mr. Chapman in October to the Canal and Railway Com-
mittee, "discovering a strong leaning in favour of a
railway, and a disposition (»s the writer thought) to
magnify the impediments in the way of a canal."
Ohapmau's report, made in the autumn of 1824, was
followed on the 4th of March, 1825, by one from Josias
Jessop, who "gives the sum of his opinion in few words ;
which is, that a railway in such a situation is greatly to
be preferred to a canal."
Within about three weeks of the date of this report,
there was another county meeting at the Moot Hall. The
chair was occupied by the High Sheriff, Mr. Anthony
Gregson. This was on the 26th of March, 1825 ; and the
Chairman of the Committee, Sir John Swinburne, pre-
sented the report. The committee had consulted, first,
Mr. Chapman, and afterwards Mr. Jessop ; and both the
one and the other had come to a conclusion in favour of a
rnilruad. " We think that it is uot only practicable, but
that the undertaking will be ad van tageous to those who
may embark in it ; and we consider it an object of great
importance both to the landed and commercial interests
of this part of the kingdom. Its execution will open a
country rich in mineral produce, and tend materially to
promote agriculture, manufactures, and commerce." On
the motion of Mr. A. J. Cresswell Baker, seconded by
Mr. Edward Collingwood, it was unanimously resolved : —
" That this meeting, concurring in the view taken of the
subject by the committee, considers the formation of a
railroad between Newcastle and Carlisle an object of
great importance, both to the landed and commercial
interests in this part of the kingdom, and worthy of the
countenance and encouragement of the county."
The decision of March 26, 1825, brought the long con-
troversy of canal or rail to a close. No time was now lost
in taking action. The county meeting was followed on
the instant by "a meeting of the gentlemen disposed to
embark in the undertaking of a railroad " (Mr. Cresswell
Baker in the chair). A company was constituted on the
spot; a prospectus issued. "The whole line of way"
was described as "peculiarly favourable for taking the
utmost advantage of steam power, abounding as it does
with coal, which may be obtained at a cheap rate."
Union had now taken the place of division. "Since the
parties of weight and influence in the case," frankly
remarked the Tyne Mercury, "have decided for a rail-
road, let us have a railroad by all means." This was the
general feeling, and the course of the enterprise was clear.
The subscription went satisfactorily forward ; and on the
9th of April there was a meeting of the shareholders,
with Mr. Charles William Bigge in the chair, at which
twelve directors were appointed, viz. : — John George
Lambton, M.P., John Brandling, Matthew Bell, Thomas
Fenwick, Isaac Cookson, Jun., Martin Morrison, James
Losh, John Blenkinsopp Coulson, Nathaniel Ulayton,
Benjamin Thompson, Matthew Atkinson, and Thomas
Crawhall.
It was resolved, moreover, that a further meeting
should be held for the purpose of increasing the number
to twenty-four ; and twelve other directors were in
accordance with this determination subsequently added
(May 21), viz. : — The Mayor of Newcastle for the time
being ; with also George Anderson, James Graham
Clarke, William Cuthbert, Matthew Plummer, Alfred
Hall, William Woods, Joseph Lamb, Robert Walters,
William Losh, Christopher Cookson, and John Anderson.
Such was the Board of Directors chosen within less
than a couple of months of the county meeting that
had decided the long question of a communication be-
tween Newcastle and Carlisle. A detailed prospectus of
the intended line was now printed ; and from a news-
paper paragraph of the period we extract a sentence or
two that will be curious to the reader of the present
day : — " It is to commence at the High Crane on New-
castle Quay; pass behind the abutment and under the
roadway of Newcastle Bridge ; and thence upon gears to
the further side of the Javel Group, where it will enter
upon a new quay to be erected in a direct line to the
wharf of Messrs. Parker and Co., at Low Elswick."
"There will be no inclined planes or stationary engines ;
and the whole labour upon the line will be performed by
horses, the directors having resolved to introduce a clause
into the Bill to prohibit the use of locomotive engines, in
consideration of the prejudice of landowners against
these machines."
The first application for an Act was unsuccessful, and
another was forthwith made. "A Statement in Support
of the Bill " was printed for Parliament in the month of
February, 1829, in which there was no mention of pas-
senger traffic, if we except the remark that " troops and
military stores " would be " transported across the island
in a few hours, instead of by a fatiguing march of four
days." Horses were to be used as the motive power.
"The plan of making use of locomotive steam engines,
found to be obnoxious to many ot the landowners, has (it
is hoped without any sacrifice of the interests of the
public) been abandoned." Such was the decision the
directors had felt it expedient to adopt in the year
of the historic Rocket ; and the Act of 1829 contains
also the following clause : — " No locomotive or move-
able steam-engine shall be used on the said railways or
tramroads for drawing waggons or other carriages, or
for any other purpose whatsoever ; and no steam-
engine shall be erected or used for any of the purposes
aforesaid, within view of the Castle of Naworth, or
Corby Castle, or of the several mansion-houses of Charles
Bacon, Esq., at Styford, John Hodgson, Esq., at Elswick,
James Kirsopp, Esq., at the Spital, Robert Pearson, Esq.,
at Unthank, Nicholas Leadbitter, Esq., at Warden, or
any of them ; nor within the distance of one thousand
yards to the east of Stella Hall ; nor nearer, on the west,
350
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f August
1891.
than the point where the line of the said railways or
tratnruads will be intersected by a certain common high-
way called the Water Lane."
The preamble of the Act sets forth that the railway
"will be of great advantage to the agricultural and com-
mercial interests of the district, by facilitating the con-
veyance of lead, coal, lime, slates, and other products of
the land, and articles of merchandise," with also "manu-
factured goods and foreign merchandise." "Generally it
will be of great public utility." The company contem-
plated no passenger traffic of their own ; but they took
powers to levy tolls on the conveyance of passengers in
vehicles belonging to others. It was to be lawful for the
company " to ask, demand, take, recover, and receive, or
cause to be asked, demanded, takeu, recovered, and
received, to and for the use and benefit of the company,
for and in respect of coaches, chariots, chaises, cars, gigs,
landaus, waggons, carts, or other carriages, which should
be used upon the said railways or tramroads for the con-
veyance of passengers or cattle, the several tolls hereinafter
mentioned." Passengers to pay sixpence for a distance
not exceeding five miles ; a shilling for five and not more
than ten ; and EO on, with no distinction of first, second,
or third class ; for at this time passenger trains were no-
where known. Travellers were riding in old stage coaches
on the Stockton and Darlington line, and the Liverpool
and Manchester Railway was not open.
The construction of the line went simultaneously for-
ward in a succession of sections ; and on the 9th of March,
1835, as may be read in Latimer's " Local Records," came
the first opening for traffic, extending over a distance of
seventeen miles. Two trains, drawn by the Rapid and
the Comet, started from Blaydon for Hexhair., with
banners and bands, triumphal arches, loud cheers and
louder cannon. Swiftly flew the iron horse ; and specta-
tors with good memories quoted the words of Erasmus
Darwin : —
Soon shall thy arm, unconquered steam, afar
Drag the slow barge or drive the rapid car.
The "rapid car "brought back the passengers to Blaydon
in an hour and a quarter — a feat into which the "slow
barge " could hardly have been whipped even by "uncon-
quered steam." Everybody was duly delighted and
surprised with the success of the day. Among the
"Views" engraved from Carmichael's drawings, and
published in 1835, we get a glimpse of one of the trains,
careering alongside "The River Wall at Wylam Scars,"
with passangers inside and out ; the roofs of two of the
carriages being closely crowded, omnibus fashion.
Next day (March 10) regular traffic began. Passengers
were conveyed from Newcastle to Blaydon by 'bus, and
merchandise was forwarded by steamboat. Landaus and
the like had neither part nor lot in the matter, and the
landowners allowed the clause of 1829 as to locomotives to
pass into practical repeal. How, indeed, was it possible
that trains should be suffered to run without steam
within sight of the cottage by the riverside in which
George Stephenson was born ? One dissentient, however,
there was ; and the traffic was brought to a stand,
on the 28th of March, by an injunction from the Court of
Chancery. Steam was stopped — the engine arrested.
Great was the excitement. There was a public
meeting in Newcastle on the 6th of April, at the
instance of upwards of two thousand requisitionists ; one
of the speakers hazarding a prediction, which Time
has more than fulfilled, that a passenger might, per-
chance, go up from the Tyne to the Thames on one day,
and return the next. The resistance to the locomotive
engine was withdrawn, and the running resumed. So
triumphant was the experiment that the receipts of August
were bountiful beyond expectation, the number of passen-
gers during the month exceeding fourteen thousand, and
the mileage mounting up to 150,000.
Here, having reached as far as 1835, we may introduce
a circular note of that year, preserved for us by a patient
collector. It manifests the anxiety of the directors, at
that early period, to have a terminus where now the
Central Railway Station has its site.
Newcastle, July 16, 1835.
Sir, — The Committee appointed to treat with the
Directors of the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway Company
for the interest of the Corporation in any of the property
which may be necessary in bringing the termination of
such railway into the Spital, will meet the Directors
to-morrow (Friday), in the Spital, at 12 o'clock at noon.
THOMAS FOBSYTH, Town Marshal.
When another year had gone round, arches, bands, and
banners were again in demand. The running of trains
was on the 28th of June, 1836, extended westward from
Hexham to Haydon Bridge ; and on the 19th of next
month, trains were in motion, to and fro, between Car-
lisle and Greenhead, a distance of over twenty miles.
Carlisle had also a shorter opening, on the 9th of March,
1837, to the Canal Basin ; and on the 1st of the same
month the line had been brought into public use from
Redheugh (Gateshead) to Blaydon; after which, "travel-
lers from Newcastle were conveyed to Redheugh by
a steamer, which (says Latimer) plied from the station to
the company's offices in the Close."
The Great Opening came in the year of the first meet-
ing of the British Association in Newcastle. The
appointed day was the 18th of June, 1838, the twenty-
third anniversary of the battle of Waterloo ; for it was
the fashion, fifty years ago, to celebrate victories of
peace in association with this achievement of war.
In 1839, the company were enabled, by their bridge at
Scotswood, to pass the river. On the 21st of May, the
portion of the line from Blaydon to the depot near the
Elswick Shot Tower was thrown open for mineral and
merchandise traffic, and for passenger traffic on the 21st
of October ; and about seven years later, on the 6th of
November, 1846, there was a further extension, from the
temporary station on Scotswood Road to the Forth.
.
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
351
Let us pause for a moment to recapitulate the several
openings of our Krst Tyneside passenger railway.
1835. March 9, Blaydon to Hex ham.
1836. June 28, Hexham to Haydon Bridge.
July 19, Carlisle to Greenhead.
1837. March 1, Redheugh to Blaydon.
March 9. Carlisle to Canal Basin.
1838. June 18, Redheugh to Carlisle.
1839. May 31, Newcastle to Blaydon for minerals, &c.
October 21, Newcastle to Blaydon for passengers.
1846. November 6, Scotswood Road to the Forth.
The card of the "Newcastle and Carlisle Railway
Coaches," printed for the Blaydon and Hexham traffic,
begun in 1835, shows that trains left the two towns at
8, 11, 2, and 5 o'clock, forenoon and afternoon, "every
day, Sunday excepted," and that on Sundays there were
trains both ways, at 8 in the morning and 5 in the after-
noon.
Another card states the "Railway Coach Fares," and
closes with a Nota Bene disallowing gratuities. There
were two rates of charge, viz., "First Class," and "Second
Class or Outside." Here are the fares "Going West."
From Blaydon to s. d. s. d.
Ryton 0 6...0 6
From Blaydon or Ryton to
Wylam 0 9...0 6
Pnidhoe, Ovingham, Stocksfield, By well 1 0...0 9
Broomhaugb, Riding Mill, or Corbridge 1 6...1 0
Hexham 2 0...1 6
From Wylam to
Prudhoe or Ovingham 0 6...0 6
Stocksfield or By well 0 9...0 6
Broomhaugb, Riding Mill, or Corbridge 1 0...0 9
Hexham 1 6...1 0
From Prudhoe or Ovingham to
Stocksfield or Bywell 0 6...0 6
Broomhaugh or Riding Mill 0 9...0 6
Corbridge 1 0...0 9
Hexham 1 6...1 0
From Stocksfield or Bywell to
Broomhaugh or Riding Mill 0 6...0 6
Corbridge 0 9...0 6
Hexham 1 0...0 9
From Broomhaugh or Riding Mill to
Corbridge 0 6...0 6
Hexham 1 0...0 9
From Corbridge to
Hexham 0 6...0 6
J AME; CLEPHAN (THE LATE).
itiUwrn (Eaton4.
ilBOUT three miles to the south of Wooler the
turnpike road is crossed by a small stream,
the Lilburn (i.e.. Little Burn), which runs
eastward through a pretty dene to join the Till.
From the streamlet the townships of East and West
Lilburn have derived their name. Lilburn Tower,
the subject of our sketch, is seated amid beautiful
grounds, on the north bank of the stream. It was
designed by John Dobson, and is in the Tudor style of
architecture — a style which the architect greatly admired.
" He thought," writes Miss Dobson in her memoir of her
fattier, "that much might be said of the advantages of
Tudor architecture in the construction of buildings for
domestic purposes in producing varied and picturesque
outlines when the forms appear to arise out of necessity,
and he did not see that there could be any objection to
adapting the decorative style of detail to a Tudor outline,
provided it harmonised with the building. " The founda-
tion stone of the mansion was laid on January 3rd, 1829,
by H. J. W. Collingwood, Esq.
The Lilburn estate was originally held under the
barony of Wark by the Ros family. In consequence of the
rebellion of Robert de Ros, in 1296, it was forfeited, and
afterwards came into the possession of the Lilburns, who
held it from the 14th to the beginning of the 18th century,
when it became the property of the Clennells of Clennell.
On the death of Thomas Clennell, it devolved to his nephew,
Henry Collingwood, who was High Sheriff of Northum-
berland in 1793, from whom it descended to its present
proprietor, Mr. Ed ward John Collingwood.
Very different is this stately mansion from the old
Border towers in which the former owners of Lilburn
resided. In the beginning of the 16th century, there were
two of these towers standing at West Lilburn, the most
ancient of which — mentioned in 1415 as being then in the
occupation of John Carr — is thought by Mr. C. J. Bates
to have been built by Sir John de Lilburn, a famous
knight who was at the battle of Otterburn, and who died
about the year 1400. In 1438, a feud had arisen between
the Lilburns and Revelys and the Carrs, which not only
led to proceedings at law, but also to acts of a more
violent character. Thomas Revely having broken down
the close of John Carr at West Lilburn, the Carrs re-
taliated in 1442 and 1449 by breaking down his close at
Middleton Hall. Then, in the latter year, Revely caused
— it is said "by carelessness" — the house of Thomas
Carr of West Lilburn to be totally destroyed by fire. In
1509, the two towers of West Lilburn belonged to
Jeffrey Prokter, but their "rewler" was one Lyell Graye.
In 1541, Sir Robert Bowes and Sir Ralph Ellerker
report that the two towers in the town of West Lilburn
were still both farmed and occupied by Lionel Gray,
porter of Berwick (younger brother of Sir Roger Gray, of
Horton Castle). The western tower, belonging to Cuth-
bert Proctor, had been allowed to fall into such a state of
ruin for lack of necessary repairs that nothing but the
walls were standing ; the eastern one, the property of
Cuthbert Ogle, rector of Ford, had recently been burnt by
sudden fire. It was recommended that both towers
should be again repaired, as they stood in a place com-
modious for the defence of the country in time of peace,
and in time of war could receive and lodge a hundred
soldiers in garrison. One of these towers stands in ruini
on a hill a little to the south-west of the mansion. It
measures inside about 30 feet by 18 feet. This was
probably the later tower ; for, says Mr. Bates, " judging
from the external ashlar work, the ruins are those of a
tower built at the end of the fifteenth century."
At the foot of the hill occupied by the tower is an
352
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{Auitiut
189
189L
ancient chapel, which is in ruins. It somewhat resembles
in general plan the beautiful chapel at Old Bewick. The
burial ground surrounding it, which is very old, is
still used for interments. A few old headstones are
standing, one bearing the date 1684, and another 1693.
Some prehistoric graves were opened on the Lilburn
Tower estate in 1883 and 1886, when several urns and
other antiquities were found. W. W. T.
a
[JOHN ENGLISH, the proper name of a noted
character on Tyneside called "Lang Jack,"
came to Whickbatn when Scotswood Suspen-
sion Bridge was being built (in the year 1830), and
worked as a mason on that structure. Prior to this time,
he lived at Chester-le-Street, but whether he was a native
of that place I am not prepared to say. While he lived
at Chester-le-Street, he worked at the Newcastle Gaol
and St. Thomas's Church, Barras Bridge, travelling be-
tween the two places every day.
When he came to Whickham, he resided at the Wood
House, and, being then in the prime of life, he was physi-
cally a splendid specimen of a man. His height was
6 feet 4i inches in his stockings, this being the reason why
he was called " Lang Jack." After living at the Wood
House a few years, he erected a house for himself
on the road to Shotley Bridge, which is still called "Lang
Jack's." The stones used in the building of the house he
diew on a bogey from a quarry at the Wood House, the
road being rough and uneven, and about three-quarters of
a mile distant. The bogey itself was sufficient for an
ordinary man to draw, and yet this work waa all done
after serving bis employer until six o'clock at night.
The chimney tops were made at Blaydon Banks Quarry
while Jock was working there. They weighed about
twelve stones each, and were carried by him from the
quarry to the house, a distance of four miles.
While working at the quarry, he accomplished an extra-
ordinary feat of strength. He had a favourite dog named
Bob, and one of the cartmen, leading stones from the
quarry, unfortunately ran over Bob and killed him.
Jack was so exasperated at the death of his dog that,
taking bold of one of the wheels, he capsized the cart, the
stones, and the horse over a bank.
After his house was finished, whenever he required a
load of coals be placed a " coop " on his bogey and
brought them from Crookgate, a distance of two miles.
This feat of strength can only be understood by those
who have walked up the bank from "Lang Jack's" to
Fellside, this bank being one of the steepest in tne dis-
trict.
Jack was often on the "spree." Sometimes, when
drinking with a number of companions, he would say to
them, " Now, my lads, clear out ! There's going to be
war in the camp " — meaning that he was going to display
some feat of strength with chairs and tables. I scarcely
need say there was soon a general stampede, the men
leaving their " drinks " behind them. It was Jack's
habit at dances to startle his companions by jumping and
pushing his head through the ceiling. One particular
dance was held in a barn, and Jack gave one of his accus-
tomed jumps ; but, having no ceiling to break, the
flooring gave way when he carne down npon it, and he
August 1
-11. / ^
mi.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
353
and his friends found themselves among the cattle in the
byre below !
Jack died, I think, about the year 1860, at the
age of sixty years. The house which he built is
situated at the bottom of Fellside Bank, near the
principal entrance to the Gibside estate. It stands
in an open space about two hundred yards from the main
road, and is surrounded by the woods of Gibside. In a
small garden opposite to the house stands a monument
about eighteen feet high with a bust of Jack, which is
certainly an excellent likeness. It was designed and
finished by John Norvell, of Swalwell, during the lifetime
of the original, and upon it is inscribed "J. English,
1854." WM. BOURN.
***
Lang Jack may be fairly described as a giant. His
regular walking step measured 3 feet 3 inches. Jack
used to take an interest in political matters, and some-
times walked at the head of processions when attending
reform meetings about 1832. His skill as a workman,
and his kindly disposition, brought him under the notice
of the Claverings, of Axwell, who granted him a piece of
land near Gibside, on which Jack soon built himself a
cottage and laid out a garden. The bust of Jack, erected
opposite his cottage, is known as Lang Jack's Monument.
R. N. O.
&iut an tfte
ROISSART declared, about five hundred years
ago, than the English took their pleasures
sadly. If he could have witnessed the Great
Northern Carnival of Race Week on the Town Moor,
Newcastle-on-Tyne, say a quarter of a century ago,
he would probably have altered his opinion. He
wonld have noticed, doubtless, a great amount of
excitement, intense interest in the races, a great
deal of noise and shouting, and perhaps some little
drunkenness and coarse language. Race Week was the
one great holiday in the year for thousands of "poor,
patient, hard-working men, "as Dickens calls them, and,
ac a rule, it was seldom marred by any blackguardism or
disorderly conduct. There are exceptions to all rules,
however, and the riot on the Town Moor in the Race
Week of 1866 was a very remarkable and unpleasant ex-
ception.
On Wednesday, June 27, 1866 (the Fenian agitation
was just then at its height), the last race for the day had
just been run, and most of the sight-seers were preparing
to leave for home, when a number of Irishmen (about 300
strong) made a terrific onslaught on nearly every person
that crossed their path. Some hours before this, they
had attracted attention by roving about the Town Moor,
flourishing sbillalaghs, and yelling "Garibaldi, or the
Pope !" The disturbers mainly hailed from Jarrow,
Walker, and neighbouring places; and most of them
were dressed in light-coloured coats or jackets. At first
the eccentric proceedings of this shouting and roaring
crowd caused only amusement or derision ; but late
in the afternoon matters took a different turn. The
row began by some men shouting to a group of Irishmen
who were playing at "Aunt Sally," "Here are the
Fenians !" A terrible scrimmage commenced at once,
the Irishmen seizing their sticks and attacking every
Englishman they met with. Very soon, about a dozen
persons were so badly injured that they had to be removed
to the Infirmary, and a number of policemen who had
interfered also suffered severely. News of the riot, sent
at once to the various police stations, brought the Chief-
Constable (Mr. Sabbage) with about forty officers upon (
the spot. As soon as the rioters saw this large force, they
" made tracks," flying in all directions, some hiding under
carts, others behind the shows, tents, and other places of
Pf-i^tf^
354
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
concealment. The police succeeded in arresting seven of
the ringleaders at once, and two others were taken shortly
after. The prisoners were taken to the Manors Police
Station, together with a pitman who had received shocking
injuries. Arrests continued to be made, and the wounded
to be brought in, until far on in the evening, and Dr.
Rayne (then the police surgeon), with his assistants, was
kept very busy attending to the injured. Several of these
presented pitiable sights, one man having nine wounds
on his head, another seven cuts about his head and face,
others again being covered with blood Altogether,
eighteen Irishmen were taken into custody before the
night was over.
Next morning, the eighteen men who had been arrested
were brought before the magistrates, and the following
week eleven of them were committed for trial at the
Summer Assizes. The case was tried by the late Mr.
Baron Martin, and all the prisoners, save one, being
found guilty, were sentenced to imprisonment for twelve
months with hard labour. So ended the Fenian Riot on
the Town Moor. W. W. W.
ffitn at JKarfe 'Eton)* grime antr
Jltcljarb OTelforb.
Stye Jitr CSeorge Cgrej)* of /alloben.
TWO ILLUSTRIOUS NORTHUMBRIANS.
The Greys of Howick and Falloden are the descend-
ants of a union between two ancient North-Country
families — the Greys of Heton and Chillingham, and
the Greys of Horton. Sir Ralph Grey of Chillingham,
grandson of the Sir Ralph who was beheaded at Don-
caster, married Isabel, co-heir of Sir Thomas Grey of
Horton, and their third son, Sir Edward Grey (con-
stable of Morpeth Castle in 1584 and 1589, and high
sheriff of Northumberland in 1597-98), acquiring
Howick, founded the family that, ever since his time,
have taken their territorial designation from tiiat
place. One of Sir Edward's descendants, Sir Henry
Grey of Howick, married Hannah, daughter of
Thomas Wood of Falloden, and this lady brought
the Falloden estate to the Greys as her jointure or
dowry. Of that union came four sons, one of whom,
Sir Charles Grey, a general in the army, was raised
to the peerage by the title of Earl Grey. The earl
married Elizabeth, heiress of George Grey of South-
wick, granddaughter of George Grey, the diarist, and
left, among other issue, Charles, second Earl Grey,
the Prime Minister who carried the Reform Bill, and
George Grey of Falloden, with whose life, and that
of his son, it now remains to deal.
SIB GEOBGE OREY. — I.
George Grey, younger brother of. the second earl,
was born at Falloden on the 10th of October, 1767.
He entered the navy as soon as he left school, and
at the early age of fifteen, being a lieutenant in the
Resolution, took part in Rodney's famous engagement
against the fleet of Spain. In 1793 he obtained post
rank in the Boyne, 98 guns, bearing the flag of Sir
,Tohn Jervis. He served under Sir John throughout
the campaign in the West Indies — -his brother Charles,
afterwards the first Earl Grey, being in chief command
of the land forces— and at the siege of Guadaloupe he
headed a detachment of 500 seamen and marines which
were landed to co-operate with his brother's forces
ashore. Subsequently he had command of the
Victory, and he remained under Jervis's orders until
the great exploit off Cape Vincent, on the 14th
February, 1797, raised that gallant admiral to the
peerage. Three years later, when Sir John Jervis,
as Earl St. Vincent, took charge of the Channel
Fleet, Mr. Grey joined him as captain of the Ville
de Paris. In 1801 he was appointed to one of the
yachts in attendance upon the royal family ajt Wey-
mouth, and continued in that service till 1804, when
he succeeded Sir Isaac Coffin as Commissioner of
Sheerness Dockyard ; from thence he was appointed
to a similar position at Portsmouth. When the
allied sovereigns visited the fleet at Spithead, in 1814,
' George IV. presented him with a patent of baronetcy;
six years later he was made a K.O.B. He remained
at Portsmouth as resident commissioner of the dock-
yard till his death, which occurred on the 8th of
October, 1828. Besides his captaincy and com-
missionership he held, at his decease, the 6ffices ol
Marshal of the Vice-Admiralty Court at Barbadoes,
Vice-President of the Naval and Military Bible
Society, and alderman of the borough of Portsmouth.
Sir George married in June, 1795, Mary, daughter of
Samuel Whitbread by Lady Mary Cornwallis, and
sister to Samuel Whitbread, M.P. for Bedford, who
had espoused Lady Elizabeth Grey, Sir George's
sister. By this lady he had two sons, the eldest of
whom, Sir George Grey of our own time, succeeded
him.
SIB GEORGE OREY.— II.
Born at Gibraltar on the llth May, 1799, the second
Sir George Grey received his education at Oriel
College, Oxford, where he matriculated, June 25,
1817, gained a first-class in classics, and took his
arts degrees— that of B.A. in 1821, and that of M.A.
in 1824 From Oriel his course was steered to
Lincoln's Inn, and in 1826 he was called to the Bar.
At, that time to be a Grey was to be a politician, and
Sir George, succeeding his father in the title and
estates within two years after his call, found more
attraction in the pursuit of politics than in the
profession of the law. At the general election which
1W1.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
355
followed the Reform Act (December, 1832) he was
returned to Parliament by the borough of Devonport,
a new constituency that had been created outside
the ancient borough of Plymouth.
Shortly after Sir George Grey had taken his seat
he made his mark in the House in a maiden speech
on a Coercion Bill for Ireland. The following year
(1834) he received his first Ministerial appointment —
that of Under-Secretary for the Colonies. Scarcely
had he settled down to the duties of his office when
his uncle, the Prime Minister, resigned. Lord Mel-
bourne, who succeeded to the Premiership, carried
•on the Government till December, and then the
Whigs gave place to the Tories. Sir Robert Peel
became Prime Minister, but was unable to hold the
reins of office more than three or four months and
upon the return of Lord Melbourne, in April, 1835,
Sir George resumed his post at the Colonial Office.
There he remained, taking an active part in the
heated discussions respecting Canadian affairs and
their administration by Lord Durham, till 1839, when
lie accepted the quiet and practically sinecure office
of Judge Advocate General, and in June, 1841, the
irresponsible post of Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster. In September of that year the Whigs
were defeated upon the question of the sugar duties,
and Sir George retired, with his colleagues, to make
way for Sir Robert Peel and the Tories. The latter
obtained a much longer lease of office this time.
They retained the confidence of Parliament and the
country till June, 1846, when Sir Robert, who' had
passed his Free Trade measures, was defeated upon
another phase of the everlasting Irish question, and
the Whigs, with Lord John Russell as Premier, came
back to power. Lord John appointed Sir George
Grey to the high office of Home Secretary, and he
was occupying that responsible position when, in the
summer of 1847, Parliament was dissolved, and an
appeal was mode to the country.
Anticipating a dissolution, the Whig leaders in the
Northern Division of Northumberland, who had
suffered a heavy reverse in 1841 by the rejection of
Earl Grey's hen-, Lord Howick, invited Sir George
. to assist them in retrieving their loss. Although
reluctant to abandon Devonport, where he had been
on six separate occasions during fifteen years returned
in triumph— four times at general elections, and twice
on accepting office — he acceded to their request. His
opponents were Lord Ossulston, now Earl of Tanker-
ville, one of the reining members, and Lord Lovaine
(the present Duke of Northumberland), who was
brought forward to retain the seat which Mr. Addison
John Baker Cresswell had wrested from the Whigs at
the previous election. The Tories had some advan-
tage in personal canvassing, for Sir George was de-
tained in London by his ministerial duties as Home
Secretary till the 26th July, and the nomination was
to take place on the 7th of August. But his friends
worked hard on his behalf, and when he himself
arrived the constituency was literally "devoured by
his activity." His was not the cold, aristocratic
temperament of the Grey family. On the contrary, he
was full of fire and enthusiasm. From the Town Hall
steps at Alnwick, a rustic platform at Belford, and the
Market Place of Morpeth, he delivered stirring
speeches, which not only quickened the pulses of
Whigs that were staunch and true, but won over the
half-hearted and the wavering.
Although not so exciting a contest as that of 1826,
the election was conducted with the greatest possible
enthusiasm and the most strenuous efforts on both
sides. Out of 3,030 registered electors, 2,490 went to
the poll, of whom 1,084 plumped straight for -'Grey
and Independence." Sir George headed the poll
throughout, and when, after two days' polling, the
figures were added up, it was found that he had
secured 1,366, Lord Ossulston 1,247, and Lord Lovaine
1,236 votes.
The year 1848 was a year of revolution and of trial,
and it was during this stormy period that Home
Secretary Sir George Grey attained the height of his
fame as a statesman. By his firmness and vigour he
secured the preservation of peace and order while
barricades were rising in the streets of Paris, Vienna,
and Berlin, physical force chartists were training
and drilling all over Great Britain, and Ireland was in
a state of insurrection. It fell to his lot to introduce
356
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
bills considered necessary for public security — the
Felony Bill, Allen Bill, and the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act. In piloting these measures
through Parliament, he won the respect of all parties,
and gave offence to none; not even, it is said, to
those against whose proceedings the Acts were
directed. In the following year, 1849, the Queen
conferred upon him the honorary distinction of
G.O.B. When he went out of office, on the defeat of
the Ministry In the early part of 1852, he was regarded
as the most successful administrator in the ranks of
the Liberal party.
At the general election which followed, Sir George
was unfortunate. In conjunction with Lord Ossulston,
Lord Lovaine again came forward for North Northum-
berland, and the electors, reversing the verdict they
liad given In 1847, placed him at the top of the poll.
Although 1,030 voters plumped for Grey — only 54 short
of the previous number — the Liberals were defeated.
Lord Lovaine obtained 1,414, Lord Ossulston 1,335,
and Sir George, only 1,300 votes. For the remainder
of the year he remained out of Parliament, but In
January, 1853, room was made for him at Morpeth.
The Hon. E. G. G. Howard accepted the stewardship
of the Manor of Northstead and Sir George took his
place. Meanwhile, the Coalition Ministry of the
Earl of Aberdeen had come into power, and all the
offices of state had been filled by Whigs and Peelites.
Sir George entered the House as an unattached
member, and remained without a portfolio till
February, 1854, when he accepted the seals of the
Colonial Office. In the heated discussions upon ffie
Crimean War he took no active part, but upon Mr.
Roebuck Introducing a motion for an Inquiry into
the condition of the army before Sebastopol, he
warmly opposed the proposal. Mr. Roebuck carried
everything before him; his motion was adopted by a
large majority; the Coalition Ministry was destroyed;
Lord Palmerston became Prime Minister; and under
his leadership, hi 1855, Sir George returned to the
Home Office. There he remained till 1858, when
Lord Palmeraton, being defeated on the Conspiracy
Bill, made way for Lord Derby and the Conservatives.
They, in turn, were defeated the following year upon
their Reform Bill, and after an appeal to the country,
resigned office. In June, 1859, Lord Palmerston
returned to the Premiership and Sir George, accepting
the Cnancellorshlp of the Duchy of Lancaster,
resumed his place In the Ministry. He held the
Chancellorship till, In 1861, Sir G. 0. Lewis's trans-
ference to the War Department recalled him once
more to hold his old office of Home Secretary. This
was the position for which he was best qualified,
and he held it, with increasing reputation, till the
defeat of the Russell Government in 1866. Two
years later, when the Liberals returned to power
under Mr. Gladstone, he did not accept office. From
that date to the general election of 1874, Sir George
spoke and acted as an Independent Liberal, and then,
gracefully yielding to the wishes of an extended
constituency for a working man representative, he
made way for Mr. Thomas Burt, closed his connection
with the borough that had returned him to Parlimaent
for twenty-two years, and withdrew from public life.
By his marriage (August 14, 1827) with A mm.
Sophia, daughter of Dr. Ryder, Bishop of Lichfleld,
Sir George Grey had a son and heir— Oeorge Henry
Grey, equerry to the Prince of Wales, and lieutenant-
colonel of the Northumberland Militia. Lieutenant-
Colonel Grey died within a few months of his father's
retirement from the representation of Morpeth,
leaving a young family. Thenceforth Sir George
devoted himself to the upbringing of his grand-
children, and the supervision of his estate. Sir
George passed away on the 9th of September, 1882,
at the venerable age of 83, and was succeeded in
the title and estates by his grandson, Sir Edward
Grey, now M.P. for the Berwick Division of Northum-
berland.
AN EVANGELICAL DIVINt
The Rev. Henry Grey, an eminent preacher in the
Church of Scotland, and of exceeding popularity on
this side the Border, was born at AJnwick on the
llth of February, 1778. His father was an apothe-
cary hi that town, who, after a family quarrel which
occurred soon after the boy was born, left home,
and never returned to It. Though he went no
further away than Morpeth, whore he carried on
his business, it does not appear that this obstinate
scion of the Border family of Grey took any further
Interest in his offspring. The deserted mother,
returning to her relatives, devoted herself to the
up-bringing of the boy so sadly deprived of a father's
care. She sent him to school hi Newcastle, and
when he was old enough obtained his admission to
the University of Edinburgh. He was a youth of
great promise — studious, bookish, and religious.
Soon after he had become a student, he attached
himself to West, or St. Onthbert's Church, where
the Rev. Sir Harry Mono-left, leader of the Evan-
gelical section of the Church of Scotland, officiated.
Under the influence of that celebrated preacher he
formed the design of entering the ministry, and, being
encouraged thereto by his mother and his friends,
he closed his literary studies, and passed into the
theological classes. In due course he obtained a
license to preach, and in 1801 he was presented to
his first charge, the living of Stenton, in East
Lothian.
Although deserted by his father, Mr. Grey was
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
357
not forsaken by his father's relatives. While at
college he had been a frequent guest at the house
of his uncle, George Grey of MUfleld, and upon terms
of affectionate friendship with his cousins there—
the eldest of whom In after years was known throuRh-
out the Northern Counties, and to half the worM
besides, as John Grey of Dilston. To Milfleld the
Rev. Henry Grey went for a wife, and a few years
after he had entered Into possession of the manse
of Stenton, he took home his cousin Margaretta as
his bride.
At Stenton Mr. Grey remained till 1813, when an
opportunity arose of placing him In a more conspicu-
ous station. Sir Harry Moncriefl had been Interest-
ing himself in the establishment of "chapels-of-ease"
In various parts of Scotland, and for some years,
with the aid of his colleague in the ministry, had
revived public worship in a corner of his own parish,
utilising for the purpose an old building known as
the original St. Cuthbert's Chapel. The work had
been successful, and It was resolved to appoint a
permanent minister. Sir Harry's choice fell upon
his friend Mr. Grey, and he, responding to the call,
left his rural flock to assume the charge of a more cul-
tured congregation In the metro] 'Oils of Scotland.
Seven vears later he was elected by the magistrates
and Town Council of Edinburgh to the ministry of
the New North Church, as it was called — one of the
several distinct churches to whose services the old
Cathedral of St. Giles was devoted. In 1827 he was
translated to the Church of St. Mary, a new edifice
just then completed on the northern outskirts of the
city.
Shortly after his Induction at St. Mary's, one of
those curious controversies which every now and
then disturb Christian communities, broke out and
raged with much violence. It was a dispute as to
the conduct of the Bible Society In permitting the
Apocrypha to be circulated along with the canonical
books of the Scriptures. Mr. Grey, or rather Dr.
Grey, for by this time he had become a Doctor of
Divinity, took up the cudgels on behalf of the society;
Dj. Andrew Thompson, another Edinburgh minister,
espoused the opposite side. The death of the latter
In February, 1831, ended the strife, which was pain-
fully personal while it lasted, though It Is said that
toe friendship of the two disputants was not seriously
ruffled bj the storms of controversy. When this
temporary disquietude had passed away. Dr. Grey
recovered the confidence of the friends who had taken
sides against him, and became the popular preacher
of modern Athens.
At the great disruption in 1843 Dr. Grey followed
Dr. Chalmers, and gave up his preferment. He
quitted the house In which he had so long resided for
one of narrower dimensions, left the beautiful Church
of St. Mary for a humble tabernacle, and began his
clerical life afresh as a minister of the Free Church
of Scotland. Next to Dr. Chalmers he was the
secessionist whose self-sacriflce was most highly
honoured and appreciated. Over the first General
Assembly of the Free Church Dr. Chalmers presided
as Moderator; at the second Assembly Dr. Grey
occupied that exalted position. In 1851 the jubilee
of his ministry was celebrated in Edinburgh, and
the commemoration was made of permanent interest
by the establishment of a "Grey Scholarship in
Divinity" and the execution of a marble bust of him-
self which now adorns the library of the Free Church
College.
During all this time active correspondence and
frequent interchange of visits had taken place between
Dr. Grey and his wife and the families at Milneld
ana Dilston. Mrs. Butler's Memoir contains many
references to their affectionate intercourse, and
several examples of the vigorous letters tin public
questions which Dr. Grey's wife addressed to them.
Another of John Grey's sisters had married, first
Mi-. Lundi, of Kelso (friend and associate of Scott,
Leyden, and Brougham), and after his death Dr.
Duncan, the founder of Savings Banks in Scotland,
a brother minister 01 Dr. Grey's, and like him a
seceder from the National Church. With her also
correspondence was maintained, and for many years
the family circle remained unbroken. Soon after
the celebration of his jubilee, domestic sorrows fell
upon Dr. Grey hi quick succession. In 1854 he lost
his eldest son, the Rev. Henry C. Grey, M.A., rector
of Wartlmg, Sussex; in 1857 his eldest daughter,
married to the Rev. J. Hampden Gurney, M.A..
rector of St. Mary's, Marylebone; and in 1858 his
358
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
I August
\ 1891.
wife. Mrs. Grey's death was immediately preceded
and followed by the death of two young relatives
in whom he took an affectionate interest; first a
grandniece, daughter of the Rev. Dr. Horatio Bonar,
who died while on a visit to his house; the other
his grandson, son of the Rev. O. M. Blrrell, of Liver-
pool, whose studies at Edinburgh Academy he was
supervising. A few months later Dr. Grey himself
was called away. He died on the 13th January,
1859, hi the eighty-first year of his age, and the
fifty-ninth of his ministry, and was buried In St.
Outhbert's Churchyard, Edinburgh.
B laektnortl),
LOCOMOTIVE ENGINEER AND SUPERINTENDENT.
Three natives of Tyneside, born in adjoining
parishes, with less than eight years interval separ-
ating the oldest from the vouneest of them, were
the chief instruments in creating a social and com-
mercial revolution to which the history of mankind
offers no parallel. Whatsoever may be then- re-
spective claims to priority of invention or utility
of design, whatsoever opinion may be formed as to
the degree in which each of them contributed to
the general result, these three industrial heroes
—William Hedley, George Stephenson, and Timothy
Hackworth — undoubtedly solved amongst them a
problem that had lingered long in the lap of ex-
periment and expectation; they demonstrated the
practical and profitable adaptation of the power of
steam to locomotion, and gave us our present rail-
way system.
Timothy Hackworth was born at Wylam (where
his father, John Hackworth, was foreman of the
colliery blacksmiths), on the 22nd December, 1786.
He received his education, such as it was, at the
village school, and, at the age of 14, was apprenticed
to the owners of the colliery to learn his father's
trade. Two years after he had entered upon his
indentures the father died, and upon Timothy de-
volved the care of providing for his mother and
family. As soon as his apprenticeship expired, In
1807, the colliery authorities raised him to his
father's post of foreman smith.
While Timothy Hackworth was serving under inden-
tures, colliery managers were speculating upon the
probabilities of using steam as a motive power in
the haulage of coal. Christopher Blackett, the
owner, and William Hedley, the viewer, of Wylam
Colliery, took a lively and Intelligent interest in the
matter. So early as 1805 a locomotive engine had
been made to Mr. Blackett's order at Whlnfleld's
Foundry in Gateshead. It was a failure, but Mr.
Blackett was not discouraged. Mr. Hedley had
proved to him that smooth wheels would work upon
smooth rails by pressure of the weight above them.
fa 1812, Mr. Blackett directed that Hackworth and
his smiths, assisted by Thomas Waters, a Gateshead
ironfounder, should build a locomotive from Mr.
Hedley's design. This engine proved defective.
Another engine was put in hand, and Hackworth,
helped by Jonathan Forster, the colliery engine-
wrlght, succeeded to admiration. The engine draw
eight loaded coal waggons after it, at the rate of
four miles an hour. The victory was won. Mr.
Hedley had demonstrated the soundness of his ideas;
Hackworth Jiad brought them Into effective opera-
tion; the era of steam locomotion had begun.
While these experiments were In progress Timothy
Hackworth had received serious Impressions on the
subject of religion. At the beginning of the year
1811 he united himself to the Methodist body, and
soon lafterwards, having developed considerable gifts
of speaking and exhorting, his name was entered In
the Circuit Plan as a local preacher. Fidelity to hia
religious convictions severed the tie which bound Mm
to Wylam Colliery. One Sunday, In 1815, as we read
in Lawson's "Wesleyan Local Preachers," he was
passing the pit to fulfil a preaching appointment,
when a fellow-workman accosted him with, "Where's
thee gannin'?" Hackworth answered, "I am going
to preach." "Is thee not gannin to de this wark?"
"I have other work than that to do to-day." "Weel,
if thou'll not, somebody else will, and thou'll lose thee
job." "Lose, or not lose, I shall not break the
Sabbath," rejoined Hackworth, and passed on to his
engagement. The man's prediction proved to be
accurate. The owner of Wylam Colliery, or his
representative, discharged a most faithful servant
because he refused to work on a Sunday.
Dismissed from Wylam, Mr. Hackworth obtained
the foremanship of the smiths at Walbottle Colliery,
and there he remained till 1824. In the meantime,
Cieorge Stephenson, improving upon the Wylam ex-
periments, had established a great reputation as a
railway pioneer, and had his hands full of business.
At the date just mentioned, he was undertaking a
survey for the Liverpool an3 Manchester Railway, and
required a competent man to superintend, during his
absence, the manufactory of steam engines which
he had opened In Newcastle. He applied to the agent
of Walbottle Colliery for the loan of Timothy Hack-
worth, and the latter, nothing loth, accepted the
position. So well did he manage the concern that
Stephenson offered him strong inducements — half his
own share In the manufactory, it Is said — to remain.
For reasons of his own, Hackworth declined, refused
at the same time an offer to accompany an exploring
expedition to the gold and silver mines of Venezuela,
New Granada, and Trinidad, and determined to start
in business for himself. His arrangements for that
Aumistl
1891. )
NORTH-COUNIRY LORE AND LEGEND.
359
purpose were approaching completion when he re-
ceived, through Mr. Stephenson's recommendation,
an offer of the post of resident engineer to the
Stockton and Darlington Railway Company. This
was an office worthy of his acceptance, and he closed
with the offer.
At Darlington, Timothy Hackworth began a system
of laborious research and rigorous investigation into
the principles of locomotive mechanism and their
adaptation to the requirements of traffic, which made
the Stockton and Darlington line famous in the
history of railway enterprise. Five miles of the
railway consisted 67 inclined planes, worked with
stationary engines, and to the safe and effectual
arrangements of these planes, he devoted in the first
Instance the greater part of his time and energies.
He designed double-acting drums for the Brusselton
IncHne, and so fixed a drum upon the Etherley
Incline that it worked the coal-waggons, up and down
a long bank and a short bank, with a minimum of
strain upon the engine. Among other of his devices
were the discharge-hook by which the ropes could be
detached from waggons in motion, the drag-frame
attached to last carriages in ascending inclines, with
the object of arresting precipitate descent in case of
accident, and the switch, fixed a short distance from
the top of inclines, by which waggons could be thrown
off the line if they happen to run over the bank head.
But his greatest achievement on the Stockton and
Darlington was the construction of an engine on a
new principle, "the boldest step in mechanical con-
struction ever concentrated in a single effort." The
locomotives In use upon th~e line worked so badly
that the directors contemplated the use of fixed
engines over the whole of their mileage. Hackworth
expressed confidence In his own ability to build a
locomotive that would travel with greater speed,
draw a heavier load, and consume less fuel than the
imperfect specimens which the company were run-
ning. Permission was granted, and he constructed,
In 1827, the engine celebrated in railway history as
ttie "Royal George." The "Royal George" was "the
first of a new type of engine, and tfie nearest approach
to the modern locomotive of any that had yet been
built."
In the celebrated trial of locomotives upon the
Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1829, Hack-
worth entered the " Sanspareil, " an engine built upon
the same principle as the "Royal George," but it
broke down, and the prize of £500 was awarded to
the "Rocket," built by George and Robert Stephen-
son. The " Sanspareil" is described as "a marvel of
mechanism, considering the conditions under which
it was made." It was sold to the Bolton Railway
Company, after it had done some service elsewhere,
and gave great satisfaction. In another competition,
Hackworth was more successful. The Stockton and
DarUngton Company offered 150 and 75 guineas
respectively for the best and second best plans,
sections, and estimates for staiths, machinery, &c.,
to be used in the shipment of coals at Middlesbrough,
and he obtained the first prize. Other remarkable
achievements in locomotive engineering followed. A
new engine, the "Globe," with which he opened the
branch line from Stockton to Middlesbrough, showed
a marked improvement, and still further ingenuity
was displayed in the "Majestic," "Lord Brougham,"
"William IV.," &c.
When Mr. Hackworth had given to the Stockton
and Darlington line nine years of service as engineer
and locomotive manager, the conditions of his en-
gagement was changed. He had won the entire
confidence of the directors, and in 1834 they placed
their machinery and workshops at his disposal, and
contracted with him for the entire haulage of the
line. The arrangement lasted till 1840, when he
erected the Soho Engine Works, Shildon, and com-
menced business on his own account.
Throughout his career, Mr. Hackworth retained his
connection as a Methodist class leader and local
preacher. "Naturally endowed with great moral
courage and fortitude of mind," writes one who knew
him, "he possessed a fluency and happiness of expres-
sion, with a thread of delicate humour, and anecdote
pervading his discourses, which charmed all who
listened to his artless eloquence. He loved retire-
ment, and preferred the joys of private life to worldly
honours, which caused him, thougfi a public character,
not to be universally known. Constitutionally
healthy and robust, his life was one of great activity,
both mental and physical ; every moment was
pressed into service." Thus he continued till his
death, which occurred, after a few days' illness, on
the 7th of July, 1850, in the sixty-fourth year of
his age.
at
RIEWS of the exterior of Cragside, Lord Arm-
strong's stately mansion at Rothbury, have
already appeared in the Monthly Chronicle,
(See vol. i., p. 360-1.) And now we present
the reader with two sketches from the interior.
Cragsida is celebrated for its splendid collection of
pictures by modern masters. These costly works of
art are to be found in all the principal rooms ; bub
the gems are hung in the drawing - room. Lighted
from the roof, this magnificent apartment is well
adapted for the display of fine paintings. On referring
360
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
361
to our drawing, which is copied from a photograph
by Mr. Worsnop, of Eothbury, five large canvases will
be seen fronting the observer. That to the left and
nearest the ceiling is regarded as one of the best works
of Sir Frederick Leighton, P.R.A., being no other than
the well-known "Venetian Lady." Below it is one of
William Muller's most noteworthy examples. The centre
picture is the world-famed "Chill October," by Sir John
Millais. Next to the ceiling to the right is the "Spanish
Flower Girl," by John Philip, R.A., often facetiously
termed "Philip of Spain," from the circumstance that
he obtained most of his subjects from that country.
Immediately below is one of J. C. Hook's seascapes — in
every sense worthy of Cragside. The large picture on
the wall to the right, adjoining the small ones in the
corner, is a noble landscape by John Linnell, Sen.,
entitled "A Storm in Autumn." The next two pictures
are marina pieces by E. W. Cooke, R.A., and W.
Clarkson Stanfield. R.A., a native of Sunderland. A por-
tion of the painting known as the "Death of Raphael,"
by H. O'Neil, K.A., is shown to the right. On the
opposite side of the room, and nearest to the spectator, is
"The Primrose Gatherers," a characteristic example by
0. R. Leslie, R.A. The other pictures are all fine speci-
mens of the art of the nineteenth century, one of them
being a very superior oil-painting by David Cox. In
362
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
appropriate positions will be seen many rare specimens
of the potter's art, including the two celebrated Haw-
thorne vases of great beauty and value. Many of these
choice articles were presented to Lord Armstrong by
members of the foreign embassies.
The drawing-room is situated in that part of the
building known as " Gilknockie Tower." The most
noticeable object, perhaps, in this apartment is the
marble mantelpiece. The drawing made by our artist,
which is also copied from a photograph taken by Mr.
Worsnop, shows the elaborate carvings, which were
adapted by Mr. Norman Shaw, R.A., the designer of
Cragside (and also, it may be stated, of many lordly resi-
dences in the metropolis), from the works of Michael
Angelo. The Gothic arch to the right leads to a recess
and large window, whence there is a magnificent view of
the park and fields, with the glorious background of the
Simonsid* Hills. Lord Armstrong's coat-of-arms has
been inserted at the lower corner of the drawing.
i&attle 0f ©tterfcttrit.
i.
JEW English battles are so full of pathetic
incidents or dramatic situations as that of
Otterburn. No martial display in our his-
tory is better remembered. It was highly
romantic in its conception, was fought between chivalrous
foes, and has since formed a theme for some of the
grandest ballads in our language. Yet it can scarcely
be considered of great importance. No kingly strife
throws a glamour over the story, no vexed question was
solved by those engaged. The warriors, it is true, were
men of Scotch and English descent— men who had long
regarded each other as natural foes — but, at the period of
their sanguinary struggle, there was nothing in the
aspect of national affairs to account for the rupture. For
once in a way, the kingdoms were at peace. Yet so
fierce and powerful were the leading chieftains — especially
those located near the Border-land — that they could
gather their followers, organise them, equip them, and
retaliate upon each other unchecked.
Otterburn is, by some authorities, spoken of as a skir-
miih ; by others as a foray ; by others, again, as a mere
quarrel between the rival houses of Douglass and Percy.
Some learned narrators have ventured to doubt the
authenticity of the fight ; some have treated it as a genuine
though unimportant phase of Northern barbarism ; some,
while accepting the current versions, have been content to
dismiss tl.em with a passing reference. But, however
designated, the occurrence throws a remarkable light on
the condition of a district of undoubted interest, as well
as on the manners and customs of a people who had long
been inured to all the horrors of internecine war.
Though there is considerable doubt as to the date on
which the battle of Otterburn was fought, most authori-
ties agree that it was somewhere about the middle of
August, 1388. At that time, Richard II. was spending
his substance in riotous living, and the great Border
barons — when not plotting for their own aggrandisement
—were wont to amuse themselves by hunting and hawking
expeditions that frequently led to bloodshed. They lived
in wild, swampy, well wooded districts, and possessed
bodies of retainers who were as rude, savage, and relentless
as themselves. Though separated by the Cheviots, the
condition of the dwellers on each side of this natural
barrier was not greatly dissimilar. Both districts were
populous ; both sets of people sadly prone to raiding
and thieving. The commoners lived in slenderly con-
structed hovels without windows. They were possessed
of little furniture and few comforts, and they stored up
their wealth in cattle which all men seemed anxious to
steal. The chiefs occupied castles or peel towers, in
which, during periods of danger, it was customary for
their dependants to gather for mutual protection. This,
in a sentence, was the state of matters for many centuries.
An excursion from one side of the hills led to retaliation
from the other, and seldom failed to produce scenes of
rapine that were truly deplorable. It was a raid of this
character, though on a scale of unusual magnitude, that
led to the incident we are about to describe. The
English, under Richard, had swarmed across the Border
in 1385; and the Scots were yearning to wipe out the
disgrace at the earliest possible moment. This, at least,
is the reason assigned for their tactics. But it was not
until the summer of 1388 that the enterprise was deemed
ripe for accomplishment. The Dukes of Argyll and Fife,
supported by James, Earl of Douglass, had long been
fostering their plans, and on St. Oswald's Day, the 5th of
August, they arranged for an assembly of their adherents
in the Forest of Jedburgh. No fewer than 30,000 men
are said to have responded to the call, and nothing
seemed likely to interfere with the full success of their
schemes. Being too numerous for a single column, how-
ever, the leaders divided their forces — one section, under
the Duke of Argyll, entering England byway of Carlisle;
the other, under Douglass, crossing the Cheviots near
the head of Redesdale.
As it is entirely with the latter section that our recital
has to deal, a few details concerning the force are
necessary. It consisted of 400 knights, squires, and men-
at-arms, together with 2,000 chosen infantry. These
were the actual fighting men ; but, taking into account
the grooms and camp followers, the army is supposed to
have numbered nearly 6,000. In all respects these warriors
must have constituted an attractive party. Plates of
steel— over whieh were tabards of cloth or fur — formed
the chief defensive armour of the knights, who, with
coarsly finished helmets, long lances, two-edged swords,
and battle axes, were a truly formidable array.
Coming next were the men-at-arms in similarly
Alt MlBt \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
363
heavy metal; and after them the infantry— in
skull-caps and stuffed jackets— all armed with long spears,
maces, and short swords. As nearly every man pos-
sessed a horse of some kind, there was no difficulty in the
way of rapid transit, and it is this circumstance, perhaps,
that accounts for the extraordinary facility with which
they seem to have covered the invaded land. It was on
the 7th of August that they made their way down Redes-
dale — with the Earl of March and the Earl of Moray by
the side of Douglass ; and famous knights like those of
Lindsay, Ramsay, Montgomery, Hepburn, and Swinton,
ever in the van. They swept through Northumberland as
expeditiously as they could, crossed the Tyne above New-
burn, and from the hamlets of Durham and North York
gathered a rich harvest of cattle and other spoil.
Blazing homesteads marked the path of this domineering
horde, and startled peasants soon carried information to
the negligent defenders of the frontier.
No less a person than Sir Henry Percy — the redoubt-
able Hetspur — was at this period acting as warden of the
marches, and his fiery temper was not improved by the
knowledge that he had been caught napping. It was
terrible to think that the Scots had taken the war-path
while be was dallying at Alnwick, but still more galling
to imagine that they might return without a check to
their depredations. After scattering messengers to all
parts of the county for aid, and gathering every available
follower from his own neighbourhood, he at once pro-
ceeded to Newcastle to await reinforcements. He was
only juet in tim«, for about Friday, the 14th of August,
the Douglass — intoxicated by his previous successes —
mad* an attempt to get possession of that stronghold also.
Though too weak to attack his assailant, Percy was strong
enough to hold the town, and could, therefore, await
developments with something like equanimity. The
situation, from a military point of view, was extremely
interesting. Having failed to surprise the place, the
Scots took up their position on the Leazes — from whence
they could overlook the defences of the burghers — and
there considered the desirability of storming the walls.
It would have proved a hazardous enterprise under any
circumstances ; but to the Scots, who were imperfectly
equipped for so hazardous an undertaking, the pros-
pect might well seem hopeless. Almost in front
of them lay the "massive fabric of Newgate, with
its barbican and bridge"; while sweeping round to the
river on either side were walls, and towers, and turrets
that were guarded by stalwart and determined men.
Beneath them lay the outward fosse, 22 yards broad, on
any point of which the archers could concentrate a shower
of arrows. No wonder, then, that the inhabitants felt
tolerably secure from a direct attack ; though they were
galled, no doubt, by their inability to meet the fee in the
open. But while a general engagement was not deemed
prudent, there were several exciting skirmiihes between
the most ardent partizang of the respective leaders. Pre-
cisely what happened during this period of siege is
unknown. It is probable, however, that many personal
encounters took place at the northern barrier, where
doughty champions would gladly enter the lists against
each other. Hotspur and his brother Ralph are said to
have contended in this way against the Scottish leaders ;
and, as the result of one joust, the Northumbrian chief
was unhorsed by the Douglass, who thereupon got
possession of the silken pennon of the Percies. Waving
it above his head, the vanquisher declared that he would
convey it to Scotland, and place it on his castle at Dalkeith
as a symbol of his enemy's downfall. Hotspur was
rendered furious by the thought of such an indignity,
and emphatically asserted that the exploit should never
be accomplished ; whereupon the Douglass, with equal
warmth, replied — " Then thou must come and seek it
to-night, for I shall place it in the ground before my
tent, and see if thou wilt venture to take it away."
What followed on the banks of the Tyne is not very
material to the story, though in all probability the victory
over Hotspur was followed by an unsuccessful attempt to
scale the walls of the town. There are one or two records
that are supposed to lend colour to this view. One of
these asserts, on the authority of an old writer, that the
Douglass "consoled his followers" for their want of suc-
cess at Newcastle, and attributed the failure to a lack of
scaling ladders. As a second confirmation, we may cite
an old ballad — believed to have been written within a
hundred years of the fight — in which there is an allusion
to Hotspur that says : —
A pype of wyne he gave them over the walles
Forsoth, as I yow saye ;
Ther he mayd the Douglas drynke
And all hys oste that daye.
But there is another record that may also have reference
to this unexpected attack on the town of Newcastle. It
is known, for instance, that Richard II., in 1390, decreed
that " a sword — the ensign of royal state and authority —
should be carried before the Mayor of Newcastle. " This
honour, in the opinion of eome historians, " may have
been conferred as a mark of his majesty's approval of the
bravery which the inhabitants had previously shown in
defending the town."
Without inquiring too closely into the motives that
precipitated the movement, there can be no doubt that the
Soots had left their quarters before daybreak on the
morning following the skirmish, and were well on their
way to the hill districts before the harassed townsmen
were stirring. After plundering a tower at Ponteland,
the retiring host reached the vicinity of Otterburn in the
afternoon. They did not stay in the village ; but marched
up the open valley to Greenchesters, whence they
debouched to the right, and took possession of a disused
camp on the eminence in front of them. "This," says Mr.
Robert White, " forms a kind of promontory, jntting-ou*
to the south-west from the the high land behind ; and to
the Scots it commanded a good view, both up Reilesdaln
364
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
and around the central part thereof, for several miles.
The tower of Otterburn was situated about a mile and a
half below them, and they had an open prospect to the
south-east— the direction whence they might reasonably
expect the approach of the English." Without losing
a moment's time, they entered their camp, sent the raided
cattle for safety into the marshy ground along the banks
of the Rede, and then made the best preparations they
could for guarding the chosen ground. In all respects
the place was well adapted for defence — being protected
on the west and south by natural growths of wood, and
having an entrance on the east similarly sheltered. On
the north appeared evidences of weakness ; but these were
quickly made secure by earthworks and felled trees. It
was on this spot that the Scots passed the night without
molestation. Early on the following morning, the 19th of
August, they made an ineffectual attempt to capture the
tower of Otterburn, and were so impressed by the mis-
carriage of their plans that a numerous party urged an
immediate retreat across the Cheviots. The Douglass,
however, would listen to no retrograde movement. He
had promised to give Hotspur an opportunity of regaining
his pennon, and, in spite of all risks or auguries, he felt
bound to remain a little longer on English ground.
Though fatigued by the struggles of the day, the Scots
were constrained to take rest in close proximity to their
armour. It is quite as well they did so, for a visitor was
approaching who was sure to strike hard and quickly.
WILLIAM LONGSTAFP.
at tfte Craft*
dfawilg,
j|HE corncrake, or landrail (Crex pratensia,
Yarrell ; Gallimda crex, Bewick), is a
regular summer visitor to the Northern
Counties, where its harsh cry may often
be heard, though the bird itself is seldom to be seen, in
the grass and corn fields. It arrives in April, and
departs in September or October.
Though this interesting bird seems to be a poor flyer
when forced to take wing in the meadows, which it will
only do when hard pressed, it nevertheless crosses the
Mediterranean to and from Africa in great numbers
during the spring and autumn migrations. Its favourite
haunts are low grass meadows, clover and corn fields,
willow beds, and other places which afford a secure
shelter. When seen, it is easily recognized by its high
body, with much compressed sides.
The length of the bird is nearly ten inches. The
smooth but not very thick plumage is of a blackish brown
above, spotted with yellowish grey ; the throat and fore
parts of the neck are ash grey, with brownish grey sides,
spotted with brownish red ; the wings are brownish red,
spotted with yellowish white. The female is not so
brightly coloured. The call of the corncrake, as most
schoolboys are aware, can be very closely imitated by
passing the edge of the thumb nail, or a piece of wood,
briskly along the points of the teeth of a comb, and so
similar is the sound that the bird may be decoyed by it to
within a very short distance. The male bird is the caller,
and he continues to utter his discordant cry until a mate
b found, and incubation commences, after which he ia
heard less frequently.
The bird is stealthy and cunning in its movements,
and will simulate death if suddenly surprised. Mr. Jesse
relates the following interesting anecdote in corroboration
of this fact : — "A gentleman had a corncrake brought to
him by his doe, to all appearance lifeless. As it lay on
the ground, he turned it over with his foot, and felt
convinced that it was dead. Standing by, however, in
silence, he suddenly saw it open an eye. He then took it
up ; its head fell, its legs hung loose, and it again ,
appeared quite dead. He then put it in his pocket, but
before long he felt it all alive and struggling to escape.
He then took it out, and it was apparently lifeless as
before. Having laid it again on the ground and retired
to some distance, the bird in about five minutes warily
raised its head, looked around, and decamped at full
speed."
The corncrake can run with great swiftness, and
threads its way through grass or standing corn, when
disturbed, with the utmost celerity. Its food consists
chiefly of worms, snails, slugs, insects, grass seeds, &c.
It is an accomplished ventriloquist, and while quite near
at hand the note may sometimes sound as if it were a
AMu«tl
189J . f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
365
long way off, and vice versa. The nest, which contains
from eight to twelve eggs, is usually placed amid stand-
ing grass or corn, and occasionally in a furrow or natural
hollow.
The water rail (Rattus aquaticus) is not uncommon in
the Northern Counties, though rarely seen, on account of
its retiring habits. "It is a resident," says Mr. John
Hancock, " but to a considerable extent is migratory, and
is most numerous during autumn and winter. Its nest
was taken by Mr. 0. M. Adamson, on the 12th July, 1867,
at Qrindon Lough ; it) was built amidst reeds, about knee
deep in water, and contained seven eggs."
The adult male has the crown and upper parts generally
of a fulfous brown colour, with a blackish centre to each
of the feathers ; quills, dusky brown ; tail feathers, dark
brown, bordered with olive brown ; chin, whitish ; sides
of head, neck, and under parts to centre of abdomen,
uniform slate grey ; flanks, black, transversely barred
with white ; vent, buff ; some of the under tail coverts
white. Length, from ten to eleven inches. The female is
slightly duller in colour than the male, but is otherwise
similar.
Like its land relative, the water rail is not much of a
flyer, but it can run with much swiftness amid the grass
and reeds on the margins of ponds and lakes. Its chief
food consists of various kinds of insects, worms, small
frogs, slugs, snails, and sometimes mice and small fish.
The spotted crake (Gallinuia porzana, Bewick — Orex
porzana, Yarrell) is stated by Mr. Hancock to be a resi-
dent in the Northern Counties. A nest of eggs, he says,
was taken at Frestwick Car, many years ago, by the
gamekeeper of the late Sir Matthew White Ridley ;
another nest of young, just hatched, was taken at the
same place, by Mr. Turner, of Prestwick ; and, according
to the lat* Mr. W. Proctor, it formerly bred at Kram well-
gate Cars, Durham.
All the Galliniilce, as Dr. Brehm observes, are inhabi-
tants of marshy districts, and some of them might even
be called water fowl. They usually prefer sedey lakes,
swampy morasses and brooks, or ponds and rivers well
stocked with vegetation, but are, without exception,
restricted to fresh water. They run with less agility
than the rails, but far surpass them in their powers of
swimming and diving. As soon as the young are capable
of exertion, they and their parents quit the place of their
birth and wend their way, in some instances, further
south, or merely to a more favourable situation, where
they remain till after the moulting season.
These birds appear to begin to arrive about the middle
or end of March, their journeys taking place by night.
The return migration takes place about the middle or
end of October. The bird flies in an unsteady, awkward
manner, with the legs hanging down, like the landrail
when on the wing. When the migratory period ap-
proaches, the bird may sometimes be seen rising high
into the air. Its chief food consists of worms, slugs.
aquatic insects, and the seeds of water and land plants.
The adult male spotted crake has the upper parts olive-
brown, with blackish centres to the feathers and spotted
or streaked with white ; wings, brown, with outer web
of first primary white ; lores, brown ; chin, throat, sides
of head, and chest, slate-grey, shaded with olive on chest
and more or less spotted with white ; abdomen, white ;
flanks, brown, conspicuously barred with white ; under
tail-coverts, buff ; bill, yellow, orango at base ; legs and
feet, olive green j irides, hazol. Length, between eight!
and nine inches. The female is slightly smaller in size
and duller in colour than the male bird, and has more
brown on the sides of the head and flanks.
The nest is usually built in a clump of rushes or
amongst reeds.
The little crake (Poranza parvaj, Seebohm tells us, is
a rare visitor to our islands. It has occurred in England
between thirty and forty times. A few examples have
been seen and taken in the Northern Counties. The
366
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/A UK list
1891.
genera] colour of the upper parts of the adult male in
spring plumac^e is huffish brown, most of the feathers,
except those of the head, nape, and the wing-coverts,
having obscurely defined dark centres. The primaries
and secondaries are brown ; the forehead, a line over the
eye, the sides of the head and neck, and the rest of the
underparts are slate-grey ; the shortest under tail-coverts
are brown tipped with white ; the longest, black tipped
with white. Bill, green, tinged with red at the base;
legs and feet, green ; irides, deep carmine. The female
differs a little from the male in general colouration.
jfreitdt Jarajjrrmt airly tft*
N the month of October, 1858, the highly
responsible situation of French Consul in
the port of Newcastle was filled by a peer
of France, Count Louis de Maricourt, and
the still more delicate position of editor of the now
defunct Northern Daily Express, then a professedly re-
ligious paper, by the late James Bolivar Manson. Party
spirit ran high at the time ; municipal elections were in
progress ; and the Express took up the cudgels for or
against particular candidates in the several contested
wards according to the will and pleasure of its conductor.
One of the gentlemen most obnoxious to its ire was an
adherent of the Roman Catholic Church, and n prominent
member of one of the oldest Northumbrian families
attached to the old faith. This was Mr. William Dunn,
who was opposed for Westgate Ward by Mr. George
Oharlton, afterwards Mayor of Gateshead.
The Count de Maricourt, who had, during his residence
in Newcastle, endeared himself to many by his marked
beneficence, especially to the Roman Catholic poor, in-
curred the displeasure of the Protestant Express through
ently twenty-five or twenty-six years of age, daahed in
an act of courtesy, which was perhaps inconsiderate, but
which there was no reason to believe sprung from any bad
motive. During the heat of the contest, the count called
upon one of the voters in the ward for which Mr. Dunn
had put up, in company with a friend who was actively
canvassing for that gentleman. According to his own
subsequent account, he did not ask the man for his vote,
though the man alleged that be did. The affair was of
course soon bruited abroad, and a letter appeared in the
columns of the Express, in which M. de Maricourt wag
very severely taken to task for interfering, foreigner as
he was, and foreign official to boot, in an English election.
The terms used by the letter-writer were, it may be in-
ferred, not particularly choice; but there was perhaps
nothing positively libellous either in them or in the editor's
subsequent remarks. That they gave great offence, how-
ever, to the parties criticised, was immediately made
clear. For late on the evening of Tuesday, October 12th,
the day on which the letter appeared, the following card
written by a son of Counl de Maricourt, then on a visit to
his father in Newcastle, was left at the office of the
Express after the editor had gone away for the night : —
F. DE MARICOURT,
lleme DRAGONS.
Fera 1'honneur a 1'editeur a de 1'attendre demain a huit
houres du matin au smoking-room de 1'Exchange Hotel.
Si 1'editeur ne vient pas, il aura le plaisir de 1'aller crava-
cher chez lui.
The following is a translation of the missive : —
F. DE MARICOURT,
llTH DRAGOONS,
Will do the editor the honour to wait for him at the
smoking-room of the Exchange Hotel to-morrow morning
at eight o'clock. If the editor does not come, he will have
the pleasure to chastise him at bis own house.
This note was not seen by Mr. Mansou, it appears,
until the evening of the following day; but on the
Wednesday morning the writer called at the Express
office, and demanded to see the editor, at the same time
pulling out a pistol, which, according to their account, he
swung alternately in the faces of the accountant and the
clerk. One of these gentlemen understood the language of
the excited foreigner; but the other, supposing that the ex-
pression of blowing out some one's brains referred to them-
selves, gave him the editor's private address. M. de
Maricourt was told that the editor would probably be at
the office about 1 o'clock, and at that "wee short hour" he
walked right upstairs to the editorial sanctum, entering it
so silently that a boy, who was arranging some papers at a
table, only became aware of his presence by finding a hand
laid upon his shoulder. He expressed his intention to
remain there some time, to await the editor's arrival.
And there he did remain until about twenty minutes to 2.
The remaining portion of the narrative will now be best
given as drawn up by Mr. Manson himself in the first
person : —
Sitting in my own house in Ravensworth Terrace,
Gateshead, and engaged writing, I heard a knock at
the door a few minutes past 2. The servant opened it,
and, without waiting to be announced, a person appeared
Annmt 1
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
367
with a bound, saluting me interrogatively— "Monsieur
le redacteur du Northern Chronicle?" I corrected him,
and said "Express" — on which he broke out into a torrent
of French, articulating so vehemently and fast that I did
not catch a single word he said, and could only suppose
that my visitor was a lunatic from the neighbouring
asylum at Bensham. At last I caught the word "Mari-
court, " and asked "Are you from the Count de Maricourt?"
He answered in the affirmative. By this time I had
risen, and he again commenced a vehement volley of
French— of which the only words I caught were too few
to enable me to conjecture his meaning. He observed
that I did not understand him, and said— enunciating
slowly as if feeling for his words — "I speak English.
You insult Count de Maricourt — I kill you "—pulling out
of his pocket a small pistol, cocking it at the same moment,
and bringing it round with his finger on the trigger to
within a few inches of my own head. He exclaimed,
"Don't scream. Don't make a noise. You're a dead
man." I replied, "I am not going to scream; put down
your pistol and tell me what you want."
" I want to kill you," he said.
" Now do be calm and tell me why you have come here."
"I am calm — I am calm," he repeated, as fast as he
__ ang
another torrent of rapid and unintelligible French, of
which I only caught the word "ecraser," and the frequent
exclamation " Je te tuerai."
All this time he stood leaning with his left hand on a
massive walking stick, with the pistol in its original posi-
tion, a few inches from my right eye. I saw that if he did
tire I should never know what hurt me, and the agitation
of his countenance and voice was so great that I began to
fear that he might draw the trigger involuntarily.
I said, " Count Maricourt cannot have sent you here in
this state. I shall be at the office at 7 o'clock, when you
or he may see me there with any friend you may bring,
Mr. Dunn himself if you like."
He replied that he bad been at the office, that I had
slighted his carte (card), and that he bad no confidence in
me. He was somewhat calmer, and went on in French to
explain that be had invited me to meet him at the smoking
room of the Exchange Hotel. My answer was that I had
never heard of his card, nor received any such invitation.
I requested to know if Count Maricourt sent him here,
and what the count really wanted. He said be would not
be interrogated.
I then repeated that I would be in Newcastle in the
evening, when he ought to come to the office, leaving me
in the meantime to my work. He said the count would
not come, and he had come in his name.
"Then," said I, "if the count does wish to see me I
shall call upon him." He replied, "Come and see the
count just now. My brother is herewith a cab." This
was the first intimation I had that there were twn of
them. I said, "I shall not leave this till I finish my
article." He answered, "I don't take this pistol from
your bead till you accompany me, but if you are busy
you may have the cab back." "Then," said I, "if I
must go with you, I shall, on your undertaking to drive
at once to the French Consulate." He replied^ "I give
you my word," lowering his arm, uncocking the pistol,
and returning it to his pocket. I said he must allow me
to dress. "With pleasure, Monsieur. I wait you." On
leaving the room, I first saw his brother, who stood in the
door with a stout walking-stick in his hand.
Proceeding with the two brothers to the cab, I heard
the man receive instructions to drive to the office of the
French Consul in Grey Street. On my way thither I had
time to decide on my course of action, and I purposed to
call immediately upon Mr. Dunn, offering him the alter-
native of either taking care of his friends or seeing them
entrusted to the authorities. On entering Count de
Maricourt's room, a few words, which I failed to hear,
passed between his son, the French officer, and himself,
on which he rose. I remarked that I understood he
wished to see me. "No, no," he said, "it's my son's
doing. He is an officer in the French army, and won't
see liis father insulted." " But there is no insult," I said ;
"do you deny the statement in the letter you complain
of?" His answer was "I don't want to meddle with your
institutions, and I defy the :nan to say that I asked his
vote." " In that case, " I replied, " I can only express my
regret if I have hurt your feelings on the matter : yet,
though I don't question your word, it is right you should
know that I had the staten.ent corroborated by three
most respectable gentlemen. But as there must be some
mistake, I am quite willing to put it right by stating that
you deny having canvassed." On this the sou again
addressed him, and he said, " My son says there must be
no justification. What I want is a statement of the
tacts." I said, "I shall give the statement in your own
words," and left the count, who again reminded me that
his son was an officer of cavalry in the French army, and
could not do otherwise than he had done.
It was not ray intention, as I have said, to expose the
affair unnecessarily, and the son expressed so much satis-
faction at my having seen his father that I felt my
resolution confirmed, until I reached the office, and
learned what had been the conduct of young Maricourt
there, and the terms of his infamous card. Constrained
by this manifestation of intended violence throughout to
place the affair in the hands of professional advisers,
before I had an opportunity of seeing these gentlemen, I
received another missive, which was brought to the office
by a person attached to the French consulate. It ran as
follows : —
Sir,— After navine reflected, the only reparation which I require
from you is that you should insert, without observation, in your
paper of to-morrow the article I send you with this letter — I mean
both article and letter.— I salute you and expect,
VlSCOMTB F. DE MAKlCOl'Br.
P.S.— If you do not judsre proper to insert these lines, 1 shall
have the pleasure of returning to see you.
Neither the article nor the letter was of course inserted.
The article itself is a succinct account of what he had
done, with two transparent mis-statements in it which
sufficiently explain his desire to have it published " with-
out observation. " He was told when he called first at the
office that I had not received his card, and yet this French
officer conceives his appearance sufficiently terrible to
induce the editor of an English newspaper to acknowledge
that he had got the invitation, and therefore kept out of
the way. The substance of the facts here recorded was
sworn to in the presence of the Gateshead Magistracy,
and a warrant taken out for the apprehension of the
French officer, who has found himself for once on the
wrong side of the Channel.
Thus far Mr. Manson.
The viscount was apprehended at Blyth on the follow-
ing Saturday, and brought up before the Gateshead bench
on the Monday, summarily charged with assaulting and
attempting to shoot James Bolivar Manson. Mr. Scaife
appeared for the prosecution, and Mr. Edward Glynn for
the defence. The evidence of Mr. John Henry Ruther-
ford, manager of the Express, and of Mr. John Lowther,
reader, was first taken. It was to the same effect as the
statement above quoted, the viscount having been very
excited when he burst into their presence, and terrified
them by his vapouring with the pistol. Mr. Manson
then made a long statement, recapitulating the circum-
stances as already given. In cross-examination, he
confessed that he required French to be very slowly
spoken to him before he could understand it; and the in
ference was that he might have misapprehended the pur-
port of the gallant viscount's words. The pocket pistol,
however, spoke a language that any man above the grade
of an idiot could understand, for, as Mr. Glynn remarked
to their worships —
It has a sharp, strange sound upon the ear,
That cocking of a pistol, when you know
368
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I Augmt
I 1891.
A moment more will bring the sight to bear
Upon your body twelve yards off or so,
A gentlemanly distance, not too near,
At which to greet a former friend or foe.
Mr. Glynn, for the defence, admitted that the Viscount
de Maricourt had acted with some little imprudence, but
urged the strong provocation he had received, through the
insult to his father the consul. If he had taken a horse-
whip instead of a pistol, he would have acted much better ;
but great allowance should be made for him as a foreigner
who did not understand our English manners and customs.
If be (Mr. Glynn) had been upon the bench instead of
pleading at the bar that day, he would have said he disap-
proved of the viscount's conduct as a magistrate, but
approved of it as a man ; for it was perfectly intolerable
that honourable gentlemen like the Count de Maricourt
should have base motives imputed to them. He could not
resist the evidence that violence had been used, or justify
that violence under any ordinary circumstances ; but he
submitted to their worships that, if they found the
defendant guilty, their decision should be such as to mark
their lively sense of the great provocation he had received.
In conclusion, he took the liberty to direct the attention
of the bench to a precedent which he thought they might
without the least impropriety follow, or which might, at
any rate, serve to guide them in their judgment. They
would find it in that invaluable digest, the "Ingoldsby
Legends," for which the learned world were indebted to
Mr. Barbara. It was the celebrated case of Mrs. Winifred
Price, killed by an unlucky "lick" given her by her hus-
band, David, whom she had provoked by her pungent
taunts to hurl his stick at her. The conclusion ran thus : —
There came up Mr. ap Thomas, the coroner,
With his jury to sit, some dozen or more, on her.
The jury retired, and sat on the body.
And after discussing the case in gin toddy,
They returned to the room, at eleven at night,
A unanimous verdict of — Sarved her right.
Tho Gateshead magistrates, like the Welsh jury, retired
for a while, and after a short consultation, returned to the
hall of justice, when the chairman announced the decision
to which they had come— not unanimous indeed, but by a
majority. It was that the defendant be fined £5 and
costs. There was some hissing in the court at this, which
was at once sternly repressed. The penalty was of course
paid at once, and the defendant and his friends left tho
court, and had the gratification of receiving some cheers
from the crowd congregated outside, which included a
number of Irish Catholics.
And so ended this tragi-comical episode in the life of a
Newcastle editor.
I HE great central mass of I mountains from
which the Cumbrian hills branch off, as
Wordsworth puts it, " like the spokes of
awheel from an axle," may be approached
from all the main points of the compass. Experience,
however, teaches that the ascent may be made more quickly
from Wastdale Head than from any other point : but, as this
is the steepest " way to the top," it is only recommended
to the young and hardy. Much easier routes are those
from Borrowdale or Langdale — both converge near the
great precipice called the Great End. The ascents
are longer and much easier, being adapted to middle-
aged men and women who may wish to ride part of the
journey on a mountain pony.
On arriving at the top of Scawfell Pike — the highest
SCAWFELL PIKE.
Auxustl
1891. I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
369
mountain in England, and for that reason oftener visited
than any other in the country — the tourist soon finds that
there are tour summits : that on which he stands,
Seawfeil, the Great End, and Lingmell, which overhangs
Wastdale Head. Only the two principal heights, Seawfeil
Pike and Seawfeil, concern us. They have often been
mistaken the one for the other, and for many years the
lesser eminence, Scawfell, was alleged to be the higher of
the two. In regard to the latter supposition it may be re-
marked that the mistake would appear to have arisen from
the mental impression received as the visitor approaches
Wastdale Head along the margin of Wastwater. From
the bridge which crosses the Bowdersdale Beck, Scawfell
presents a very bold front, and on the sky line looks higher
than its greater neighbour, Scawfell Pike, which from this
point appears to retire. The matter has been put to rest
of late years by the members of the Geological Survey,
and the respective heights are declared to be as follows : —
Scawfell Pike, 3,208 feet ; Scawfell, 3,161 feet.
There is always more or less danger in undertaking the
ascent of the Scawfell Pikes. None should attempt it
alone for the first time. Even experienced mountaineers
often become bewildered in the blinding mists so prevalent
in these altitudes. But during the wild winter time the
farmers are frequently compelled to go in search of the
sheep that have been overwhelmed by the snow, or that
are slowly dying of starvation through having gradually
strayed on to precipices from which they do not attempt to
move — crag-fast, the shepherds say. When the Scawfell
Pikes have a thin coating of ice upon them, it taxes all the
ingenuity of the dalesman to move along those awful
declivities without faltering. Should he make a false step,
his death is nearly certain ; though, if only severely
injured, he would not slowly die of hunger like lonely
tourists are said to have done, for, if his absence were
prolonged, all his native hamlet would be aroused, and few
would be the Cumbrian dalesmen who would refuse to
enter upon a lengthy and hazardous search for a missing
comrade. Even more threatening to life and limb are the
Scawfell Pikes during a snowstorm, when rocks and pro-
jections are hidden by nature's pale mantle. Under these
conditions the pikes have a stranger and more impressive
beauty than at other times. In milder seasons, the aspect
is that of dull lavender grey rock, unrelieved by verdure,
the lichens and moss that grow in the crevices having
little perceptible effect on the colouring of the huge
boulders that are strewn about with cyclopean prodigality.
During the time of snow and frost the great icicles that
hang from the beetling crags are often lighted by the
golden rays of the setting sun with wonderful spectacular
effect. Such sights as this are sufficient inducement to
the artist to dare the ascent in winter, though, if he always
depended upon the sunshine, be might have to wait a con-
siderable time in that region of mist and storm. Our
drawing of Scawfell on page 308 (taken from a photo-
graph by Mr. Bell, of Ambleside) gives a tolerably good
impression of the winter aspect of the mountain.
The two principal eminences — Scawfell and Scawfell
Pike — are separated by a deep gorge called Mickledore.
Some 1,200 yards divide the two ; but a distance of a
couple of miles must be traversed before the journey from
one to the other can be accomplished on foot. The view
of Scawfell shown below is copied from a photograph
by Mr. Alfred Pettit, of Keswick. To reach the top from
Scawfell Pike three routes may be taken — that by the
Lord's Rake, a gully covered with "screes"; that of
SCAWFELL.
24
370
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/August
1 1891.
"The Chimney," on the east side; and that known as
the "Broad Stand" route. Whichever way is selected,
the task is no easy one.
By general consent the view from Scawfell Pike com-
mands the grandest prospect in the Lake District, No
better description has been written than that of Words-
worth, which is as follows : —
We ascended (he says) from Seathwaite to the top of
the ridge called Esk Haws, and thence beheld three dis-
tinct views — on one side the continuous vale of Borrow-
dale, Keswick, and Bassentbwaite, with Skiddaw, Hel-
yellyn, Saddleback, and numerous other mountains, and
in the distance the Solway Frith and the mountains of
Scotland ; on the other side, and below us, the Langdale
"Pikes, their own vale below them, Windermere, and, far
beyond Windermere, Ingleborough in Yorkshire. But
how shall I speak of the deliciousness of the third pros-
pect? At this time it was most favoured by sunshine and
shade. The green vale of Esk, deep and green, with its
glittering serpent stream, lay below us ; and on we looked
to the mountains near the sea — Black Combe pre-eminent
—and still beyond to the sea itself, in dazzling brightness.
Turning round we saw the mountains of Wastdale in
tumult ; to our right, Great Gable, the loftiest, a distinct
and huge form, though the middle of the mountain was,
to our eyes, as its base.
We had attained the object of this journey, but our
ambition now mounted higher. We saw the summit of
Scawfell apparently very near to us, ana we shaped our
course towards it ; but, discovering that it could not
be reached without first making a considerable descent, we
resolved instead to aim at another point of the same
mountain, called the Pikes. On the summit of this, which
we gained after much toil, though without difficulty, there
was not a breath of air to stir even the papers containing
our refreshment as they lay spread out upon a rock. The
stillness seemed to be not of this world. We paused and
kept silence to listen, and no sound could be heard. The
Scawfell cataracts were voiceless to us ; and there was
not an insect to hum in the air. The vales which we had
seen from Esk Haws lay yet in view ; and, side by side
with Eskdale, we now saw the sister vale of Donnerdale,
terminated by the Duddon Sands. But the majesty of
the mountains below, and close to us, is not to be con-
ceived. We now beheld the whole mass of Great Gable
from its base ; the den of Wastdale at our feet, a gulf
immeasurable; Grasinoor, and the mountains of Crum-
raock, Ennerdale and its mountains, and the sea beyond.
While we were crazing around, "Look," I exclaimed,
"at yon ship upon the glittering sea !" "Is it a ship?"
replied our shepherd guide. "It can be nothing else,"
interposed my companion ; "I cannot be mistaken. I am
so accustomed to the appearance of ships at sea." The
guide dropped the argument, but before a minute was
gone he quietly said, "Now look at your ship; it is
changed into a horse ! " So it was — a horse with a gallant
neck and head ! We laughed heartily ; and I hope, when
again inclined to be positive, I may remember the snip
and the horse upon the glittering sea, and the calm
confidence, yet submissiveness. of our wise man of the
mountain, who certainly had more knowledge of clouds
than we, whatever might be our knowledge of ships. I
know not how long we might have remained on the sum-
mit of the Pike without a thought of moving had not our
guide warned us that we must not linger, for a storm was
coming. We looked in vain to espy the signs of it.
Mountains, vales, and sea were touched with the clear
light of the sun. "It is there, "said he, pointing to the
sea beyond Whitehaven ; and there we perceived a light
vapour, unnoticeable but to a shepherd accustomed to
watch all mountain bodings. We gazed around again,
and yet again, unwilling to lose the remembrance of what
lay before us in lofty solitude, and then prepared to
depart. Meanwhile, the air changed to cold, and we saw*
the tiny vapour swelled to mighty masses of cloud, which
came boiling over the mountains. Great Gable, Helvellyn,
and Skiddaw were wrapped in storm ; yet Langdale and
the mountains in that quarter remained all bright in sun-
shine. Soon the storm reached us ; we sheltered under a
crag, and almost as rapidly as it had come it passed
away, and left us free to observe the struggles of gloom
and sunshine in other quarters. Langdale now had its
share, and the Pikes of Langdale were decorated by two
splendid rainbows. Before we again reached Esk Haws,
every cloud had vanished from every summit.
8TOtttoffrtft
RHE curious statement made in the Life of
Archbishop Tate, that the distinguished
churchman was cured of a club foot in
1819 by a family of "bone-setters," James
Taylor and his two nephews, known as the Whitworth
Doctors, justifies the reproduction of part of an article
which Mr. H. Kerr contributed to the Newcastle Weekly
Chronicle in 1884.
The Whitworth Doctors have enjoyed a high reputa-
tion since the days when George III. was king, down to
the present time, though the last of the direct line died a
few years ago. Indeed, the original doctor, John Taylor,
though residing in the then small and obscure town of
Whitworth, in Lancashire, a few miles from Rochdale,
was sent for to London to doctor "Farmer George,"
members of the Royal family, and dignitaries of the
Church and the Law. Many are the wonderful stories
yet told in the Rossendale and Whitworth Valleys of
the remarkable cures effected by "Doctor John " and
his descendants. Some fifty years ago, the
late William Howitt wrote a spirited sketch of
his " Visit to the Whitworth Doctors," which
was published in Tail's Magazine, in the year 1839 ;
and it is said by the people of the district that Tait him-
self was one of Dr. Taylor's patients. The original
" Doctor John," of whom many humorous local and
general anecdotes are related, practised as a farrier at
Whitworth about a century ago. Doctor John was no
respecter of persons ; he was brusque and curt alike at
times to high and low ; and if lords or ladies, as was often
the case, came to consult him, they had to take their
turns with the poorest people who sought his aid. Some
of the "grumpy" stories told of Abernethy may indeed
be traced to the original Whitworth Doctor.
Before referring to Hewitt's visit m 1839, it may be
well to know what Hone has to say on the same subject
in his " Every-Day Book. " The subjoined sketch was no
doubt furnished by one of Hone's correspondents : —
" Country people, who are usually plain in notion and
straightforward in conduct, frequently commit the care
of their health to a very odd sort of practitioners. A late
celebrated empiric, at Whitworth, near Rochdale, called
the Whitworth Doctor, was of so great fame as to have
the honour of attending the brother of Lord Thurlow
(Thurlow, Bishop of Durham). The name of this doctor
was Taylor ; and he and his brother were farriers by
profession ; and, to the last, if both a two-legged
and a four-legged patient were presented at the same
time, the doctor always preferred the four-legged one.
Their practice was immense, as may well be imagined
from the orders they gave to the druggist ; they dealt
principally with Ewbank and Wallis, of York, and a
ton of Glauber's salts, with other articles in proportion,
was their usual order. On a Sunday morning at Whit-
worth, the doctors used to bleed gratis. The patients,
often to the number of a hundred, were seated on benches
round a room, where troughs were placed to receive the
blood. One of the doctors then went and tied up the arm
of each patient, and was immediately followed by the
other, who opened the vein. Such a scene is easier con-
ceived than described. From their medical practice, the
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1891. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
371
nice formality of scales and weights was banished— all was
'rule of thumb.' An example of their practice may
elucidate their claim to celebrity. Being sent to a patient
who was in the last stage of consumption, the learned
doctors prescribed a leg of mutton to be boiled secundum
artem, into very strong broth, a quart of which was to be
taken at prooer intervals. What might have been its suc-
cess is not related, as the patient died before the first dose
was gotten down. As bone-setters they were remarkably
skilful, and perhaps to their real merit in this, and the
cheapness of their medicines, they were indebted for their
•great local fame. " So far Hone.
Jeafferson, in his "Book about Doctors," published in
1860, gives the following characteristic sketch : — "Em-
pirics as the Taylors were, they attended people of
the first importance. The elder Taylor was called to
London to attend Thurlow, Bishop of Durham, brother of
Lord Chancellor Thurlow. The representative men of
the London Faculty received him at the bishop's resi-
dence. The Whitworth doctor, however, would not com-
mence the consultation till the arrival of John Hunter,
the celebrated anatomist. ' I won't say a word till
Hunter comes ! ' roared the Whitworth doctor ; ' he's
the only man of you who knows anything ! ' When
Hunter arrived, Taylor proceeded to his examination of
the bishop's state, and in the course of it he used some
ointment which he took from a box. ' What is it made
of ?' Hunter asked. ' That's not a fair question, ' snapped
Taylor, turning to the Lord Chancellor, who happened to
be present. Addressing the great anatomist, 'No, no.
Jack,' cried the bold Whitworth Doctor. 'I'll send yoxi
as much as you please, but I won't tell you what it's made
of!' Doctor John had two sons who succeeded him,
George and James. Howitt says George was married,
and Mrs. George acted as the compounder of Doctor J ohn's
medicines. The principal remedies used were a diet
drink to purify the blood ; an active caustic called by the
appropriate name of 'Keen,' by which they eradicated
cancers ; a spirituous liniment, called Wbitworth Red-
bottle ; a black salve ; a suuff of wondrous virtues, for
the head ; and blisters. All these Mrs. George found
abundant occupation in preparing, and in the most pri-
mitive manner. They used to boil a whole kettle of the
ingredients for the black salve ; then mop the floor, and
fling the salve out upon it while it was wet ; after which
they cut it into portions and rolled it up into little sticks.
They made diet drinks by gallons and pills by the
thousand."
Howitt thus describes his visit to Whitworth in 1839,
then an insignificant moorland village, now a respectable-
sized manufacturing town, like many in the cotton
districts of Lancashire: — "When I visited Whitworth
old John Taylor was dead, and his son James, and the
two sons of George (then dead, too) were the doctors. I
remember James as a stout man, in a blue coat, about
fifty years of age, having much the appearance of a re-
spectable farrier. I well remember approaching Whit-
worth from Rochdale. The way lay along a very miry
winding road, which it would not have Been easy to
traverse on foot but for a raised footpath with one single
row of flagstones. The country round is of the wildest
description ; desolate moors and moorland hills, with
scattered fieldsofthemostdesertedaspect, with banks with
a flagstone here and there raised on the top of them, and
a few bramble bushes for fences. The poor patients, such
as lodged beyond the precincts of the village, were just
coming away from the dressing-room ; and never did 1 see
such a sight on any other occasion. It appeared to me
that the allegory of the ' Mountain of Miseries ' was here
become a reality, and was pouring out all its evils in a
bodily and human shape. A crew of the poorest and
most emaciated creatures came hobbling along, some on
crutches and some on sticks, with shrunken forms and
ghostly countenances, bearing on them all the signs of
physical suffering. What rendered their wretched aspect
still more wretched was that most of them were clad in
that coarse grey cloth in which the parish authorities now
generally array paupers." Howitt afterwards visited the
doctor's house. " On entering the dressing-room, " he says,
" a scene still more singular than that without presented
itself. (Doctor James, son of the original Doctor John,
as will be seen from what is said above, was at the head
of the firm in 1839.) In the village there were at
that time more than a hundred patients. In this room
there were at least fifty waiting to be dressed or examined.
They were all arranged in a row round the room, and in
one corner sat James Taylor with his surgical apparatus-
such apparatus, as I suppose, was never seen in any other
surgery. It was, in plain truth, the old shoeing box of
the blacksmith — such as, I presume, most of my readers
have seen ; an oblong, shallow box, with an iron handle
in the shape of a bow, rising over the middle of it to
carry it by — the very box, no doubt, which served on
many an occasion of shoeing a horse before doctoring
became James Taylor's trade. In this box were a few
bottles and pots of their invariable remedies — 'Keen,'
green salve, red bottle, some blisters and plaisters ready
spread, a large wooden skewer or two, and some herbs.
The patients came in succession before the doctor, and he
rapidly examined and dismissed them."
But the original Doctor John and his sons had many
titled and even royal patients, as already mentioned".
Doctor John was sent lor to Cheltenham to attend a
duchess, and he cured her ladyship almost off-hand, and
after the most eminent doctors of the day had failed.
This, Mr. Howitt tells us, raised such an opinion of his
skill, that George III., who was then at Cheltenham
with his family, afterwards sent for him to attend the
Princess Elizabeth, who had a complaint in the head
which quite resisted the skill of the royal physicians.
Doctor John was again successful, and he cured the
princess with some of his famous snuff. Doctor James, in
his home at Whitworth, was wont to relate, with great
gusto, his father's visit to the Royal Family to prescribe
for the Princess Elizabeth. As soon as he (Dr. John) saw
the princess, and learnt her symptoms, he ordered her to
take his famous snuff. This potent snuff was said to be
made from the powdered leaves of the Assarabecca
(Asarum Eurormum), which was grown in plenty in the
garden at WThitworth. John, having given his order, and
delivered the snuff, looked about him, and, seeing the
princesses all there, he clapped the Queen (the frugal and
snuff-loving Charlotte) familiarly on the back, and said :
— " Well, fhou art a farrantly [good-lookingj woman to be
the mother of such a set of straight-backed lasses !"
Charlotte took this unusual familiarity with a very good
grace, smiling, and replying, " Yes, Mr. Taylor, and I
was once as straight-backed a lass as any of them." John
had not, however, retired from the presence of royalty
very long when he was sent for again in great haste.
" Well, and what is the matter now ? " asked he on
entering. "Oh! the princess is taken with such a con-
tinual sneezing that we are quite alarmed." "Is that
all?" said John; "then let the girl sneeze ; that in the
very thing that will do her good." And the princess, we
are told, was speedily cured.
Howitt says Doctor John and his sons charged rich and
poor alike, and exclaims, " Hear it, O ye doctors ! —
eighteenpence a week for medicine and attendance ! "
Many of the poor patients were, however, unable to pay
even modest charges, and these he treated gratis, being
able to do so by the handsome presents often made him by
wealthy and grateful patients. In the surgery at
Whitworth, there was a subscription box kept to help
such of the poor as could not support themselves while
under treatment and staying in the village, and many
such came from a great distance. When Doctor John
heard of any cases of great need, he was wunt to carry
round the box himself amongst the most affluent of
his patients awaiting their turn, and also contributed
liberally himself. Under these circumstances, and owing
to the remarkable and authentic "perfect cures "effected,
it is not strange that the eccentric practitioner had hosts of
patients from all parts of the country. That Doctor John
effected many extraordinary cures is certain. A lady well
known to William Howitt was suffering from a disease-
cancer in the breast — which had been pronounced incurable
by the ablest physicians of the day. Though living a
hundred miles from Whitworth, she resolved, as a last
resource, to go to Doctor John. When the latter examined
the breast, he looked at her and said, in his Lancashire
vernacular, '"What art thou come here for, woman?"
372
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
The lady, who was a woman of courage, replied, " To be
cured, to be sure." " Cured ! " rejoined John, in a stern
voice, "not all the doctors in England can cure thee ;
thou may go home again and dee! "I tell you, John
Taylor," replied the lady, "I shall do no such thing. I
am come here to see whether you are as much cleverer
than other men as you are represented. Try your hand,
Jobn Taylor, on me. You think I am afraid of being
hurt, but you are mistaken ; I can bear what you can
inflict ; and I say, try you hand — let it be kill or cure. I
can but die at last." " Thou art a brave lass," replied
Doctor John, in evident surprise-; " then I will try, and
God prosper us both !" Howitt thus gives the result of
this desperate case:— "The lady remained there six
months, and during that period she suffered as much as it
is perhaps possible for a human creature to bear ; but she
came home a sound woman, and lived thirty years after-
wards. I have often sat, when a boy, and heard her tell
what passed at Whitworth."
Doctor John's sons and grandsons seem to have in-
herited much of the skill, and some of the eccentricities,
of the original Whitworth Doctor. When Howitt
visited Whitworth in 1839, Doctor John and his eldest
son George were then dead, and the business was carried
on by the second son — James, then about fifty years of
age, and his two nephews, sons of the deceased George.
Howitt thus describes a "heroic" operation of George
the younger: — "The young George was one who took
the department of bone-settiug, and he went all round
the country, often to great distances, for that purpose.
He had a capital horse, and rode anywhere to set a
bone, at the simple charge of one shilling a mile,
operation included ! A gentleman who had been there
some time told me that be saw this George have the arm
of a strong man strapped to the iron palisades on the
garden wall, and two strong fellows pulling at the man,
while be himself took a run-jump and struck the man on
the arm in order to break again an ill-set fracture,
which was, however, too firmly knit to give way
to any gentle means ; and that, fearful as the operation
appeared, the man's arm was soon reset and did well." Of
the other nephew, Howitt has also a story to tell : — " To
complete the picture of this singular place {Whitworth),
we must see, while these things are going on, numbers of
patients walking about, having all the appearance of
violent colds in their heads, the effect of taking the head-
snuff ; now and then a horse coming up to be doctored,
which the doctor would walk put to, leaving all his
' humans ' to wait his return within. The younger James,
however, appeared, whilst I was there, to take the horse
department. I saw him order a horse to be put in the
stocks one morning, with his head fixed fast aloft, and,
coming out of the house with a red-hot iron, he bored,
very deliberately, five or six holes with it under the horse's
jaws, and as coolly then said : — 'Take him away, and
keep him from any other horses ; the disease is contagious,
and he'll never beany better.' 'If he will never be any
better," I aaked, 'why put the poor creature to that
torment?' 'Ah,' said James, 'but how did I know that
till I had tried how far the disease had gone.' "
Here is a piquant sketch of the appearance and occupa-
tion of this Doctor James the Second when "at home,"
and with it may fitly conclude these anecdotes of the famous
Whitworth Doctors, though the budget is by no means
exhausted: — "This James," says Mr. Howitt, "might
often be seen walking about before the house, with an old
hat slung before him by a cord over his shoulders. In
this hat he had a large lump of some compound, which he
worked into pills as he went about. The hat was fairly
saturated through and through with the drug, and ap-
peared to have been used for that purpose for years.
When he had made a hat full of pills, he went again and
commenced his walk and his pill-making. These curious,
primitive people by this time were become very wealthy,
the place, and a great deal of land round it, belonging to
them. They kept a pack of hounds, and were very fond
of hunting ; and often would the doctor leave the dress-
ing-room without a word, mount his horse, and be off
after the hounds before the patients were aware of his
intentions."
The last direct representative of th:s remarkable family
died some years ago, and the property was sold. Tim
fame of the original John and his sons and grandsons is
still fresh in the Whitworth and Rossendale Valleys, and
many singular and unpublished stories are yet told of
their extraordinary cures and occasional eccentricities.
0f tfte
PORTRAIT and biographical sketch of a
venerable townsman of Newcastle-upon-Tyne
were printed in a recent number of a trade
journal entitled Tobacco.
Mr. John Harvey, who may be regarded, says the writer
of the sketch, as the Nestor of the Tobacco Trade, entered
the family business at the Head of the Side, Newcastle,
over seventy years ago, and he has continued to direct it
ever since. He is now in his eighty -eighth year; yet till
a few months ago he was as hale and hearty as he had
ever been in his life.
Besides his intimate association with the tobacco trade,
Mr. Harvey was for a long period connected with the
South Durham Hunt, being master for some years. On
his retirement, nine or ten years ago, he was presented by
the Marquis of Londonderry, on behalf of the members of
the hunt, with a large oil portrait and a piece of plate.
With reference to the foundation of his firm, Mr.
Harvey lately wrote a friend: — "My deeds and old
letters show that John Harvey began business in 1762, in
premises just opposite the Collingwood property. He-
died about seven years afterwards, and his widow carried
it on till 1783 in the first premises, when she bought th»
AU-UBtl
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
373
Collingwood premises." The founder of the business was
the grandfather of the present head of the firm.
The following is a copy of an advertisement which
appeared in a Newcastle newspaper on February 10,
1762 :—
JOHN HARVEY, Tobacconist, at the sign of the BLACK EOT,
Head of the Side, Xewcattlc-upon-Tyne, takes this method
to acquaint the pnblio that he has just opened shop, and manu-
factures and sells all sorts of cut Tobacco, Vright Roll, and Pigtail
of all kinds ; together with all sorts of Scots and Rappee Snu/i.
upon the very lowest terms, WHOLESALE & RETAIL. Proper
allowance made to all shopkeepers, or dealers, who take quantities,
ta
It was in the "Collingwood property," which was
bought by the widow of the first John Harvey, that
Admiral Lord Collingwood first saw the light. A tablet
erected by Mr. Harvey on the front of the house records
the interesting fact.
STftmwstf
MONGST the exhibitors at the Royal Academy
this year is Mr. Thomas Eyre Macklin, son of
Lieut. John Eyre Macklin, of Newcastl«-on-
Tyne. It is some
seven years since he
left the district to re-
side in Londen for the
purpose of prosecu-
ting his art studies.
Born in Newcastle-
upon-Tyne some
eight -and- twenty
years ago, young
Macklin showed
from childhood a re-
markable aptitude
for drawing. His
father encouraged
him in every way,
and at the early age
of ten he placed him
under Mr. W. C.
MR. THOMAS ETRE MACKLIN. Way, the local art-
master. His pro-
gress was eminently satisfactory, and he secured a number
of prizes, on one occasion gaining the first four prizes of
the year. Mr. Macklin spent two or three years in study-
ing the antique at the British Museum and at Mr. Calde-
ron's art schools at St. John's Wood. Admission to the
Royal Academy he gained some four years ago. A short
time ago Mr. Macklin won a silver medal for a painting
done under certain conditions. A couple of years ago he
exhibited a portrait of a lady at the Royal Academy
exhibition, and this year has been also successful in
having hung upon the walls the only picture he sent.
Since his residence in the metropolis Mr. Macklin has
executed several important commissions. He painted the
portraits of the principal members of the Kimserly
family, of Leightou Hall, Shropshire ; more recently he
has been putting the finishing touches to a portrait of his
father ; and he has just completed a large presentation
portrait of Colonel Capel Cure, of Badger Hall, Shrop-
shire.
0f
jjROM time to time during the last twenty
years, readers of the Newcastle Weekly
Chronicle have had their memories refreshed
regarding the celebrated "clown and jester
of the North," Billy Purvis. The general story of Billy's
career has already been told in these pages. But we may
now supplement that story with the narrative of one of
his daughters, as well as with some recollections by Mr.
C. H. Stephenson, who was a member of Purvis's
company. It should be explained that the interview
with Catherine Purvis took place in 1886 in St. Andrew's
Court, Pilgrim Street, Newcastle, where she and her
sister Bell then resided, and that the record was printed
in the Weekly Chronicle at the time.
JStarratioe.
"Well sir," said Catherine, "thor's been a lot o' lees i'
the papers aboot Billy. They're aall wrang, aa tell ye. "
"Let us begin at the beginning, then," said L "You
are the second surviving daughter, I believe ?"
" Yes, aa am, sor. Ma sister Bell was the ouldest o'
ten, and she's seventy-five. Aa'm the youngest, and
aa'm fifty-seven. Thor wor two married, and aa was yen
o' theui ; but aa'm still called Miss Porvis. Aa've come
from Stockton, whor aa've been livin' for the last ten or
eleven years."
Catherine spoke in the full brogue of "canny New-
cassel," of which it is impossible, for me at least, to give a
literal representation.
" Billy " — Catherine, carried away with the interest of
her narrative, frequently gave her father bis proper name
— " Billy was born, aa've hard him say, at Auchindinny,
near Edinburgh, an' he came to Newcastle when he was
a baby. He lived i' the Close, and we'd that hoose, of
course, till ma mother was carried to the Jesus Hospital.
Aa mind it was i' the papers aboot me followin' the
remains to the cemetery."
" Well, do you know much about Billy's journeys ?"
" Oh ! sartinlies. We'd a proper travellin' company o'
thorty people — a reglar travellin' booth wiv a canvas top.
Our companies stayed wiv us years an' years, an' never
left us."
Catherine evidently intended to have her own way of
telling the story, and, after several vain attempts to lead
374
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{August
1891.
the conversation, I was, therefore, obliged to become
merely a listener.
"Yes, oors was a proper good company," she con-
tinued, "areg'lar theatrical lot, playin' Hamlet, Othello,
an' aall Shakspeare's plays. We used to be stationed in
Hartlepool for six months, and we went te Shields,
Sunderland. Blyth, Bedlin'ton, an' aall doon by that part.
We used to go to Sunderland for the Fair, as it happened
in October. We stayed for the season in Hartlepool till
Easter came on. My father was goin' to be licensed for
the theatre in Hartlepool, but he died, ye knaa."
" I suppose he was a great favourite on the stage ?"
" That he was, noo ! He was liked for his dancin', an'
singin', an' conjurin', and aall kind o' things. He was
varry fond o' them, an' he cud de onnj' mortal thing !
Then," continued Catherine, "he was in the Northum-
berland Volunteers. Wasn't ma father drummer in the
Northumberland Volunteers?" she repeated, addressing
her sister Bell. There was no response.
"Ay, poor thing," said Catherine, "she's varry deef.
Well, ma father was drummer-boy, and then he had the
big drum. He cud play either the fiddle or the Northum-
berland pipes. He used to go to Alnwick Castle — he was
sent for — to play the pipes before yen o' the aad dukes."
" But when did he go on to the stage ? "
"Well, ye'll get that in his 'Life,'" alluding to the
autobiography which was published by the late J. P.
Robson in 18*9 ; " but he was varry young, and when
he made his first appearance he played in 'Young
Norval.' Aa mind fine o' hearin' that when he was
sayin' —
My name is Norval,
On the Grampian Hills—
a fellow he kenned i" the pit snooted oot, 'Na, na, Billy,
ye tell a lee ; yor faither an' mother sells apples an' peers
in l)enton Chare ! ' Billy ran clean off the stage an'
spoilt the piece.'
Here Catherine indulged in a hearty laugh at the recol-
lection of her father's theatrical debut.
" But before he took to the stage regularly had he any
other occupation ? "
"Oh ! yes," replied Catherine. "He was a carpenter
to trade. He was a dancing master as weel, an' had a
school i' the Yaller Doors i' the Close, so aa've hard them
say. Ye had a picture o' the Yaller Doors i' the Weekly
Chronicle a little bit since."
" He made a lot of money, I believe ? "
"Ay, that he did ; but he was so generous he would
gi'e away nearly everything he had. We waddent ha'
been as we are noo if he hadn't been so free. Aall
that aa'm anxious for noo is te get some honest wark,
cleanin' offices or the likes, that aa may keep these poor
things," pointing, as she spoke, to the tea-table. "Luik
at the money ma father used to gi'e away tethelnformary
at Newcastle. He nivvor was happy unless he wes givin'
benefits for the poor foaks. A footman once came te
me," Catherine proceeded, "an' he says, 'Miss Porvis,
aa've got somethin' te say aboot yor father. ' ' Well, ' says
aa, ' it's nothing wrang— nebody can say anythin' against
Billy Porvis.' 'No/says the footman, 'but when aa wes
at a hoose aa wes expectin' a tip, as it were, from the
gentlemen. One gentleman passed, an' another passed,
until oot came Billy Porvis. "Here, ma man," said he,
emptying his troosers pockets, "that's aall the coppers
aa ha'e. '" It wes varry like him that."
"I have heard that your mother was opposed to Billy's
stage career : is that so ? "
" Yes, that's aall true. Ma mother was aall against the
profession ; she waddent travel wiv him for a lang time-
many years — an' he didn't knaa hoo to keep money. But
lie was liked by everybody. "
"When did your mother travel with the company?"
"Oh! we aall went into Scotland in 1840. Aa wes
only ten yors aad then. Ma mother used to be in such a
way aboot ma father being in the profession. Her family
were varry religious people, an' went to Tomer's chapel
ln Hanover Square. Ma father was a varry good livin'
man. When he returned from the theatre he made it
a practice to have family worship, and we always had
grace at meal times. We had a seat in St. Nicholas's,
and went to chorch reg'lar. We were aall christened in
St. Nicholas's. Ma father spent his Sundays in reading
his Bible. He waddent let us bide oot onny neet after
nine o'clock, wivoot it was the theatre, and he waddent
let us go onny where wivoot first askin' his consent."
"Was Billy ever drunk? "said I, referring to a state-
ment which had appeared.
"No, that he wasn't— but yence 1 He used to be
aall against drink, an' never took anything but
peppermint an' whisky, an' peppermint an' water. He
wa> drunk yence, an' that was when he got his silver snuff-
box. Aall tell ye the story," and here Catherine settled
herself to recount it with gusto. " Well, we were doin' a
tremendous business in Cook's Circus in Dundee, an' the
company thought they would make him a present. Se
they sent the stage manager to him. 'Well, Purvis, 'he
said, "I want to speak to you privately. You are doing
a fir.it-clas.-i business, and the company want their
salaries raised.' Of course, ma father," said Catherine,
"got into an awful passion, and said they would
get no rise from him. 'Well,' said the manager,
'you will have to meet them to-night at the Castle Inn,
Castle Street." Mr. Sims, a great acquaintance of ma
father's, was there. He was a trader from Newcastle
Quay. Well, ma father was a varry strong speaker when,
he liked, an' he told them a varry plain story. After that,
an' the company had enjoyed the joke, poor Tom
Matthews presented ma father — ' William Purvis,
Esquire !' — with the silver snuff-box in the name of the
company of the Victoria Theatre. Ma mother,"
Catherine added regretfully, "had te pairt wiv it after
he died. Then thor was a supper, and after they had
August 1
1891. |
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
375
enjoyed theirsels they hoisted Billy into an arm-chair an'
carried him home singing, Tor he's a lolly good fellow.
He was mortal!"
"What is that story about your mother finding Billy on
the stage?"
" Oh ! he would go on to Newcastle Moor, and what
should happen but ma mother went wiv two young ladies
from Berwick. They went on to the race-course, an' one
o' the ladies said, ' Yonder's Mr. Purvis !' And there he
was on the stage, dressed as a clown, Ma mother took
varry bad, and she was led away hyein. When he came
hyem that night, she said to him, 'Billy, where ha' ye
been ?' Ma father put his hand into his pocket, and gave
her a guinea, his day's pay. ' Aa'm not goin* to have any
devil's money, ' said mother, as she tossed the guinea under
the bars."
"I suppose he was very ingenious — he could make a lot
of things for the stage ?"
" Ay, he was a man for cuttin' oot figures. He used to
make them all te wark himself, moving them with black
silk. In fact,"shB repeated, "he could de onny mortal
thing!"
" What do you remember of his death ?"
" Oh ! aa mind weel. It was nine o'clock on a Friday
night, when aa was at the theatre, an' of course we
dismissed the house. That was at Hartlepool. He died
three months after his favourite girl — he took to h^art
about her. As he couldn't be harried in the Ballast Hills
opposite his father an' mother, he used to say, ' 111 go to
Hartlepool, and where the tree falls there let it lie.'
On the day of his funeral, the ships wor half-mast, and
the shutters wor up for him. Ye nivvor saa sic a funeral
as be had."
" Have you no relic of Billy?"
"Nothin1, nothin', but this." And Catherine took
from a drawer a battered and dingy little photo-frame,
having a newspaper cutting, stained and dirty, pasted
within.
This was what I read :—
So closed my interview with the daughter of Billy
Purvis.
"Take him for all in all, we ne'er shall look
upon his like again."
Here lies
WILLIAM PURVIS,
better known SB Billy Purvis,
Clown and Jester of the North,
who departed this life the 16th Dec., 1853,
Aged 70 years.
"Where be your gibes now? Your gambols?
Not one now— quite chap-fallen."
This stone was erected by J. G. Sangers,
circus proprietor. May, 1860, to mark the last
resting-place of him who was always a friend
of the fatherless, the widow, and the dis-
tressed.
Bequiescat in pace.
'!S JlecoUecttonjs.
What's that you say— pen, ink, and paper? Well,
there you are, now get to work.
Get to work ?
Well, you know you promised to tell us something
about the wonderful Billy Purvis, so let us have it with-
out any more fuss.
Now, what interest can you possibly take in the sayings
or doings of a man who has been lying with the dead
thirty-six years?
Because we have heard our fathers and mothers talk so
much about him and his clever actors— Tom Matthews,
Ned Corvan, Billy Thompson, and others.
Well, he certainly was a dear, big-hearted, comical old
man ; and if he were alive now I am certain all the
members of the D.B.S. would love him; aye, and he
would have loved them— Father Chirpie and Uncle Toby
into the bargain.
Why, was he so very fond of dumb animals and
children ?
Eh ! my word, but he was that. I can remember him
once picking up a "bit bairn"— about two and a half
years old— that had strayed from its "calf-yard," and
just ready to "blair" its "bonny blinkers" because it
conld not find its way "hyem" again, or tell its "aan
nyem." To keep it quiet Billy "bowt claggum " for
" the poor bairn " to suck at, while he wandered up one
chare and down another, asking every woman he met if
the " bit laddie " was hers. Unsuccessful in his efforts to
discover the parents of the child, Billy handed it over to
the "pollis at the kitty," together with "a pund o"
brandy snaps or scranshem " to keep it in good humour
until it was claimed.
And Purvis was really funny as a clown, eh ?
The word " funny " scarcely conveys the richness of his
humour. To begin with, his dress was different from all
then and now worn by clowns, alike in fashion, cut, and
material. The shape? Well, it was not unlike the
present knickerbockers and vest in one— very baggy from
just above the knees up to the hips. A loose "fly," or
sleeveless jacket, rather short, fell over the shoulders ;
the sleeves, of white calico or cambric, were large and
puffed ; a big white square-cut lay over the collar. A
white skull-cap, with a red comb running from the nape
of the neck to the crown of his head, cream-coloured
stockings, with narrow crimson rings and buff shoes and
red rosettes, completed Billy's dress.
The material? Well, that is not so easily described.
The groundwork was a rich, chocolate coloured serge or
flannel, on which was laid strips of yellow braid or serge,
running cork-screw fashion from the inside of the thighs
and upwards round the front of the figure and meeting at
376
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
r August
1891.
the back. Between each strip were rows of small red
tufts of worsted that dangled like so many diminutive
tennis-balls.
No, he did not smother his face with whitewash and
geometrical figures in vermiliion. He used just a patch
of red on each cheek, one in the centre of forehead and
chin, none much larger than a shilling. For an elderly
man he was a very nimble dancer. He had a good leg,
and a natty, well-shaped foot, of which he was not a little
proud. Unlike most clowns, Purvis trusted rather to the
force of his natural humour than to the aid of astonishing
leaps, feats of strength, or the contortions of an acrobat.
Stilt-dancing and barrel-rolling were left to the funambu-
list of the circus.
Billy's favourite pantomime was " The House that Jack
Built," in which he usually played his famous, "ever-to-
be-remembered stealing-the-bundle scene" — a piece of
foolery that defies description— Tom Matthews being left
in possession of the rest, with Harry Wadforth, his sister,
and Emma Atkinson for harlequin, harlequina, and
columbine. The production, full of uproarious fun, was
never overlaid with showy dresses, gaudy banners, or the
gorgeous effects of dazzling scenery, or the adjuncts of
BILLY PURVIS.
processions of armour-clad ballet-dancers, such as pervade
the pantomimes of to-day.
Crack, the cobbler, in the "Turnpike Gate," was a very
favourite character with Billy, and was generally reserved
for his benefit or a grand bespeak night.
The comic scenes in Billy Purvis's fantoccini show,
his own invention, were always very smart. One, I
remember, was unusually so. It was called " Pantaloon's
Picture Gallery." Moat of the figures were full length,
which on being approached became animated. A descrip-
tion of two or three will give you an idea of all the rest.
A Dutch broom girl, over whose lips the clown used to
draw the tips of his fingers, then pretending to kiss and
lick them with gusto, at which she dropped a curtsey. A
falconer, with bird perched on raised left hand, the right
one grasping a stick. Clown teases the bird, which
snapped his finger and held him tight, while the figure
raised its arm and belaboured him with the stick. The
centre of the scene was occupied with a colossal head of
the Mogul, with arms folded across the chest. Clown
and pantaloon arrange to have breakfast, but the viandi
disappear down the Mogul's throat as fast as they are
placed on the table. This led to great confusion, ending
with the Mogul seizing the Buttons, or page boy, and
swallowing him head first Clown, in bis fright, bobbed
against a fall-length brigand, who raised bin gun and
fired, and so ended the scene.
I will attempt to describe another funny scene. The
banks of a river, with cottage, donkey, stable, etc. A
woman busy washing clothes, at which she is disturbed
by clown and pantaloon ; the rogues eventually determine
to have a sail. They launched a large circular washing-
tub (generally a brewer's mash-tub) ; they then purloined
the clothes-line, a house broom for a mast, and a — a —
well, a lady's undergarment for a sail, with a pair of
bellows to blow a fair wind. The great fun was as they
sailed away their craft whirled round and round, the new
method of circular sailing being accompanied by the
braying of the donkey over the half-door of his stable, the
barking of the dog Hector in his kennel, from the top of
which crows "the cock that crow'd i' the morn, that
waked the priest, all shaven and shorn," etc. This last
series of tricks was, I believe, the invention of Purvis
himself. At all events the mechanical arrangement was
very clever and caused roars of laughter, as did also some
of his hand-tricks, used in front scenes, such as a flute
and sheet of music changing into a gridiron and large
mutton-chop, while the pandean-pipes turned into a huge
padlock grasping the jaws of the player.
Oh, yes ! he was an excellent performer on the union
pipes, and a very dexterous manipulator of fantoccini
figures, to say nothing of his skill in the art of legerde-
main. Purvis, as a caterer for public amusement, was
always looked up to as a most deserving, honourable, and
worthy person, beloved by those in his employ, and re
ceived by the public with enthusiasm wherever he ap-
peared.
During the early part of 1848, two amateur gentlemen
belonging to Hartlepool bothered Billy to let them play
Grindoff and Lothair in the melodrama of " The Miller
and his Men." One was a shoemaker, and the other, I
think, was a shipwright. At all events, the night being
fixed, the drama was put into rehearsal, and, as results
proved, the partisans of these aspiring histrions mustered
in goodly numbers to decide the contest.
The drama proceeded with varying emotions, inter-
rupted now and again with ejaculations of " Well done,
Lothair !" " At him again, Grindoff," and cautions from
A urust l
1S9L
NORTH-COUNT. RY LORE AND LEGEND.
377
Billy to the audience, such as "Had yor tongue! we
want nyen o" yor jokes or jibes here !" or, pointing to his
wife by his side, " Lucka, Geordie, mysel' an' ma sweet
composed canna' hear nowt for yor row : se shoot oop,
or by gox aa'll huff some on ye wiv a whap
o' the heed ; bud aa'll be varry sorry ef aa
h*v te de owt o' the kind." " Sarve 'em
reet, Billy!" " What are ye gan te hev ?"
shouted two or three voices. Through this
and similar badinage the rival amateurs
acted against each other with wonderful
vigour until the last scene was reached,
when the mill has to be destroyed by an
explosion. Up to this point the tempers of
the two tragedians had been held in some-
thing like subjection by their surround-
ings, but their jealousy culminated when
Purvia declared that "yen acted as well as
the other, and much bettor." At this the
miller blew up his own mill before the
proper time, and then sturdily refused to
remain on the stage to be killed by the shoe-
maker. Before anyone could realise this
crux, the cobbler, disappointed of his explo-
sion, and having no rival to kill, threw one
leg over the river bank set-piece, stretched
his arm across the stream, tore down a
small working mill fastened to the edge of
a painted rock-piece — supposed to be, at
least, a quarter of a mile away — rushed
down to the footlights, threw the profile
toy to the ground, and, placing his foot on
it, exclaimed in triumph, "Noo aa's re-
venged !" As the curtain descended amidst
peals of laughter, Billy— shaking his fist at
the destroyer of his property — shouted out,
" Oh, you villain ! aa'll marcycree ye !" By
the time Billy got behind the scenes the
offender bad, with the help of Ned Corvan
and others, made good his escape. Tom
Matthews mollified the irate manager,
apologised to the audience for the contrt-
temps, and Purvis finished the night's fun
with his inimitable scene of "Stealing the
Bundle."
The way Billy stole the bundle was some-
thing after this fashion : — The scene was a
nice country view, with a cottage on the
right hand of the stage. A plough-boy
(generally Tom Matthews) comes from the
opposite side, peeps through the window,
expresses in pantomimic action he sees hia
sweetheart inside. Placing the bundle he
carries by the door, he claps his hands
together three times as a signal for his
lady-love to come out. She does so ;
then pantomimic love-making ; and then they enter
the cottage. Enter Billy, the clown, dancing round the
stage until his toes kick the bundle left by the plough-boy.
He looks at it, then glances slyly around to make sure he
378
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
is not observed, picks it up, says " By gox ! it's a bundle !"
and begins to undo knots with his teeth. P.-B. opens
cottage door ; they look at each other ; Billy drops the
bundle, whistles, and with a shuffling step dances off.
P.-B. watches him, then indicates his doubts as to the
clown's honesty, and determines to watch him. Billy
returns cautiously ; in a loud whisper exclaims " By gox !
it's there yet ; aa mun ha' it ! " — wags his finger, and
whistles to the bundle as if to a dog he wanted to entice.
Just as he reaches the door it is opened suddenly, and the
P.-B. deals him a blow on the mouth, at which Billy
stammers out, "Da — da — da — am the man! Wha —
wha — wha — t did ye de that for ? " then sneaks off, holding
his hand to his mouth. When the stage is clear, he returns,
says, " By gox, the beggor is there yet ; aa mun ha' it this
time," dances cautiously round in the opposite direction
to his former movements, succeeds in kicking the bundle
away, then calls out, "Stop, thief!" P.-B. runs on,
misses the bundle. Billy points off, shouting, "Stop,
thief! stop, thief!" P.B. runs off one side, Billy picks
up the bundle, and runs off the other, saying, "By gox,
some gentleman has lost his bundle, and another gentle-
man has fund it ! " C. H. STEPHENSON.
H«rt*0 attar Cmwmentarue.
JAMES CROSBIE HUNTER.
The date mentioned on page 346 as that of the com-
mencement of Mr. Hunter's career as a showman is
an error. It should have been 1845, not 1843. Mr.
Hugh R. Roddam, writing to the Kcwcaitle Weekly
Chronicle in July. 1891, says he became acquainted with
Mr. Hunter under the following circumstances: — "A
news-room was established in Tyne Street, North Shields,
about 1845 or 1846. The entrance was opposite to the
end of Stephenson Street, down a few steps ; the room
was a fair-sized one, and had a bay window looking on
to the Tyne, and very pleasant it was to sit and look
out on to the river on a fine summer's evening.
Discussions took place on various political topics,
and on papers prepared by the members. Amongst
the individuals who took part in the debate were
James C. Hunter, Thomas Farmer, and John Rennison,
son of the late Mr. John Rennisou, tobacco manu-
facturer. Hunter was always to the fore in these discus-
sions. At that time he was thought to be a Chartist. I
think he was a mason to trade." EDITOR.
SAILING COACHES.
Sails as a means of propulsion were some forty or
fifty years ago applied to railway carriages. As far
as I can fix the date, it would be in the year 1845
or 1846. The contrivance was due to an ingenious old
sailor called Joseph Taylor, who had abandoned the
dangers of our Northern seas for the safer paths of busi-
ness. He kept a provision shop at the extreme west end
of Commercial Street, Middlesbrough, just opposite the
old coal staiths which did duty before the construction
of the dock, and close to the little shed which at that
time served as the railway station. In those early days
of railway enterprise there were no Sunday trains, and
Mr. Taylor, who was a member of the Society of Friends,
used regularly every Sunday morning to harness a horse to
one of the railway carriages, and with his family drive up
the line to South Stockton to attend his place of worship.
The railway carriage of that date was a much less
ponderous affair than it is at present, but I rather think
the one Mr. Taylor used was of an even earlier type.
The distance between Middlesbrough and South Stock-
ton would be about four miles. The line was level
and nearly straight, and there were no over bridges or
other obstructions on the section. So, when there was
sufficient wind, and the direction served for the double
journey, Mr. Taylor on several occasions provided the
carriage with a mast and lug sail, and so made the
journey without the aid of horseflesh. On more than one
occasion on Sunday mornings, from the high ground at
Mandale Bank which overlooks the present Stockton
racecourse from the south, I have watched this curious
ship upon land bowling merrily along and making a good
eight knots an hour. MANUALE MILL, Newcastle.
THE LEE PENNY : A CHARM STONE.
When the Aryan or Indo-European races of mankind
spread their mighty waves of people over Europe, they
carried with them a multitude of beliefs and customs
which for hundreds of years have existed, as Kelley says,
"in Greece and in Scandinavia, in the Scottish High-
lands, the Forests of Bohemia, and the Steppes of Russia,
August 1
1891. I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
379
on the banks of the Shannon, the Rhine, and the
Ganges." This lore of the people has practically re-
mained unchanged since the Aryans occupied Europe and
settled, in addition to other places, in the British Isles.
Amongst this immense wealth of folk-lore that of attri-
buting supernatural powers to certain mysterious stones
or pebbles and other articles was very common amongst
the people of the secluded dales and uplands of the North
of England and North Britain.
Perhaps few charm stones have gained such a popularity
as the celebrated Lee Penny. This stone is described as
of a dark red colour, triangular in shape, and its size
about half an inch each side. It is supposed to have
been in the possession of the family of Lockhart of Lee
since the year 1329, when Sir Simon Lockhart accom-
panied Sir Jatnes Douglas in his expedition to
the Holy Land with the heart of King Robert the
Bruce. The story goes that, in the course of the journey
to Palestine, Sir Simon took prisoner a Saracen chief, for
whose ransom the chief's wife offered a large sum of
money. During the transaction of paying the ransom,
which was large, a considerable amount of tune was taken
up in counting the money. In the course of the process the
lady dropped a gem, evidently of great value, as it was
anxiously picked up and carefully returned to her
purse. Thia aroused the curiosity of the knight, who, on
making inquiries, was informed of its virtues. He then re-
fused to give up the chief unless the gem was added to the
ransom-money. With great reluctance the chief's wife
complied, and this important talisman became the pro-
perty of the Lee family. The gem on being brought
home appears to have been at some time set
in a silver coin, described in the year 1645 as
being much defaced, but evidently a shilling of
Edward I., the cross peculiar to these shillings being
very plain. Napier, however, writing in 1879, states in
his book on folk-lore that this famous charm is a stone set
in gold, that it cannot be lost, and that it is still in the
Lee family.
When the plague broke out in Newcastle in 1645, it is
recorded by Sykes that the inhabitants sent for the Lee
Penny, gave a bond for a large sum in trust for the loan,
and thought it did so much good that they offered to pay
the money and keep the charm. A copy of the bond is said
to be among the papers of the Lee family. At this time,
its virtues are recorded thus:— "It cures all diseases in
men and cattle, and the bite of a mad dog both in man and
beast. It is used by dipping the stone in water, which is
given to the diseased cattle to drink and the person who
has been bit, and the wound or part affected is washed with
the water. Many cures are said to have been performed
by it ; and the people came from all parts of Scotland,
and even as far up in England as Yorkshire, to get the
water in which the stone had been dipped." During the
seventeenth century, we are informed in Rogers's interest-
ing volume, "Scotland, Social and Domestic," that the
superstitious use of the Lee Penny was so common that
it came before the Presbytery of Lanark for considera-
tion under the Superior Judicatory.
The Lee Penny must have been held in great repute for
over five centuries. In the eighteenth century, or a
little over one hundred years ago, it is on record that
Lady Baird, of Saughton Hall, having been bitten by a
mad dog, a messenger was despatched to Lee (Jastle for
the far-faired charm stone, and her ladyship, having drunk
of the water in which the marvellous gern had been
dipped, was supposed to have been cured, as no symptoms
of hydrophobia were developed. Then a recent writer on
folk-lore says that many people from various parts of Scot-
land whose cattle were affected have made application
within these few years for water in which the stone has
been dipped. W. M. EQGLESTONE, Stanhope.
THE BATTLE-FIELD, NEWCASTLE.
This name is stated to be of comparatively recent
origin. Originally known as St. Anne's Close, it became,
about forty-two years ago, a place famous for dog-fights,
and was popularly called " The Battle Field" in conse-
quence. The Ordnance Survey adopted the popular
title, and the name thus became stereotyped. At a meet-
ing of the Society of Antiquaries, in January, 1861, Mr.
Henry Turner complained of the looseness with which the
survey was being completed. He especially instanced
this " Battle-Field" as a name which had originated only
a dozen years before.
RICHARD OLIVER HESLOP, Corbridge-on-Tyne.
BULLION AND BOUILLON,
Passing a well-known lead works on the Tyne, one
workman said ta another, " Aa suppose lots of bullion
comes oot of this place." "Noa," was the reply, "aa
divvent think se. Aa've nivvor seed onny deed horses gan
in !"
THB DEILL INSTRUCTOR.
A pitman who was being drilled by the drill-sergeant of
a regiment of militia was told to turn to the right. He
did so, but at once received the command, "Left turn.'
"Hoots, man," said Geordy, "ye divvent knaa yor aan
mind twn minutes !"
RAW RADISHES.
A tipsy pitman entered a fruiterer's shop in South
Shields one Saturday morning "Ha'porth of radish,
please," said he. Having been served, he asked, "Hev
ye onny salt?" No," replied the shopkeeper. "Then,"
said the pitman, "aa'll eat 'em raa !"
A DEFINITION.
A school teacher in Newcastle was recently asking
questions of a class of small boys, one of them being the
380
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
[ Auguit
I 189L
inquiry what was the meaning or definition of the word
" free." " Aa knaa," shouted one youngster, holding up
his band — "it means when ye get intiv a treat for nowt 1"
A LIBERAL GIVER.
During a conversation on the subject of systematic
beneficence, the wife of a leading Newcastle Methodist
remarked that her husband faithfully and religiously de-
voted a tenth part of his income to religious purposes.
" Oh." said another lady of the party, "wor John gives far
mair nor that ; he gives a twentieth !"
THB PORTER POKEMAN AND THE FRENCHMAN.
A porter pokeman, who had carried a bag from Quayside
to Central Station for a Frenchman: "Aa want twe
bob ; aa's not gannin' te bring yor bag aall that way for
yen an' a tannor." The Frenchman spread out his hands,
shrugged his shoulders, and remarked : — " Outrd !"
"Ay," was the pokeman's disgusted remark, " thet's
the oney way ye confounded Frenchmen can taak — wi'
yor hands !"
THE FORGOTTEN NAME.
A short time ago a woman with a baby in her arms and
a girl of a dozen summers at her side, entered a local re-
gistrar's office. The public officer at once guessed her
mission, so he asked, " Birth or death ?" " It's a borth,
canny man," replied the mother, "but aa's that flustored
that aa've forgotten the nyem." Then, turning to her
daughter, she said, "Janey, what is't we're gan to caall
wor Liza — oh, aa hev hor noo, it's Liza !"
THE DREDGER.
A miner, who was taking a sail down the Tyne a few
years ago, was surprised at seeing for the first time in his
life a dredger at work. After putting a lot of questions
concerning it to a gentleman who stood by, he at last
asked, "Hoomuch dis the cheps get that wark thor?'
"I am not certain," was the reply, "but I think about
twenty-seven shillings per week." "But, marra," said
the othsr, "them 'at's doon belaw filling, they'll surely
get mair !"
GRAVY WITHOUT MEAT.
A public dinner was recently held at a place not fifty
miles from Tynemoutb. The first course was, as usual,
soup, and a limited quantity of the liquid was placed
before one of the guests. He had displayed some little
impatience for something to eat, but when he showed no
signs of commencing with his soup, a friend hinted that
he should make a start before it became cold. "Man,"
he replied, " it's ne use ; beer's gravy wivoot meat ; aa's
waiting for ma beef an' tetties !"
SNUFF COLOUR.
A pitman went into the shop of a Newcastle tailor and
said to the attendant: — "Aa want a suit of claes — a
bonny cullor, noo !" Thereupon he was shown several
patterns and lengths. Taking up a piece of cloth, the
knight of the needle held it to the light and exclaimed :—
"Ilcor's a nice bit suiting, an' a good durable snuff
colour I" "Mercy on us !" shouted the pitman, "that'll
nivvor de. D'ye think aa want to myek ivvorbody
sneeze when they come alangside us ?"
On the llth of June, the death was announced as
having taken place in the United States, on the 12th of
the previous month, of Mr. John Fulton, formerly
Borough Engineer of Newcastle. He was 72 years of age.
On the same day, the death was reported of Mr. Alex-
ander Brown, a promising young journalist belonging to
Sunderland, who had died during his passage from
Australia for England on the 29th of May.
Mr. John Reed, a well-known local football player,
died in Sunderland Infirmary on the llth of June.
The death was recorded, on the 12th of June, of Mr.
Joseph Symm, agricultural implement maker, of Newton,
Stocksfield.
Mr. William Henry Benington, Justice of the Peace
and ex-Mayor of Stockton, died on the 13th of June.
On the same day occurred the death of Mr. Charles
Lilburn, of Glenside, Sunderland. The deceased was the
son of Mr. William Lilburn, a Sunderland tradesman, and
said to be a descendant of Colonel Lilburn, one of the
most famous of Cromwell's officers in the Parliamentary
army. Mr. Charles Lilburn was a magistrate of Sunder-
land, a member of the River Wear Commission, of the
River Wear Watch Committee, and of the Board of
Guardians.
The death was announced on the 15th of June of Mr.
William James Blyth, chemist, of Holmside, Sunderland.
The deceased was the publisher of " Blyth's Almanac."
Mr. George C. Barron, who was well known on Tyne-
side as a commercial traveller, but more especially ks a
public entertainer, died at North Shields on the 16th of
June. He was 43 years of age.
Mr. John Parker, a well known Team Valley farmer,
died at Ouston on the 18th of June.
On the 19th of June, the death was announced as having
taken place on the 29th of May, at Port Hope, Ontario,
of Mr. William Craig. The deceased served his
apprenticeship at Messrs. Arundale's (now R. Pattinson
and Son 'si Gallowgate Tannery, Newcastle ; and in early
life he was connected with Tuthill Stairs Baptist Chapel
in the same town. He emigrated to Canada in 1843, and
for several years he was a member of the Port Hope Town
Council, while on three occasions he filled the office of
Mayor of that town. Mr. Craicr was 72 years of age.
Dr. Broadbent, of Bamburgh, died on the 22nd of June.
Mr. James Outterside, a well known engine driver on
the Newcastle and Carlisle branch of the North-Eastern
Railway, and for several years a local preacher on the
plan of the Hexham Wesleyan Circuit, died on the 23rd
of June.
On the 23rd of June, the death was reported of Mr. John
Wilson, refreshment-house keeper, Newcastle, and an
official of the Primitive Methodist body.
Mrs, Mary Davison died at Brunton Bank, near Wall,
Northumberland, on June 24th, at the advanced age of
97.
At the age of 56, Mr. William Lee, formerly of Haydon
Bridge, died at Benwell, Newcastle, on the 25th of June.
He was well kown as a local antiquary, and was the author
of an interesting history of the Chapelry of Haydon.
Aii fUKt \
11. 1
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
381
The deceased was also an ardent collector of curios and
scraps of local lore, and was a frequent contributor to tlie
Newcastle Weekly Chronicle.
Mr. George Storey, who for a period of about twelve
years represented the East Central Ward in the Gates-
head Town Council, died on the 24th of June, in the 55th
year of his age.
On the 29th of June, was announced the death, at the
age of 78 years, of Mrs. Gibson, widow of Mr. W. W.
Gibson, of Hexham, and mother of Mr. J. P. Gibson,
the well-known photographer and antiquary.
The death was reported on the same day of Mr. R. H.
Wheatley, butcher and farmer, of Choppington, and a
prominent local preacher in connection with the Primitive
Methodists.
The death took place on the 29th of June of Mr. Aid.
Henry Nelson, J.P., of South Shields. As the head of
the firm of Messrs.
Nelson, Donkin, and
Co., shipowners, and
as partner in several
important concerns in
the North, he occu-
pied a prominent
place in the trade and
public life of the dis-
trict He had been a
member of South
Shields Town Coun-
cil since 1874, and in
1890 he filled the
office of Mayor. He
, was also president of
I the South Shields
• Swimming Club.
: The deceased alder-
: man was 80 years of
• age.
Mr. Hubert Laws,
a leading member of
the Institute of Civil
Engineers, and who
had been identified
with the carrying out
of many local projects, died at Ryton on the 30th of
June. The deceased gentleman was also an enthusiastic
Freemason, and was a brother of the City Engineer of
Newcastle.
Mr. William Kell, who had been for about fifty years
connected with the Poor-Law service at Gateshead,
Rlaydon, and Hexham, died on the 1st of July at his
residence m Cotfield Street, Bensham, aged 75 years.
On the 3rd of July, the death was announced, in bis
fiftieth year, of the Rev. Edward H. Smart, M.A., for the
last ten years vicar of Kirby-in Cleveland, Northallerton.
It was reported on the same day that Mr. Thomas
Cuisley, of St. Kilda, Melbourne, Australia, who was at
one time a police inspector at Winlaton, in the county of
Durham, bad been killed by falling downstairs m a fit of
somnambulism on the 19th of May.
Mr. James Runciman, a native of Northumberland
and an author of books relating to the North, died at
Kingston-on-Thames, on the 4th of July.
The death was announced, at Glasgow, on the 8th of
July, of Mr. I. C. Fowler, colliery manager, son of Mr.
Thomas Fowler, of Suuderland.
ALD. HENBY NELSON, J.P.
Mr. George Hawdon, one of the most prominent in-
habitants of Consett, died on the 10th of July, at the age
of 64 years.
at <£ bents.
©ccumncejs.
JUNE.
11. — Professor Sumerville, of the Durham College of
Science, delivered at Haltwhistle the first of a series of
county lectures on "Technical Education in Relation
to Agriculture. "
— The Tyne Steam Shipping Company's new steamer
Londoner arrived at Newcastle Quay on her first return
voyage from London.
There were between
60 and 70 passengers
on board, and the
vessel, which was
under the command of
Captain Craukuell,
carried about 700 tons
of cargo.
12. — An explosion,
followed by a fire, took
place at the Tramway
Company's stables,
J Percy Street, New-
/ castle; and G. Baxen-
/•' dale, engineman, was
/' so seriously injured,
that he died shortly
afterwards at the In-
firmary.
—George White, 23
years of age, fisher-
man, and William
Edmed, 25, engineer,
fell overboard from the
steam line-fishing boat John George, off the mouth of
the Tyne, and were drowned.
13. — A fire occurred in the large paper warehouse,
belonging to Sweetapple and Co., Elswick Court, New-
castle. The damage was estimated at £10,000.
— Two men, named Robert Shotton and William
Pearson, were killed through an accident in the wind-
ing machinery at Edmondsley Colliery, near Durham.
— A married woman named Mary Ann Blake, aged 56,
was accidentally run over and killed by a bicycle at Sun-
derland.
— Sapper J. Bates, a member of the Newcastle Engineer
Volunteers, was so severely injured by the bursting of an
explosive on the Town Moor that he died in the In-
firmary on the following day.
14. — The Bishop of Durham addressed a crowded public
meeting against betting and gambling in the Town Hall,
Gateshead.
15.— The chief office for parcel post business in New-
castle was transferred from the premises in St. John
Street, to the new wing at the head Post Office in West-
gate Road.
—Mr. H. Crisp, of White House, Scotswood, caught in-
CAPTAIN CBACKNELL.
382
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I August
1 189L
the Tyne a salmon weighing 45 Ibs., this being believed to
be the largest .salmon taken from the river for a great
number of years.
16. — In the windows of the publishing office, Westgate
Road, there were exhibited two copies of the Newcastle
Daily Chronicle and two copies of the Newcastle Weekly
Chronicle, containing articles which had been erased by
the press censor officials in Russia.
—It was announced that the Lamperts freehold estate
in Northumberland, consisting of 2,520 acres, had been
purchased by Colonel C. J. Briggs, J.P., D.L., of Hylton
Castle, county Durham.
— Mr. John Daglish was presented with several
valuable articles as tokens of esteem on the occasion of
his retirement from the management of the Whitburn
Coal Company, Mrs. Daglish also being made the re-
cipient of a handsome star composed of diamonds.
18. — A settlement of the dispute in the engineering
and plumbing trades at Messrs. Palmer's shipyard,
Jarrow, was effected through the intervention of Mr T.
Bell, ex-Mayor of Newcastle.
— On this and the following day the Congress of the
British Gynaecological Society, an association of surgeons
and doctors for the special study of women's ailments,
was held in Newcastle.
19 — The following statistics as to populations of the
boroughs and Parliamentary divisions of the counties of
Northumberland and Durham, as ascertained by the late
census, with the comparative returns of 1881, were now
published : —
1881. 1891.
Parliamentary Ii
Divisions & Boroughs.
NORTHUMBERLAND.
Wansbeck Division
Tyneside Division . .
ihabited Popu-
Houses. lation.
9,733 51,438
7,068 49,557
10,472 53,941
10,585 55,839
20,264 145,359
6,244 44,118
6,242 33,459
Inhabited
Houses.
11,047
9,396
10,275
10,105
26,227
6,328
7,273
Popu-
lation.
59,701
69,642
51,587
52,442
186,332
46,267
40,133
Hexham Division
Berwick-on-Tweed
Borough of
Newcastle-on-Tyne ...
Borough of Tynemouth.
Borough of Morpeth....
Totalof Northumberland
DURHAM.
Jarrow Division
70,608
9,350
11,479
11,597
10,554
11,423
10,699
11,500
11,706
6,441
2,468
9,114
8,201
7,381
8,102
17,330
433,711
62,795
60,776
59.858
58,675
59,179
59,329
59,923
58,245
34,831
14,932
65,803
46,990
56,875
44,605
124,760
80,651
10,808
12,886
13,263
11.878
12,860
11,593
12,031
11,982
7.210
2,793
10,792
10,875
9,893
9,493
20,249
506,104
80,532
69,235
70,202
65,987
67,639
63,830
61,833
59,459
38,033
15,287
85,712
64,914
78,431
53,258
142,097
Houghton-le-Spring
Chester-le-Street
Division
North-Western Division
Mid Division
South-Eastern Division
Bp. Auckland Division
Barnard Castle Division
Borough of Darlington. ..
Borough of Durham
Borough of Gateshead...
Borough of Hartlepool...
Borough of South Shields
Borough of Stockton ...
Borough of Sunderland
Total for Durham....
147,145
867,576
168.606 1,
016.449
20. — It was announced that, through the instrumentality
of Mr. William Gray, of Durham, a marble tombstone had
been erected over the grave of the late Mr. Alexander
Blyth, secretary to the Northumberland and Durham
Miners' Permanent Relief Fund, in Gibraltar Cemetery.
— A new charity was instituted at Durham. The will
of the late Mr. Thomas Hutton, of Durham, who was
formerly a bookbinder in that city, and who died recently,
provides that his personal property shall be realised, and
the proceeds invested by the Dean and Chapter of Dur-
ham for what shall be known as the Hutton Charity.
The income arising from the fund is to be distributed
annually on the 8th of July (the date of the testator's
birth) in equal shares to the three most deserving poor
men and women bonafide residents of the village of
Sbincliffe. None of the recipients is to be under 60 years
of age. The recipients, who are to be selected by the
rector and churchwardens for the time being of Shincliffe,
must have led a sober, steady, and industrious life, and
must be members of the Church of England.
— The foundation stone of a new hall for the miners of
Usworth Colliery was laid by Mr. W. H. Patterson.
— There was launched from the Low Walker shipyard
of Sir W. G. Armstrong, Mitchell, and Co., the Ruthenia.
a steel twin-screw ship, and one of the largest vessels, if
not the largest, ever built on the Tyne.
— The memorial stones of a new Christian Lay Church
were laid at Ashington.
• — The Northumberland colliery owners intimated that
the state of trade did not warrant an increase of 10 per
cent, in wages asked for by the n.ien.
21. — Sermons were preached in Rye Hill Baptist Church,
Newcastle, by the Rev. Dr. T. Harwood Pattison, for-
merly pastor of that place of worship, but now professor
of Homiletics in Rochester Seminary, U.S.
22. — It was intimated that by her will the late Mrs.
Elizabeth Trevelyan, of Tyneholm, East Lothian, had
left, among other bequests, £1,000 in trust, to the owner
of Wallirigton estate, Northumberland, and the vicar of
Cambo parish, and their respective successors, to found a
scholarship for higher education at some university,
public school, or other institution, to be called *'The
Arthur Trevelyan Scholarship," and to be open and
tenable for a period not exceeding three years by any boy
who has been, or is being, educated at Cambo School, and
whose parents have resided in the parish of Cambo for a
period of not less than three years preceding the election
of such boy to the scholorship.
23. — At a Convocation of the University of Durham,
a degree was conferred upon a lady, for the first
time in the history of that seat of learning, the
recipient of the honour being Miss Ella Bryant, of
the Newcastle College of Science. On the same occa-
sion, the honorary degree of D.D. was conferred upon
Bishop Sandford and Bishop Tucker. The honorary
degree of D.C.L. was conferred upon Mr. Gainsford
Bruce, Q.C., and Temporal Chancellor of the County
Palatine of Durham.
— On this and the two following days, the tenth annual
Temperance Festival was held on the Town Moor, New-
castle. The opening ceremony was performed by Aid.
W. D. Stephens, and the Rev. Canon Lloyd. Newcastle,
also took part in the proceedings. In addition to the
contests and pastimes of previous years, several new
features, owing to the increased public subscriptions, were
introduced, and the gathering, favoured throughout by
delightful weather, was of a itost successful character.
The street arabs were, as usual, entertained through
the exertions of Mr. T. S. Alder. On the 6th of July the
prizes were presented to the successful competitors in
connexion with the festival by the Mayor of Newcastle
(Mr. J. Baxter Ellis).
Aucustl
1891. j
NORTH-COUNT RV LORE AND LEGEND.
383
— Camps for the various brigades of local volunteers
were established at Morpeth, Whitley, Cullercoats, and
Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, and remained occupied for several
days.
24. — The Northumberland Plate, in connection with
the Newcastle Races at Gosforth Park, was carried off by
Queen's Birthday. The winner was sold to Major Joicey
for 4,000 guineas.
—The new district church of St. Polycarp, erected in
the parish of St. Ignatius the Martyr, Sunderland, was
opened by the Right Rev. Bishop Sandford. LL.D.
—The will of Captain Theodore Williams, J.P., of
Heatherslaw House, Northumberland, and late of H.M.
Body Guard, was proved, the personal estate being
valued at £8,431. The bequests included £4,000 to the
Governors of the Bounty of Queen Anne, in augmentation
of the stipend of the minister of the Church of the Blessed
Virgin Mary, Etal, Ford, Northumberland. The will
provided for the further sum of £1,500, if the testator had
not given it in his life-time, to the said governors,
especially for the purpose of building a parsonage house
for the said minister.
— A gentleman named George Leitch, of Heaton, New-
castle, was drowned while bathing in the sea at North
Sunderland. On the following day, Harry Colbeck, a
younir volunteer in camp at Morpeth, was drowned, under
similar circumstances, in the River Wansbeck. The
deceased also belonged to Heaton.
25. — Mr. R. Oliver was appointed first chairman of the
uewly-constituted School Board for the district of Chop-
well and Spen.
— Lord Hastings entertained the whole of the small
tenants on his estate at Seaton Delaval Hall.
25. — On this and the following day was celebrated the
jubilee of the Friends'-School at Ayton, in North York-
shire.
26. — A handsomely illuminated address was presented
to Mr. William Duncan, senior, upon the occasion of his
retirement from the sub-editorial staff of the Newcastle
Chronicle, after a service of upwards of thirty years. He
was also presented with a diamond brooch for Mrs. Dun-
can. The proceedings took place in the Chronicle Office
Library, and the presentations were made by Mr. Joseph
Cowen on behalf of the proprietors and the members of
the literary staff.
— It was ascertained that 1,963 ratepayers had voted for
and 985 against the adoption of the Public Libraries Ace
for West HartlepooL
— The London Gazette published an order in Council
sanctioning a scheme for the re-arrangement of the rura!
deaneries of Auckland and Stanhope, and the discontinu
ance of the rural deanery of Ryton. Two new rural
deaneries were formed, to be called the rural deanery of
Gateshead, carved out of that of Chester-le-Street, and
the rural deanery of Lancbester, formed out of that of
Durham.
—During an unusually heavy fog, the iron steamer
Gothenburg City, owned by Mr. Christopher Furness,
M.P., and loaded with cattle and timber, ran upon St.
Mary's Island, off thn mouth of the Tyne, and subse-
quently became a wreck.
27. — The wages of masons in Newcastle and district
were advanced from 8id. to 9d. per hour.
29.— It was resolved to prohibit bicycle-riding in the
Armstrong and Heaton Parks, Newcastle.
— Mr. John Elliott, who recently resigned the office of
Chief-Constable of Gateshead, took a formal farewell of
the magistrates and solicitors in the Police Court. (See
page 286.)
30. — The Lightfoot Scholarship in connection with
Durham University, and of the value of £50, was, for the
first time, awarded to Frederick B. Smith, as the result of
the recent B.A. examination.
JULY.
1. — The Earl of Eldon entertained his tenantry in the
county of Durham at the North-Eastern Hotel, Darlington,
in celebration of the coming of age of his eldest son.
Viscount Encombe.
— At a meeting of the Newcastle City Council, it was
unanimously resolved to offer the honorary freedom of
the city to the Right Honourable W. E. Gladstone, M.P.,
during his expected visit to Newcastle in October.
2. — The Lord Bishop of Durham formally opened the
new Mission Room connected with St. Matthew's Church,
Silksworth.
— Mr. William Hall, Mayor of Springhill, Cumberland
County, Nova Scotia, and formerly a working pitman in
the North of England, paid a visit to Ryhope Colliery.
— A stained glass window, in memory of the late Bishop
Lightfoot, was unveiled in the church of St. Ignatius the
Martyr, Sunderland.
— Mr. Justice Day arrived in Newcastle as one of the
judges of assize, and on the following day he was joined
by Mr. Justice Grantham.
— It was announced that the Mayor of Newcastle (Mr.
J. Baxter Ellis) was one of a committee formed for the
purpose of promoting the erection of a statue of the
Queen in some prominent position in London, and that
his Worship was also prominent in the list of subscribers.
— In the Grand Jury Room, at the Moot Hall,
Newcastle, Sir Matthew White Ridley, Bart., M.P.,
chairman of the Northumberland County Council and of
the County Justices, was presented by the magistrates
with a life-size portrait of himself, painted by Professor
Herkomer. A replica of the work was afterwards placed
in the Grand Jury Room attached to the Moot Hall
Courts in Newcastle.
3. — Mr. C. Francis Lloyd, journalist and musician, of
South Shields, was entertained to a complimentary supper
previous to his leaving the North of England for Bristol.
4. — The annual demonstration of the miners in the
county of Durham was held on Durham Racecourse.
The speakers were Messrs. S. Storey, Atherley Jones, T.
Burt, and W. R. Cremer, M.P.'s, in addition to the
agents and leading members of the Miners' Executive.
The amount of the Miners' Fund was stated to be
£52,260.
— Dorothy Sinclair, aged 44, was convicted, at the
Northumberland Assizes, of the manslaughter of her
husband, Thomas Sinclair, on the llth of March, and
was sentenced to twelve months' hard labour. (See
p. 237.)
— The large glass works belonging to Mr. Edward
Mooro, J.P., situated at West Holborn, South Shields,
were destroyed bv fire, the damage being estimated at
45,000.
5. — The screw-steamer Dunholme, of West Hartlepool,
bound from Middlesbrough for Rio Janeiro, was sunk
by collision near Dover. Seventeen of the crew were
drowned.
384
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I Augurt
\ 1891.
— The Rev. Allen Dennis Jeffery, successor to the
late Dr. Rutherford, commenced his ministry in the Bath
Lane Church, New-
castle. Mr. Jeffery,
who is a native of
Northampton, was
born on the 1st oJ
August, 1864. The
rev. gentleman had
successfully passed
through the course of
study at Rotherham
College. Mr. Jeffery
was welcomed by the
congregation and
friends at a public tea
meeting in the Bath
Lane Hall on the 6th.
6. — In connection
with the College of
Science, Newcastle, it
was announced that
Dr. Wm. C. Mac-
kenzie had been ap-
pointed lecturer in
EEV. ALLEN DENNIS JEFFERY. agricultural chemistry,
and Mr. C. H. Thomp-
son, M. A., student of Christ Church, Oxford, mathemati-
cal lecturer.
7. — Benjamin Pearson, 41, clerk, was charged at the
Newcastle Assizes that he, on the 2nd ult., in the parish
of St. Nicholas, feloniously did kill and slay one Thomas
Feargus O'Connor Townshend Prisoner was found not
guilty. At the same time and place, Albert Law, 33,
plumber (on bail), was charged with having, on the 9th
of May, feloniously killed Robert Ashley at Spital
Tongues. The jury found the prisoner guilty of man-
slaughter, and he was sentenced to one month's iniprison-
raent. At the same assizes, William White Greaves, 56,
fitter, charged that he, on the 2nd of May, "unlawfully
and maliciously and feloniously did wound one William
Smith, with intent to do him some grievous bodily
harm," was sentenced to 15 calendar months' hard labDur.
— Robert Smith, aged 27, engine driver, engaged on the
South Shields and Marsden Railway, was killed through
his head coming in contact with the wooden footbridge
which spans the line near the Trow Rocks.
— Probate of the will of Sir Horace St. Paul, late of
Ewart Park, Northumberland, Bart., who died on the
28th of May last, aged 79 yeais, was granted to the
acting executor, Mr. George Grey, of Millfield, Wooler.
Testator appointed Olivia, Countess of Tankerville,
guardian of his only child, Maria St. Paul, to whom on
her attainment of the age of 21 years he bequeathed all his
real estate and the residue of his personal estate, the
personalty being of the value of £3,287 2s. Id.
10. — At Gateshead Borough Police Court, Frank
Stoker, apparently 35 years of age, was charged with
wounding Mary Brooke, with intent to kill and murder
her, while in Fenwick's lodging-house, Pipewellgate,
on the 27th ult. The prisoner was remanded until the
13th, when he was committed for trial.
general ©ceumncejs.
JUNE.
12. — 4. man named Walter Lewis Turner and his mother
were arrested on a charge of horribly mutilating and
murdering a child at Horsforth, near Leeds.
— The Senaputty of Manipur, India, was found guilty
and sentenced to be hanged for being concerned in a
massacre of British officers.
14. — At Bridgeport, California, a Chinaman upon beincr
acquitted of a charge of murder, was dragged from the
court by a mob, and handed over to Indians, who cnt him
to pieces.
— While a heavy train drawn by two locomotives was
crossing a bridge over the river Boise, a tributary of the
Rhine, the structure collapsed, the engines and three
carriages being precipitated into the river. About thirty-
five people were killed.
16. — The O'Gorman Mahon, member for county Carlow,
died in his 88th year, after a most extraordinary career.
17. — Intelligence was received of an outbreak in Hayti,
during which the President and two hundred of the
Government supporters were killed.
— M. Turpin, M. TriponiS, M. Feuvrier, and M.
Fasseler were found guilty by the Correctional Tribunal
of the Seine of communicating to the agents of a foreign
Government the secret of the composition of melinite, and
were all fined and sentenced to five years' imprisonment,
except M. Feuvrier, whose imprisonment was limited to
two years.
— In an action for breach of promise brought by Miss
Valerie Wiedemann against the Hon. Robert Horace
Walpole, the jury found a verdict for the plaintiff, dam-
ages £300.
19. — The returns for the census in Scotland were issued,
showing the total population to be 4,033,103.
29. — During gunnery practice in the Pacific Ocean a
gun exploded on board H.M. cruiser Cordelia. Five men
were killed, and other twelve wounded.
JULY.
3. — The Emperor of Germany stated that the Triple
Alliance between Austria, Italy, and Germany had been
renewed for a term of seven years.
4. — Mr. W. H. Gladstone, eldest son of the ex-Premier,
died at Lord Blantyre's residence in London. He was 51
years of age, and had sat in Parliament for Chester,
Whitby, and East Worcestershire.
—The German Emperor and the Empress arrived at
Sheerness on a State visit to this country. Subsequently
the Emperor visited London, and attended a State per-
formance at the Royal Italian Opera, together with many
other important functions organised in his honour.
7. — Four men named Slocum, Smiler, Wood, and
Jugiro were executed by electricity at Sing Sing prison,
New York.
8.— The result of a Parliamentary election for Carlow
Ireland, was declared as follows : — Hammond (anti-Par-
nellite), 3,755 ; Kettle (Parnellite), 1,539.
10. — The census returns for England and Wales were
issued, the total population being placed at 29,001,018.
— The Glenburn Hydropathic establishment at Rotlisay
was destroyed by fire.
Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Fellinsr-on-Tyne.
/Ifcontbl£ Chronicle
OF
NORTH<:OUNTRY*LORE*AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 55.
SEPTEMBER, 1891.
PRICK 6a
Sn'tontttoatn* Veteran atttr
UN a little bay on the western side of Derwent-
water, at a place called Waterend, is a
picturesquely-situated mansion which was
built not quite a century ago by Lord
William Gordon. For a period of forty years, until 1879,
it was occupied by an aged recluse— Major-General Sir
John George Woodford, K.C.B., who. when a young
man, had stood by the side of Sir John Moore during his
last moments at Corunna, and had served on the personal
staff of Wellington at the battle of Waterloo.
This venerable solitary never visited the neighbouring
gentry, or welcomed them beneath his roof. Such visitors
as did call he received in front of his house. Towards the
latter end of his life a favoured few who had business to
transact with him were admitted inside. So jealous was
he of his privacy that he had hoardings placed around the
mansion, lest inquisitive tourists should stare into his
windows. His walks were often taken by moonlight, the
solemn grandeur of the mountains by night affecting him
more powerfully than by day.
With those who encountered him in his rambles he
would converse in an agreeable manner. He could talk
well on a variety of topics, for he was an accomplished
scholar, linguist, and archaeologist, and had a clear and
accurate memory. Children were sure of a kindly word
and pleasant smile from the old veteran : he took pleasure
in their simple prattle, and sho',ved them many little
kindnesses.
His house was a museum of antiquities and articles of
vertu. The rooms and passages were crowded with books
of a miscellaneous character, works on military science in
all languages, maps, plans, models, arms, coins, engrav-
ings, &c. He would have nothing disturbed, and, when
the process of dusting became inevitable, everything
had to be put back in its place again. The furniture was
old-fashioned, being that used by Lord William Gordon.
Any additions which Sir John made to it were of
unvarnished and unpainted deal of the simplest kind.
It was the old general's intention at one time to enlarge
his house. He had no definite plan, however, and gave
his workmen instructions by word of mouth, illustrating
them by a rough sketch on the ground with his staff. A
building was soon run up to a height of three storeys, and
then, as the rough-and-ready architect knew not how to
proceed further, it was left unfinished, without staircases,
windows, or doors.
A good story is told of some inquisitive persona who by
means of a rude ladder climbed to the top of this building,
expecting to obtain from it an extensive view. Nothing,
however, was to be seen on account of the trees, and so,
disappointed, they prepared to descend, when, with some
consternation, they discovered that there was no apparent
egress. For a long time they examined the floors and the
walls in vain. It almost seemed as if Sir John had got
them all prisoners by some ingenious contrivance invented
for the discomfiture of the curious. At length they found
by the aid of a match a closely-fitting trap-door, which
had fallen down without anyone observing it after the
last man had scrambled up the ladder.
Sir John was particularly fond of animals and birds.
Any rats or mice caught in the house or stables were
carried, by his orders, a mile or two away, and then set at
liberty. Moles he allowed to burrow unmolested in his
land, and jays and jackdaws to build in his chimneys. If
one anecdote which is told about him be correct, his
regard for his feathered friends was carried beyond the
25
386
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f September
I 189L
verge of eccentricity. Some jackdaws, so the story runs,
having taken up their quarters about the house, in course
of time every chimney was choked up with their nests and
the various odds and ends which they pilfer and hide, the
result being that master and servants were smoked out.
The butler, housekeeper, and gardener begged to have
the obstruction removed, so that the rooms might be made
habitable, but the old man was inexorable. Sooner than
•V--
resort to such a harsh measure lie would leave the house.
And so, it is said, he actually did. He rented or leased
another house in Keswick, sold part of his furniture, and
removed the remainder, abandoning Waterend to the
graceless jackdaws.
Some account of the eventful life of Sir John George
Woodford^ cannot fail to be of interest,
and I am indebted to an excellent
little memoir of the kindly recluse,
published in 1881 by Mr. J. Fisher
Crosthwaite, of Ksswick, for the parti-
culars which follow.
John George Woodford was born at
Chartham Deanery, near Canterbury,
on the 28th of February, 1785. His
father, Colonel John" Woodford, had
served under General Wolfe, and,
during the Gordon riots in 1780, had
gained some notoriety by ordering
soldiers, on his own responsibility, to
fire upon the rioters when they attacked
and set fire to Lord Mansfield's house.
His mother was the eldest daughter
of Cosmo George Duke of Gordon, and
sister of Lord George Gordon, the
leader of the great riots. She bad been previously married
to John, ninth Earl of Westmoreland, and was the
mother of Lady Susan Drummond, Lady Elizabeth
Lowther (wife of Sir John Lowther, Bart., of Swilling-
ton), and Lady Mary Fluyder, of Ayston, in the county
of Rutland.
Young Woodford was educated at Harrow, where he
was contemporary with Sir Robert Peel, the Earl of
Aberdeen, and William, second Earl of Lonsdale. He
afterwards went to Brunswick to receive a military
education. There he was appointed by the Duke of
Gloucester an ensign in the 1st Regiment of Guards. On
his return to England at the age of sixteen, he attracted
the notice and esteem of the last Duke of Queensberry,
"Old Q" as he was called, who took him to Windsor and
presented him to George III., afterwards showing his
regard for the young soldier by leaving him a legacy of
£10,000.
Our hero joined his regiment in 1801. Young Woodford
was first engaged in active service at the siege of Copen-
hagen in 1807. On the 13th October, 1808, he arrived at
Corunna with the expedition under Sir David Baird.
These reinforcements effected a junction with Sir John
Moore at Majorca. The whole British force amounted to
only 23,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, and was so over-
whelmingly outnumbered that it would have been folly to
have risked an engagement. On December 24th, 1808,
began the memorable retreat by the passage of the river
Aslar. After traversing a distance of 250 miles over a
mountainous district, which was covered with snow,
suffering much from exposure to the cold and from in-
sufficiency of food, and continually being harassed by the
enemy, the troops arrived at Corunna on January llth,
1809. Unfortunately the transports, which were to con-
vey them from their perilous position, had not arrived,
and they were unable to embark for some days. In the
meantime the French had come up, and were preparing
September!
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
387
to attack them. Captain Woodford, a« aide-de-camp of
Sir John Moore, was in constant attendance upon the ill-
fated general at this time. Entering a cottage together,
Sir John lay down to rest, and Woodford kept a look out
through a lattice. The former had just fallen asleep when
Woodford saw the enemy in motion, and aroused his
chief, who flew to the field, and was in the act of calling
up the guards when a cannon ball struck his left
shoulder and inflicted a terrible wound. Woodford
assisted to remove the dying hero, and remained with
him till the last. Later in the day he had his horse shot
under him, and at dusk was wounded in the instep of the
right foot by a musket ball — the last, as he affirmed, that
was tired that day. The doctors were all too busy to
attend upon him for some time. Ultimately a stranger
came up, removed with his finger the pieces of splintered
bone, bound up the wound, and left him, saying, " Now
you will not lose your foot." He was in the twenty-fourth
year of his age when he received this wound, and suffered
pains from it at times over a period of seventy years.
Woodford returned to England until his foot was
healed in some measure, and then joined the Duke of
Wellington's army after it had crossed the Ebro. He
was present at the battle of Nivelle (Nov. 10th, 1813), of
Nive (Dec. 10th, 1813), of Orthes (Feb. 27, 1814), and of
Toulouse (April 10th, 1814). In this last-named battle,
the sixth division, to which he was attached, under Sir
Henry Clinton, distinguished itself. At the close of the
war he returned to England, arriving there about the
end of September, 1814.
During the memorable June of the following year we
find Woodford serving as assistant quarter-master general
in the 4th division of the army assembled in the Nether-
lands under Lieutenant-General Sir William Colville.
Prince Frederick of Orange was stationed at Hal with
18.000 men, and awaited Wellington's orders. Colville
therefore sent Woodford from Hal to Waterloo for the
Duke's instructions. Threading his way through the
forest of Soignes during the night of the 17th of June, he
arrived early in the morning of the 18th. The Duke told
him that a battle was imminent, and said it was too
late for the division at Ha! to move up, but added, " New
that you are here, keep with me." Thus it was that
Woodford served on the Duke's personal staff at Waterloo.
The first officer he met on the field was Sir Henry
Hardinge, who said, "You are just in time to see a
glorious fight." His brother, Colonel Alexander Wood-
ford, held the house of Hougoumont throughout the day,
though the copse around it was captured by the French.
When at last the great struggle was decided in favour of
the British arms, Woodford, who had been actively
engaged in the battle, and had been more than 20 hours
in the saddle, galloped off with the welcome news to Hal,
arriving there early in the morning.
On his return to England, ke took a house near London
in May, 1819. In 1821 he was entrusted with the com-
mand of the 3rd Battalion of Grenadier Guards at Dublin,
and finally he was posted to it as Colonel, Nov. 23rd,
1823. In 1825 he seems to have visited Naples and
Florence. During the next few years, much of his atten-
tion was given to reforming the system of military
punishment and to ameliorating the condition of the
soldier. He had the command of all the household
troops, and was consequently often at Knightsbridge and
Windsor. Here he gained the favour of William IV.,
who invited him to dinner, and presented him with the
Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order of Knighthood.
In 1834 the widow of Lord William Gordon gave to
Colonel Woodford the beautiful Derwent Bay estate,
comprising the whole western side of Derwentwater, some
of the smaller islets, and Swinside mountain, which had
been bought by her husband and planted with oak,
spruce, silver fir, Weymouth pine, beeches, and other
trees. Without having seen the property, he entered into
negotiations with Mr. John Marshall tn sell it, but that
gentleman died before the arrangements were completed.
When Sir John did visit this estate, he was so much
struck with its beauty that he made up his mind not to
part with it at any price.
The veteran asked for the command of the Northern
District, the headquarters of which were at Chester, but
he was refused, probably because his persistent advocacy
of military reforms was not approved by the authorities.
He decided now to take a step he had already contem-
plated, viz,, to sell his commission as Colonel of the
Grenadier Guards. The Government gave 'him £4,500
for it, which was just half its market value. He expressed
his willingness to take a command whenever his services
might be required. An offer of one was made to him in
1840 ; but, as his destination could not then be com-
municated to him, he declined to accept it on these
conditions. When he found that it was the command of
the China expedition, which was of all others what he
would have most liked, his mortification was extreme.
Sir John Woodford now finally left the army, and
resided on his Cumberland estate, spending the remainder
of his long life— a period of over forty years— in the
pursuit of his favourite studies, and in the enjoyment of
the beautiful scenery of the Lake District. During these
years of retirement, he was in constant communication
with the War Office on matters relating to the army, and
Jhe also kept up a large correspondence with his friends —
one of them being Lamartine, whose wife was a connexion
of the Woodford family.
His brother, Sir Alexander Woodford, died in 1870,
full of Honours, at the age of 88, after a period of 76 years
of distinguished service. Sir Alexander had fought
under Wellington in several of the battles of the Penin-
sula, and had been present at Quatre Bras and Waterloo.
He was the President of the Crimean Inquiry Com-
mission, and in 1868 was appointed a Field Marshal.
The brothers wrote to each other every day. Su
338
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{September
1891.
regular was the correspondence that on one occasion,
when Sir Alexander's letter did not come, Sir John feared
he was ill, and, without waiting for another post, set off
to London to see him.
Sir John survived his brother nine years, dying on the
22nd of March, 1879, at the great age of 94 years.
Our portrait is taken from a photograph of the old
general taken when he was 90 years of age, while the
sketch of the veteran's house is copied from an engraving
in Mr. Crosthwaite's memoir. WM. W. TOMLINSON.
j|PECTRAL warriars seen in the air may be
said to form some of the strangest pheno-
mena that have from time to time produced
in men's minds mingled feelings of awe and
alarm, and the accounts of these wonderful visions have
been so circumstantially recorded that it is difficult to
dispose of the appearances on any ground of deception or
illusion.
Aerial armies are declared to have been observed in the
county of Durham towards the end of the last century.
Myriads of fighting men, it is said, were seen in the sky,
night after night, all through the county before the
French Revolution. Indeed, some people, according to
Canon Humble, averred that they had distinctly heard
the cries of the combatants and the groans of the
wounded !
But the Lake District was apparently much more fre-
quented. Souter Fell, a spur of Saddleback, was the
place at which these strange spectres are recorded to have
made periodical appearances. It was on this fell that the
astonishing phenomena of the years 1735, 1737, and 1745
appeared. There lived at Blakehills, in Grisdale, on
the east side of Souter Fell, a farmer of the name of
William Lancaster. One of his hinds, Daniel Strickett,
afterwards an auctioneer, came hotneon Midsummer Eve,
1735, with an incredible account of the appearance of
spectres. He said that when alone on the hills, after sun-
set and when the twilight was deepening, he was terrified
at beholding on the top of Souter Fell an army of spirits
marching silently towards the west side. Though scarcely
a mile distant from the fell, he could hear no noise
or sound of marching whatsoever. The strangers had
continued to stream over the top of the mountain till
darkness set in, when Strickett. in a state of great terror
and alarm, ran home as fast as his legs would carry him.
The neighbours concluded that he had been drinking, but
two years later he was no longer laughed at for his
story.
On Midsummer Eve, 1737, between the hours of eight
and nine, Mr. Lancaster himself observed, as he thought,
several gentlemen on horseback returning from hunting.
Ten minutes later, looking towards Souter Fell, he ob-
served, to his consternation, a large body of cavalry
debouching from an eminence at the north end, and pro-
ceeding through a notch in the ridge. His cries at once
brought the members of his family to the spot, and
they all saw the same spectacle. The spectre dragoons
cantered along the top, and disappeared in the gloom
of the valleys. They were evidently an advanced
guard, for they were followed after a time by compact
companies of foot soldiers marching from the same
eminence, and vanishing in the distance. These batta-
lions comprised a vast army of spectres, marching gene-
rally five deep in admirable order. The onlookers fre-
quently saw, as they imagined, officers encouraging the
other spectres, with vehement gestures, to quicken their
movements. As it grew darker, the spectre soldiers had
the appearance of people returning from market, rather
than an army on the line of march.
Regularly every Midsummer Eve, the Lancasters kept
a strict look-out for the ghostly warriors of Souter Fell,
but these ceased their perambulations, or rather were not
observed. However, on the Midsummer Eve preceding
the Rebellion, when the sky was yet red and the tops of
the surrounding mountains were fast disappearing in the
darkness, the dwellers at Blakehills once more observed
the spectre horsemen patrolling the fell. The Lancasters,
hastening to Wilton Hill and Souter Fell side, gathered
together some two dozen persons. This little company
witnessed the same march of spectres as that of 1737.
From their account, it was not conducted with the
usual regularity, but had the appearance of an army in
retreat. Interspersed amongst the soldiery were what
seemed to be powder-tumbrils and baggage waggons.
The spirits continued their march into the western valleys
till the increasing darkness hid them from view.
In the year 1745 the air was full of wars and rumours
of wars, and some of the spectators at Blakehills were
convinced that they had seen a real army on its way to
Scotland. Accordingly next morning they climbed the
mountain in the expectation of finding horse shoes, cast
in the progress of so numerous an army. Not only did
they find none of these, but they saw not the vestige
or print of a foot. Mr. Lancaster said that he never con-
cluded they were real beings, because of the impractica-
bility of a march over the precipices. The spectators of
this extraordinary appearance of spirits, however, swore
that their affirmation was true, and appended their names
to a document to that effect. Their accounts of the
spectral march varied in details, but agreed in all sub-
stantial particulars.
"These extraordinary sights." says Sir David Brewster '
in his "Letters on Natural Magic," "were received not
only with distrust, but with absolute incredulity. They
were not even honoured with a place in the records of
natural phenomena, and the philosophers of the day were
neither in possession of analogous facts, nor were they
September 1
1891. I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
389
acquainted with those principles of atmospherical refrac-
tion upon which they depend. "
Besides the County of Durham and the Lake District,
the Firth of Forth was at one time remarkable as a place
invaded by aerial spectres. The Scottish papers recorded,
a few years ago, some instances of mirages in the Firth of
Forth, exactly like the freaks of the Fata Morgana in the
Straits of Messina. On three distinct occasions the
Bass Rock is said to have assumed, to the eyes of the
crowds upon the sands of Dunbar, the form of a giant
sugar-loaf crowned by battlements, while the Island of
May seemed broken into several portions, which ap-
peared to be perforated by caverns, where none, in fact,
exist.
Such are a few of the atmospheric wonders that are
alleged to have been observed in the North Country.
j]R. JOSEPH FOSTER'S "Pedigree of the
Forsters of Cold Hesledon, Durham," pub-
lished by William Henry Hills at Sunderland
in 1862, contains an interesting memoir of a rather re-
markable person connected with the North of England —
one Robert Foster. The memoir, which was written
by Robert Foster's son, Myles Birket Foster, in 1860, runs
as follows : —
Robert Foster, son of Dodshon and Elizabeth Foster,
was sent at an early age to John Jenkins's school, at
Yealand Conyers, where he remained for several years :
he completed his education at the Free Grammar School
at Sedbergh.
When he was about eighteen years old, he went to sea,
and after making three voyages to the West Indies with
Captain Roper, in the Marquis of Rockingham, he was
appointed storekeeper in Antigua by his grandfather and
great-uncle, Myles and James Birkett, who were then
West India merchants.
About the end of May, 1776, he entered on board the
brig Endeavour, Lieut. Francis Tinsley commander,
carrying four guns, which was fitted out in Antigua
to cruise against the American privateers. On the 20th
June, 1778, he left the Endeavour at Spithead, and went
on board the Defiance, 64 guns, Samuel Cranston Goodall,
Esq., commander. On the 8th of July, he entered as
master's mate on board the Jupiter, 50 guns, Francis
Reynolds, commander.
From an entry in his log-book, we learn that, on the
21st October, 1778, the Jupiter had a severe engagement
with the Triton, (A guns. Mr. Roberts, the master, and
eight men were wounded. Mr. Roberts died the following
day, and Robert Foster succeeded him.
On 21st April. 1779, his only brother Myles died at
Ulverston. In September, he obtained leave to visit his
friends in Lancaster, which visit brought forth the
following letter, supposed to have been written by the
Vicar of Lancaster : —
"Last Sunday, the Quakers at their meeting-house
were thrown into a state of great surprise by the appear-
ance of a young man in the uniform of a lieutenant of a
inan-of-war. This young man's father and grandfather
are Quakers, and, being the principal merchants of the
place, bred him to the sea, and afterwards appointed him
their storekeeper in the West Indies, where he was when
the American dispute began ; and being moved by the
spirit (not the peaceable one of the Quaker, but the true
spirit of an Englishman), he made up his accounts,
quitted his store, collected together a few sailors from the
Lancaster ships, laid aside the Quaker, mounted a
cockade, and joined a Lieut Tinsley. then fitting out a
small armed vessel against the Americans, in which he
had several severe actions ; and coming over in her to
Portsmouth, got himself recommended to Captain Rey-
nolds as an officer likely to show him some business ; was
with him in the Jupiter of 50 guns, when they went close
alongside the Triton, a French 64, at the very time she
saw her consort going off ; and in the heat of that
close and desperate action, on the master being killed,
Captain Reynolds immediately sent tor Foster from his
quarters, and appointed him master; and managing the
ship for the remainder of the action, as well as acquitting
himself afterwards to the satisfaction of the captain,
upon a vacancy happening lately at Lisbon, where
Captain Reynolds had the command, from the just and
honest principle of rewarding merit, Captain Reynolds
deprived himself of a useful officer by appointing Foster
lieutenant of the Pelican. Foster got leave on the
Pelican coming to England to visit his friends at Lan-
caster for a few days, where he has withstood all the
remonstrances and solicitation to quit the service, and has
gone back to his ship. 1 hope he will earn preferment,
and be a credit to the place ; as well as an example to
some others of that society to break through the prin-
ciple established by them, ' to enjoy all the advantages of
peace, but to leave it to others to fight their battles."'
On his return to Portsmouth, the Pelican had probably
gone to sea without him, as it appears from his log-book
that he went on board the Hornet, sloop-of-war, 14 guns.
He remained in the navy a very short time after his
visit to Lancaster. His friends, who had been greatly dis-
tressed by his desertion from those peaceable principles in
which he had been carefully educated,' no doubt laboured
earnestly while he was with them to induce him to leave
the service ; and their labours, seconded by hia own con-
victions, seem to have wrought a wonderful change in this
young officer. He became a man of peace, and in after life
avoided conversation about his naval career, and certainly
never gloried in his former exploits.
Soon after he left the navy, his maternal grandfather,
wanting a manager for his estate near Sedbergh, in
Yorkshire, which Robert Foster afterwards inherited, he
went to reside at Hebblethwaite Hall, and settled down
as an agriculturist. He erected a mill on the estate for
the better employment of the poor ; established a school
for their education ; and became a sort of father,
physician, lawyer, and judge among his dependents and
country neighbours.
He continued an active, useful, and benevolent life at
Hebblethwaite, in the enjoyment of domestic happiness
and of social intercourse with the \yorthies around, who
were attracted by his genial disposition to his hospitable
dwelling, till the autumn of 1812, when he removed to
Newcastle-on-Tyne, to be near his children, who had
most of them removed to that locality. Here he main-
tained the same character of active usefulness and
benevolence as long as his health permitted.
In 1824 he had a slight attack of paralysis, after which
his bodily powers gradually gave way.
The following is an extract from a letter of Robert
Southey to Richard Duppa, dated February 23rd, 1806 : —
Oh ! Wordsworth sent me a man the other day who
was worth seeing ; he looked like a first assassin in
"Macbeth " as to his costume — but he was a rare man.
He had been a lieutenant in the navy ; was scholar
enough to quote Virgil aptly ; he turned Quaker, or semi-
Quaker, and was now a dealer in wool somewhere about
twenty miles off. He had seen much and thought much ;
his head was well stored, and his heart in the right place.
It is five or six and twenty years since he was at Lisbon,
and he gave me as vivid a description of the Beletn
Convent as if the impression on his memory was not half
a day old. Edridge's acquaintance, Thomas Wilkinson,
came with him. They had been visiting an old man of a
hundred in the vale of Lorton, and it was a fine thing to
hear this Robert Foster describe him.
The writer of the memoir printed in Joseph Foster's
390
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/September
\ 1891.
" Pedigree " was born at Hebblethwaite Hall in 1785,
was married to Ann King, of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and
died in 1861, at the age of 76. Six of his seven children
were born at North Shields. Among these was the cele-
brated artist who bears the same name as himself — Myles
Birket Foster, who was born at North Shields on
February 4, 1824, and who married at Earsdon in 18bO a
daughter of Robert and Mary Spence. When Birket
Foster was five years of age, his father removed to
London, and it was in the metropolis or the vicinity that
the youth developed his talent for drawing. Originally
apprenticed to a wood engraver, he soon relinquished that
craft to become an illustrator of books. Here hie. success
was immediate ; and orders flowed in of a most lucrative
character, even during his teens. Devoting himself after-
wards to water-colour painting, he soon attained the
great and distinguished position he still occupies in the
world of art.
in tfte
J1URIOUS readers may learn from Sir Walter
Scott's journal how the great poet and
novelist comported himself amongst his
fellow-men, how he was received by the
people whose houses he visited, and what were the main
incidents of those visits. Therein, too, we have interesting
descriptions of the scenery through which he passed, and
character delineations of the more prominent people with
whom he came in contact.
Intensely interesting as Scott's journal is throughout,
that part of it which deals with his visit to Northumberland
and Durham has necessarily a special attraction for
North-Country readers. Altogether " the soundest piece
of British manhood that was put together in the eighteenth
century of time," to borrow Carlyle's estimate of Scott,
spent five days in the North. It was on Tuesday the
2nd of October, 1827, that he arrived at Kavensworth
Castle, which is situated near to Gateshead. He had been
invited by Lord Ravensworth to meet the Duke of
Wellington, who was at that time the hero of the hour.
When the author of " Waverley" reached the castle, it was
late in the evening. The family had just retired, but
Lord Ravensworth and Mr. Liddle, to quote from Sir
Walter's journal, " came down and really received him as
kind as possible."
Next morning Lord Ravensworth and his guest set out
for Durham, in order to take part in the interesting
ceremony connected with the Duke of Wellington's visit
to that city.
We will let Scott tell what took place at Durham in bis
own inimitable and graphic style.
Oct. 3, 1827.— Rose about eight or later. My morals
begin to be corrupted by travelling and fine company.
Went to Durham with Lord Ravensworth betwixt one
and two. Found the gentlemen of Durham town and
county assembled to receive the Duke of Wellington. I
saw several old friends, and with difficulty suited names
to faces, and faces to names. Th3re was Headlam, Dr.
Gilly and his wife, and a world of acquaintance besides —
Sir Thomas Lawrence, too, with Lord Londonderry. I
asked him to come on with me, but he could not. He
is, from habit of coaxing his subjects I suppose, a little
too fair-spoken, otherwise very pleasant. The Duke
arrived very late. There were bells and cannon and
drums, trumpets and banners, besides a fine troop of
yeomanry. The address was well expressed, and as well
answered by the duke. The enthusiasm of the ladies and
gentry was great — the common people were lukewarm.
The duke has lost popularity in accepting political power.
He will be more useful to his country it may be than ever,
but will scarce be so gracious in the people's eyes ; and he
will not care a curse for what outward show he has lost.
But I must not talk of curses, for we are going to take
our dinner with the Bishop of Durham (Van Mildert), a.
man of amiable and courteous manners, who becomes his
station well, but has traces of bad health on his counten-
ance.
We dined, about one hundred and forty or fifty men,
a distinguished company of rank and property. Marshal
Beresford, and Sir John, amongst others, Marquis of
Lothian, Lord Duncombe, Marquis Londonderry, and I
know not who besides : —
Lords and dukes and noble princes,
All the pride and flower of Spain.
We dined in the rude old baronial ball, impressive from,
its antiquity, and fortunately free from the plaster of
former improvement, as I trust it will, from the ginger-
bread taste of modern Gothicisers. The bright moon
streaming in through the old Gothic windows made a light
which contrasted strangely with the artificial lights with-
in ; spears, banners and armour were intermixed with the
pictures of old, and the whole had a singular mixture of
baronial pomp with the graver and more chastened
dignity of prelacy. The conduct of our reverend enter-
tainer suited the character remarkably well. Amid the
welcome of a Count Palatine he did not for an instant
forget the gravity of the church dignitary. All his toasts
were gracefully given, and his little speeches well made,
and the more affecting that the failing voice sometimes
reminded us that our aged host laboured under the in-
firmities of advanced life. To me personally the bishop
was very civil, and paid me his public compliments by
proposing my health in the most gratifying manner.
The Bishop's lady received a sort of drawing room
after we rose from table, at which a great many ladies
attended. I ought not to forget that the singers of the
choir attended at dinner, and sang the anthem, Non nobis
Domine, as they said who understood them, very well ;
and, as I think, who did not understand the music, with
an unusual degree of spirit and interest. It is odd how
this can be distinguished from the notes of fellows who
use their throats with as little feeling of the notes they
utter as if they were composed of the same metal as their
bugle-horns.
After the drawing room we went to the assembly rooms,
which were crowded with company. I saw some very
pretty girls dancing merrily that old-fashioned thing called
a country dance, which Old England has now thrown
aside, as she would do her creed if there were some foreign
frippery offered instead. We got away after midnight, a
large party, and reached Ravensworth Castle about half-
one. Soda water and to bed by two.
The next day (Thursday, October 4) found Scott, in
company with the Duke of Wellington and Lord Ravens-
worth, at Sunderland, where his grace received addresses
and was entertained in much the samernanner as on the pre-
vious day at Durham. It was estimated that from fifteen
to twenty thousand persons turned out on this occasion
to cheer the Duke as he passed along the streets, followed
by a lengthy procession. At the dinner held at night
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
391
in the newsroom of the Exchange, the Marquis of London-
derry occupied the chair, Earl Bathurst, the Marquis of
Douro, Lord Beresford, 4c., being seated on his right,
while the Duke of Wellington, Lord Ravenswortb, Sir
Walter Scott, Dr. Wellesley, and the Hon. H. T. Liddell
were placed on his left. Among the toasts submitted to
the assembly was the health of Sir Walter Scott, proposed
by the chairman, who paid a warm tribute to the novelist's
genius. Sir Walter, on rising to reply, was received with
such deafening cheers as to render the remarks he made
inaudible to the reporters. The following is Scott's
account of the day's proceedings : —
October 4. — Slept till nigh 10, fatigued by pur toils of
yesterday, and the unwonted late hours. Still too early
for this Castle of Indolence, for I found few of the last
night's party yet appearinjr. I had an opportunity of
some talk with the Duke. Our party went to-day to
Sunderland, where the Duke was brilliantly received by
an immense population, chiefly of seamen. The difficulty
of getting in the rooms was dreadful, for we chanced to
march in the rear of an immense Gibraltar gun, etc., all
composed of glass, which is here manufactured in great
quantities. The disturbance created by this thing, which,
by the way, T never saw afterwards, occasioned an ebbing
and flowing of the crowd, which nearly took me off my
legs. I have seen the day when I would have minded it
little. The entertainment was handsome ; about two
hundred dined, and appeared most hearty in the cause
which had convened them — some, indeed, so much so,
that finding themselves so far on the way to perfect
happiness, they e'en . . . After the dinner party broke
up, there was a ball, numerously attended, where there
was a prodigious anxiety discovered for shaking hands.
The Duke had enough of it, and I came in for my share ;
for, though as jackal to the lion, I got some part in what-
ever was going. We got home about half-past 2 in the
morning, sufficiently tired. The Duke went to Seaham,
a house of Lord Londonderry's. After all, this Sunderland
trip might have been spared.
The account of how Sir Walter spent his third day in
the North, as narrated in his diary, introduces us to an
important trait in his character— love of domestic enjoy-
ment and comfort. In addition to the racy account of
tbe manner in which he utilised the evening at Havens-
worth Castle, there is also in this entry a sample of his
descriptive powers. The castle and woods surrounding it
attracted the eye of the novelist, the castle being at the
time but half built, "elections having come between."
This phrase is interpreted in a footnote by the editor
of the journal as follows: — "The present generation
are apt to forget the enormous sums spent in Parlia-
mentary elections, c.jr., Mme. de Lieven tells Earl Grey
(Cor. ii. p. 215) that Lord Ravensworth's neighbour, the
Duke of Northumberland, will subscribe £100,000 to-
wards the election of 1831."
Oct. 5. — A quiet day at Ravensworth Castle, giggling
and making giggle among the kind and frank- hearted
young people. Ravensworth Castle is chiefly modern,
excepting always two towers of great antiquity. Lord
Ravensworth manages his woods admirably well, and
with good taste. His castle is but half built. Elections
have come between. In the evening, plenty of fine music,
with heart as well as voice and instrument. Much of the
music was the spontaneous effusions of Mrs. Arkwright,
who had set "Hohenlinden " and other pieces of poetry.
Her music was of a highly gifted character. She was the
daughter of Stephen Kemble. The genius she must have
inherited from her mother, who was a capital actress.
The Miss Liddells and Mrs. Barrington sang "The
Campbells are coming " in a tone that might have waked
the dead.
The next day Sir Walter Scott visited Alnwick Castle.
Here, too, he was heartily received by his host — Hugh,
the third Duke of Northumberland. As in the case of
Ravensworth Castle, the "fine old pile" at Alnwick
came under his observant eye. The Bishop of Gloucester
mentioned in the following entry was Dr. Bethell, who
had at one time been tutor to the duke : —
October 6. — Left Ravensworth this morning, and
travelled as far as Wittingbam with Marquis of Lothian.
Arrived at Alnwick to dinner, where I was very kindly
received. Tbe duke is a handsome man, who will be
corpulent if he does not continue to take hard exercise.
The duchess very pretty and lively, but her liveliness is
of that kind which shows at once it is connected with
thorough principle, and it is not likely to be influenced
by fashionable caprice. The habits of the family are
early and regular ; I conceive they may be termed formal
and old-fashioned by such visitors as claim to be the pink
of the mode. The castle is a fine old pile, with various
courts and towers, and tbe entrance is magnificent. It
wants, however, the splendid feature of a keep. The
inside fitting up is an attempt at Gothic, but the taste is
meagre and poor, and done aver with too much gilding.
It was done half a century ago, when this kind of taste
was ill-understood. I found here the Bishop of [Glou-
cester], etc., etc.
Sir Walter's second day's stay at Alnwick Castle
was evidently well utilized. Beginning the day by
attending church and listening to a sermon by the Bishop
of Gloucester, the Duke takes Scott through Hulne Park.
Scott tells us how it was laid out, how it should have been
laid out, and how the Duke would have benefited had he
caused certain other trees to be planted instead of those
which met his eye. The visitor's verdict on Hulne Park
is not by any means flattering to its planter, who was no
other than the celebrated Lancelot Brown, better known
as " Capability Brown" — a native of Northumberland and
the most eminent landscape gardener «f bis day.
Brown is described by Lord Orford as the "restorer of the
science of architecture," the father of modern gardening,
and the " inventor of an art that realises painting and
improves nature." There were, however, others besides
Sir Walter Scott who did not appreciate the method of
landscape gardening of which "the capability villain"
was the father. Among such may be mentioned the poet
Cowper, who, in the third book of the "Task," satirises
the eminent gardener and his supposed improvements.
By way of a memento of his visit to Alnwick Castle, the
duchess presents Scott with a book of her own drawings—
a quarto volume containing thirty-nine etchings (privately
printed in 1823), which is still preserved at Abbots-
ford. The Archdeacon mentioned in the following entry
was Archdeacon Singleton :—
October 7. — This morning went to church and heard an
excellent sermon from the Bishop of Gloucester ; he has
great diginity of manner, and his accent and delivery were
forcible. Drove out with the duke in a phaeton, and saw
part of the park, which is a fine one, lying a long the Alne,
But it has been ill-planted. It was laid out by the cele-
brated Brown, who substituted clumps of birch and
392
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/September
\ 1891.
Scottish firs for the beautiful oaks and copse, which grow
nowhere so freely as in Northumberland. To complete
this, the late duke did not thin, so the wood is in poor
state. All that the duke cut down is so much waste,
for people will not buy it where coals are so cheap. Had
they been oak-wood, the bark would have fetched its
value ; had they been grown oaks, the sea-port would
have found a market. Had they been [larch], the country
demands for ruder purposes would have been unanswerable.
The duke does the best he can to retrieve his woods, but
seems to despond more than a young man ought to do.
It is refreshing to see a man in his situation give so much
of his time and thoughts to the improvement of his estates,
and the welfare of the people. The duke tells me his
people in Keeldar were all quite wild the first time his
father went up to shoot there. The women had no other
dress than a bed-gown and petticoat. The men were
savage and could hardly be brought to rise from the heath,
either from sullenness or fear. They sung a wild tune, the
burden of which was Ourina, Ourina, Ourina. The females
sing, the men danced round, and at a certain part of the
tune they drew their dirks, which they always wore. We
came by the remains of the old Carmelite Monastery of
Hulne, which is a very fine object in the park. It was
finished by De Vesci. The gateway of Alnwick Abbey, also
a fine specimen, is standing about a mile distant. The
trees are much finer on left side of the Alne, where they
have been let alone by the capability-villain. Visited the
enceinte of the Castle, and passed into the dungeon. There
is also an armoury, but the arms are in indifferent order.
One odd ped art-looking thing struck me. — Then to con-
sult Grose. I had had the honour to sit in Hotspur's seat,
and to see the Bloody Gap, where the external wall must
have been breached. The duchess g'ye me a book of
etchings of the antiquities of Alnwick 'and Warkworth
from her own drawings. I had half a mind to stay and
see Warkworth, but Anne is alone. We had prayers in
the evening read by the archdeacon.
The last date, October 8, brings us to the close of
Scott's sojourn in the North. Doubtless the intimation
in his journal of a former visit to Percy's Leap refers to
his ballad-hunting days — a happy and joyous period in
the novelist's life which Lockhart's has interestingly
described.
^ October 8. — Left Alnwick, where I have experienced a
very kind reception, and took coach at Wittingham at
eleven o'clock. I find there is a new road between
Alnwick and Wooler, which will make the communica-
tion much easier, and avoid Rimside Moor. Saw some
fine young plantations about Wittingham suffering from
neglect, which is not the case under the duke's own eye.
He has made two neat cottages at Percy Cross, to pre-
serve the ancient monument of the fatal battle of
Hedgeley Moor. The stones] marking the adjacent spot
called Percy's Leap are thirty-three feet asunder. To
show the uncertainty of human testimony, I measured the
distance (many years since, it is true), and would have
said, and almost sworn, that it was but eighteen feet.
Dined at Wooler, and reached home about 7 o'clock,
having left Alnwick at half past 9. So it would be easy
to go there to dinner from Abbotsford, starting at 6 in
the morning, or 7 would do very well.
S most North -Country people know, Cleadon
Village is situated about a mile and a half west-
north-west from Whitburn, on the turnpike
road leading from Sunderland to South Shields. The first
object that meets the eye of the visitor as he enters the
village by the road from Cleadon Lane — a station on the
North-Eastern Railway between Newcastle and Sunder-
land— is a quaint, picturesque residence on the right,
partly secluded by trees, which has already figured
in the Monthly Chronicle, This residence, known as
Cleadon House, was at one time occupied by Mr. Dagnia.
an Italian gentleman, who built it and laid out the gardens
and grounds. In 1813, the house and estate came into the
possession of Mr. Bryan Abbs. After the death of this
gentleman, his eldest son, the Rev. George Cooper Abb*
September!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
393
(or Abbes, as he preferred it) inhabited the dwelling. It
is now the residence of Mr. H. C. Abbs.
Leaving Cleadon House, we commence our walk
through the village. As will be seen from our artist's
sketches, Cleadon does not materially differ from the
ordinary country village. There are the usual low
cottages with red-tiled roofs, then larger dwellings, many
of which are made picturesque and bright by trim
gardens. The sketch on page 392 is taken from the
guide post placed in the middle of the village street
indicating the roads to South Shields and Sunderland.
The imposing structure on the left is part of a
farmer's residence known as Cleadon Towers. Although
its architecture is suggestive of mediaeval times, it was
only erected in the March of 1890. The small sketch at the
head of the present article represents the Britannia Inn.
This hostelry differs from most country inns in that its front
and east walls are, in the blossoming time, covered with
one mass of bloom. Indeed, were it not fer the signboard
underneath the eaves, the passer-by would not be able to
distinguish it from an ordinary residence. Besides the
Britannia Inn, Cleadon possesses two more hostelries,
named respectively the Ship Inn and the Cottage Tavern.
The sketch on this page takes us to the lower end of
Cleadon, where there are still to be seen two characteristics
peculiar to old English villages. There is still a strip of
village green left, and the duck pond, as will be seen from
our drawing, is still intact. The building to the right of
the pond is the village school, which bears on its gable the
inscription "Cleadon School, 1830." Beyond the pond
can be seen the steeple of the parish church.
History does not tell much of Cleadon, or Clivedon, as
it was anciently called. The name most remembered by
Oleadon's old standards is that of the Rev. George
Cooper Abbs, who was born in 1798, and died on March
28, 1878. An interesting account of Mr. Abbs and his
connection with Cleadon appears in the Monthly
Chronicle for 1888. But, in addition to the bio-
graphical sketch given therein, we elicited, on the
occasion of our visit to the village, some interesting
information respecting this learned and benevolent
man. Besides being absorbed in other studies — so much
so that it is recorded of him that he often forgot the day
of the week— Mr. Abbs was a great lover of all living
things. His interest in such an uninviting member of
the natural history world as the common toad took
an extraordinary form. Whenever any mason work
had to be done about the estate, tbe rev. gentleman
always took care to tell the masons to save the toads — to
bring them, in fact, to the front of the house. Indeed, we
were told by an old villager that, so great was Mr. Abbs's
solicitude for the preservation of toads, that he often
carried them home in his pocket !
There are many interesting anecdotes to tell about this
kind and good man. Here is one which, so far as we are
aware, has not as yet been published : — On one occasion,
Mr. Abbs was instructing his mason in regard to certain im-
provements which he desired to effect on his estate. While
talking together, Mr. Abbs and the mason observed a man,
apparently a tramp, take off his boots and stockings at some
distance from where they were standing, bury them in the
ground, and then walk towards them. Now, the rev.
gentleman was known to be very generous towards
tramps, and the mason and he conjectured, from what
they had witnessed, that this beggar intended, if possible,
to practise imposition. They surmised rightly, for as
soon as the mendicant knew it was Mr. Abbs whom he
had accosted, he at once requested to be supplied with a
pair of boots and stockings. "Yes," replied Mr. Abbs,
"come with me, and 111 see what I can do for you." He
then led the way to the place where the tramp had con-
cealed his belongings, and compelled him to take them
394
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I September
\ 1891.
out of the hole in which he had 'hidden them. Mr. Abbs
then upbraided the beggar for endeavouring to impose
upon him, and laughed heartily at the fellow's discom-
fiture.
atttr
ai ^ffarli 'fttotyt
JUcjjarb Welforb.
Militant £nth.ons
A POLEMICAL SCHOOLMASTER.
j|H£ self-taught genius who bore the name of
William Anthony Hails, and was known to
our forefathers at the beginning of the cen-
tury as one of the keenest controversialists
in the North of England, was born in Newcastle on the
24th of May, 1766. His father was a working shipwright
a man of good sense and simple manners ; his mother was
a woman of great natural ability, though of delicate con-
stitution ; his godfather was a clergyman — the Rev.
Emanuel Potter, lecturer at St. Thomas's Chapel,
Bridge End, and afterwards Vicar of Tynemouth. A
crippled arm and an obstinate internal disorder kept him
at home at the time when other boys were re-
ceiving their preliminary education, and it was not
until he reached his eleventh year that he was
able to attend school. Meanwhile, his mother taught
him hia letters, and his father gave him some
instruction in writing and arithmetic, so that when
the time arrived for him to begin school life he could
read, write, and sum, though imperfectly. He was
making satisfactory progress in repairing these defects of
his childhood when his mother died (June, 1778), and he
was taken to Howdon Dock, where his father was em-
ployed in the construction of the Syren frigate of twenty-
four guns. A brief term of schooling at Wallsend ended
his educational course, and in his sixteenth year he was
bound apprentice to the Dock Company to learn his
father's trade of a shipwright.
Three years, or the best part of it, at school had given
yonng Hails a desire for knowledge, which he determined
to gratify by self-culture. He had obtained there some
smattering of geometry, algebra, trigonometry, &c., and
now he went deeper into those subjects, adding the study
of hydrography and nautical astronomy, with the object
of following in manhood the life of a seaman. These
recreations led him into natural history, and the pursuit
of that branch of knowledge induced him to attempt
drawings of the subjects illustrated in ornithology,
entomology, and botany. Handling the adze and the
auger was not favourable to delicacy of touch ; absence
of verbal instruction was not conducive to accuracy of
detail and colouring; yet, considering the source from
which they came, his drawings of plants, flowers, and
birds, and especially of lepidopterous insects, were re-
markable for boldness and fidelity. His father, who had
been a schoolfellow and companion of Charles Hutton,
the mathematician, encouraged him in his studies, and
gave him such pecuniary aids to improvements as could
be spared from the scanty family income. Before he had
attained his nineteenth year he was considered a sort of
local prodigy.
About this time young Hails came under the influence
of the Methodist revival. Under the guidance of the
Wesleyan preachers he commenced a serious study of
the Scriptures, and while so engaged it happened that
a converted Jew was announced to preach in Newcastle.
Young Hails walked up from Wallsend to the Groat
Market Presbyterian Chapel to hear him. The preacher
quoted Hebrew, and gave to a passage in the Psalms a
translation differing from the authorised version. There-
upon the Wallsend apprentice became fired with a
passion to learn Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. He man-
aged to acquire a knowledge of these three languages —
knowledge which improved in after years, enabled him
to exchange the drudgery of his occupation for lighter
toil, and to become a man of mark in Newcastle.
At the expiration of his apprenticeship, Mr. Hails re-
moved from Howdon to South Shields, married, and
settled down to work in the shipyards. Marriage did not
interfere with his studies ; on the contrary, the responsi-
bilities which it entailed nerved him to higher endeavour.
Having formed a resolution of obtaining a clerkship in
some commercial house, he cultivated a clear and legible
handwriting, and made himself acquainted with approved
systems of bookkeeping. But, although his undoubted
September!
189L /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
395
genius brought him friends and admirers, it did not
enable him to realise his wishes. It was not until the
Bummer of 1798 that he saw his way to utilise the know-
ledge he had acquired as a means of earning his daily
bread. The post of writing-master in a Newcastle board-
ing school became vacant ; through the influence of the
French teacher in the establishment— one of the numerous
exiles who found shelter in this country from the fury of
the Revolution — he obtained it, and, returning to his
native town, began life anew as a schoolmaster. In due
time the opportunity of opening a school of his own came
to him. A schoolroom, which had been erected by his
father's friend. Dr. Charles Hutton, wanted a tenant.
Mr. Hails took it, his friends gave him a fair start, and
thenceiorward, for many years, Hails's School, No. 11,
Westgate Street, held its place among the educational
establishments of Newcastle.
Being thus comfortably launched upon an entirely new
career, he turned his thoughts to authorship, lie began
to contribute to periodical literature, and in 1806 printed
a volume of poetry with the title of
Nugse Poeticse. Consisting of a Serio-Comio Poem on
the Pursuits of Mankind : With several small Original
Pieces on Various Subjects. By W. A. Hails, Writing-
Master, and Teacher of various Branches of the Mathe-
matics. "K\ urbe Nazaretha potest aliquid boni ease?
Dicit ei Philippus, veni et vide — John. Gateshead :
Printed and Sold by J. Marshall : Sold also by the Book-
sellers in Newcastle and its Vicinity ; and by Longman,
Hurst, Rees, and Orme, London. Price Three Shillings.
(88 pages 8vo.)
Later in the same year he issued "An Inquiry Concern-
ing the Invention of the Life Boat," in which, as an eye-
witness of the famous experiments at South Shields with
the competing models of Greathead and Wouldhave, he
enthusiastically advocated the claims of Wouldhave.
(See Monthly Chronicle i., 306.) The following year he
published a rhapsodical pamphlet of 24 pages entitled
"A Voice from the Ocean : The ruins of Tyre to the In-
habitants of Great Britain, "and in 1809 a tract with a
title in Hebrew, forming No. 6 of the series issued by the
Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews.
His knowledge of Hebrew and cognate Oriental languages
brought him under the notice of the Rev. Abraham John
Valpy, editor of the "Delphin Latin Classics, "and con-
ductor of " Valpy "s Classical Journal." Through the
influence of this accomplished scholar he was induced to
contribute to the "Journal" a number of letters on
Biblical criticism. The learning which Mr. Hails dis-
played in these contributions, the tenacity with which he
maintained his views, and the dogmatic style in which
he expressed himself, excited surprise in the world of
letters. It seemed incredible that so much erudition and
self-confidence could emanate from a man who had missed
even the ordinary schooling of an artizan, who had
worked the greater part of bis life as a journeyman ship-
wright, had received little or no private tuition, and had
never been more than a few miles away from his native
river.
Having flushed his pen in religious controversy, Mr.
Hails entered the field against all sorts of combatants. If
anybody ventured to question the accuracy of the ac-
cepted translation of the Scriptures, suggested preferable
readings of obscure passages therein, or expounded
heterodox views of Evangelical doctrine, he was ready
with volleys of Hebrew and Greek to defend the autho-
rised version and maintain the rigid accuracy of his own
orthodoxy. In 1813 he commenced an attack upon the
Unitarians, to which body, under the ministry of the
Rev. William Turner, most of the leaders of thought and
action in Newcastle belonged. He opened fire with a
pamphlet of 84 pages, bearing the title of
The Pre-existence and Deity of the Messiah Defended
on the Indubitable Evidence of the Prophets and
Apostles, in answer to a Socinian Pamphlet entitled "A
Short Statement of the Scripture Doctrine of the Unity
of God, &c." Newcastle: J. Marshall, Old Flesh
Market.
The "Socinian Pamphlet" had been written by a Uni-
tarian minister named Campbell, who, venturing to
defend his position against Mr. Hails's strictures, was
answered in a still larger tractate, extending to 130 pages,
entitled
Socinianism Unscriptural : Being an Examination of
Mr. Campbell's attempt to explode the Scripture Doctrine
of Human Depravity, the Atonement, &c. By W. A.
Hails. Newcastle : J. Marshall. 1813.
Into a notable local dispute in 1817 between two Anti-
nomian preachers (the Rev. Mr. Briggs and the Rev. Mr.
Jamieson), a sarcastic writer, using the nom de plume of
"Timothy Search-Truth," obtruded himself. As this
gentleman enunciated advanced, not to say heterodox,
views upon the burning question of everlasting punish-
ment, Mr. Hails set to work to reply to him. Thirty-six
pages of trenchant criticism were levelled at Timothy,
with a title page headed —
The Scorner Reproved, or an Examination of Timothy
Search -Truth's Strictures on the Controversy between
Mess. Briggs and Jamieson. By W. A. Hails. New-
castle : J. Marshall. 1817.
The following year Mr, Hails returned to his attack
upon Unitarianism in the form of
A Letter to the Rev. Win. Turner, Occasioned by the
Publication of Two Discourses Preached at the 6th
Annual Meeting of the Association of Scottish Unitarian
Christians at Glasgow. Newcastle : J. Marshall. 1818.
Mr. Turner was busy at this time with his seventeenth
yearly series of lectures at the Literary and Philosophical
Society, and as he took no notice of the "Letter," Mr.
Hails fired a parting arrow from his ever-strung bow,
quitting the field with
The Claim of Christianity to the Respect of Mankind,
or Unitarian Principles Investigated. Together with
Remarks on Mr. Tyrrwhitt's two Tracts, republished by
the Unitarian Tract Society of Newcastle, in a Second
Letter to the Rev. Wm. Turner. Newcastle : J. Mar-
shall, *c. 1819.
In 1820 Mr. Hails wrote several letters to the Congrega-
tional Magazine in defence of Dr. Kenuicott's translations
of certain passages in the Old Testament, and later on he
contributed similar articles to the Jewish Expositor and
396
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
( September
\ 1891.
other periodicals. His last and greatest effort was a
volume of 400 pages in reply to Volney's " Ruins of
Empires." Of this elaborate work Bishop Barrington is
said to have written in terms of commendation, describ-
ing the author as "the best Hebrew scholar in the North
of England," while a reviewer in the Newcastle Magazint
remarked that it might with propriety have been entitled
" The Ruin of Volney's Ruins," for a more complete refu-
tation of the French philosopher had never been offered
to the public.
Although tending towards Calvinism in his religious
views, Mr. Hails associated himself throughout bis life
with the Methodist denomination. Hs was for many
years a class-leader and local preacher in that body, and
secretary of the " Newcastle Benevolent Society for Visit-
ing and Relieving the Sick and Distressed Poor"— an
institution which, although undenominational in its char-
acter, was chiefly supported by Methodist people. Those
who knew him describe him as " somewhat angular in his
mental formation " and of a retiring and distant disposi-
tion, with a "stiff air of independence in his manners
which disqualified him for courting public favour, and
permitted less able but more obsequious persons to over-
top him in his profession." Ho died on the 30th August,
1845, at the age of 79 years.
Sail, p.p.,
BISHOP OF DBOMOBK.
While the brothers Christopher and Robert Hall were
running their ministerial course in the Baptist denomina-
tion, two brothers, bearing the same patronymic, but
baptized by the Christian names of William and George,
were making their way as clergymen of the church of
England. They were the sons of the Rev. Mark Hall,
perpetual curate of Earsdon, their mother being a sister of
Dr. John Brown, vicar of Newcastle. One of their
sisters lived in after years with the vicar, and kept his
house ; another married Mr. Smith of Whitchester, near
Haltwhistle, whose daughter became the wife of Taylor
Gibson, of Newcastle, druggist.
William Hall, born in 1740, was educated at St. John's
College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A., and in
due time became a Fellow. At the age of twenty-three
he obtained an appointment as sub-master of Morpeth
Grammar School, under Humphrey Holden, M. A. The
following year a vacancy occurred in the Royal Free
Grammar School of Newcastle, an institution that was
then at the height of its efficiency and popularity,
governed by the great headmaster, Hugh Moisea, and
attended by a promising pupil, John Scott, the future
Lord Chancellor. One of the under-ushers bad resigned
bii office, and Mr. Hall, seeking for the berth as an
advance upon his position at Morpeth, was appointed.
Two years later, on the 15th December, 1766, a few
months after John Scott had left for Oxford, he succeeded
to the higher post of usher, and that position he occupied
for fifteen years. During part of that time, he obtained
local preferment. He was an unsuccessful candidate for
the headmastership of Morpeth School in April, 1772, but
in December following he was appointed sole afternoon
lecturer at the Chapel of St. Thomas, Bridge End, New-
castle, and. soon afterwards, preacher at St, Ann's. In
1781 he was elected headmaster of Haydon Bridge
Grammar School, where he died, June 4, 1803. He is
described as a man of great acuteness and learning, the
friend and companion of his uncle, Vicar Brown, who
bequeathed to him his books and manuscripts (see
Monthly Chronicle, iii., 124), and author or editor of a
pamphlet "On the Neglect of Public Worship, in a
Letter to a Young Gentleman." Newcastle : 1776.
George Hall, brother of William, was educated by the
Rev. Hugh Moises, at the old school in the Spital, but
instead of proceeding to Cambridge, as his brother had
done, he went over to Ireland and became an assistant in
Dr. Darby's school at Loughgall. After a time he
entered himself as a student in Trinity College, Dublin,
and having established, whilst an under graduate, con-
siderable reputation as a scientific and classical scholar,
he was unanimously elected a fellow. In 1800 he accepted
a benefice in Tyrone, whence, six years later, he was
called to assume the high office of Provost of Trinity,
with the degree of Doctor of Divinity.
Before Mr. Hall went to Tyrone the rector of the
parish in which his brother William had obtained his
first situation as usher, the Rev. Frederick Ekins, of
Morpeth, received an offer of the bishopric of Dromore.
He declined it, but was allowed to make a bargain by
which Dr. Percy, the learned editor of the " Reliques of
Ancient Poetry," became bishop of Dromore, and Mr.
Ekins became Dean of Carlisle. Dr. Percy occupied the
episcopal chair for nearly twenty years, and at his de-
cease, in September, 1811, the see was conferred upon Dr.
Hall. He was consecrated on the 17th November in that
year, and, taking cold during the ceremony, died on the
morning of the following Saturday, "leaving to the
world an affecting proof of the frailty of that tenure by
which earthly happiness and earthly honours are held."
MIXING ENGINEER.
A well known figure in Newcastle thirty years ago was
Thomas Young Hall, mining engineer, inventor, colliery
proprietor, and author of innumerable papers and reports
upon various branches of mining industry. He was a son
of James Hall, engineer at Wallsend Colliery under the
Buddies, and, in later life, mining agent for owners of
various royalties to the west of Newcastle. Born at
Greenside, near Ryton, on the 25th of October, 1802, his
childhood was one of hardship, if not of privation. After
a few months' instruction by on old woman who kept the
September!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
397
village school, he was sent down the pit to earn his living.
Working in the pits he continued till he approached the
age of manhood. Then the great John Buddie began to
take an interest in him ; his father, too, evinced a dis-
position to entrust him with more responsible duties ;
between them they trained him to the work of a practical
viewer. When he was 22 years of age he had a choice of
situations — an underviewership in the Marquis of Bute's
Welsh collieries, or the same position at North Hetton.
He chose the latter, and at North Hetton T. Y. Hall
commenced the serious business of life.
After four years' active experience in colliery manage-
ment at Hetton, Mr. Hall transferred his services to Mr.
Jonathan Backhouse, owner of Black Boy and other
collieries adjoining. Mr. Backhouse, finding out his
abilities, summoned him to new and more important
duties. Railway enterprise had opened out fresh possi-
bilities to the coal trade, and Mr. Hall was instructed to
report upon sites for new collieries, and accessible places
for shipment of their produce. He reported favourably
upon Coxhoe, Shadforth, Sherburn, and other partly
developed districts, as suitable for colliery extension, and
Jarrow Slake, Hartlepool, and Eedcar as convenient
shipping places. Shortly afterwards, his proposals rela-
tive to Hartlepool assumed definite shape. A scheme was
drawn up, an Act of Parliament obtained, and Mr. Hall
became one of the first directors of a company which
brought to the old port of Hartlepool many years'
prosperity.
In the latter part of 1832, Mr. Hall, in addition to his
duties at Mr. Backhouse's pits, assumed the position of
mining engineer to the South Hetton Coal Company, and
it was here that he introduced a series of marvellous
improvements. Before Tiis time mining produce in the
North of England was brought to the surface in wicker
baskets called corves. They were high, and could not be
filled without difficulty ; they were fragile, and could not
be emptied without danger. During their transference to
the top of the shaft they were constantly broken and
rendered incapable of holding the required quantity.
Hence arose innumerable disputes, frequently ending in
strikes, and loss to all parties. The manner in which
the pitmen were lowered and raised in the shaft also was
exceedingly dangerous. The general practice was for a
couple of men to sit each with a leg in the loop of the
chain, and frequently five or six boys clinging to the
rope, one above another, their lives depending upon their
capability of holding on while the rope traversed a distance
of 1,500 or 1,600 feet, and their agility in successfully
springing off when the rope came to bank. Altogether
the method of bringing up both coal and men was insecure
and unsatisfactory in the highest degree.
Mr. Hall saw all these defects, and set about devising
remedies.. Abolishing the use of corves, be supplied the
hewers with oblong tubs, mounted upon wheels, and of
shallow depth, to admit of rapid filling. At the bottom
of the shaft he emptied the contents of four of them —
about a ton and a quarter — into a large iron tub, which
was drawn to the surface. The big tub was found to be
inconvenient, but Mr. Hall's ingenuity overcame the
difficulty. He abolished it as he had abolished the corves,
and brought the small tubs direct to the surface in a
framework of iron, which he called a cage. This was an
immense improvement: still something was wanting.
The cage in its upward journey occasionally stuck fast;
its ironwork, colliding with the sides of the shaft, bent,
twisted, or broke. One Mr. Curr, of Sheffield, had
invented a sort of guide-rod to facilitate ascent and descent
in coal pits. Mr. Hall heard of it, adopted the principle,
and after that his cages slid up and down with ease and
safety. Within a few years every pit of importance con-
tained its guides, its cages, its bogie-wheeled tubs. The
immense saving to the coal trade which resulted from these
improvements has never been fully estimated. Mr. Hall
himself, in papers contributed to the North of England
Institute of Mining Engineers, put it down at not less
than Is. 6d. upon every ton of coal raised in the Great
Northern coalfield.
Mr. Hall left Hetton in 1836, and, entering into
partnership with Mr. Buddie and Mr. A. L. Potter,
of Newcastle, re-commenced working collieries near Ryton
which had remained dormant for nearly a century. Later
the partners acquired the adjoining collieries of Townley
Main and Whitefield, and afterwards, by leasing royalties
in township of Crawcrook, Messrs. Hall, Buddie, and
Potter — known in the trade as the Stella Coal Company —
became possessed of the privilege of working the whole of
the coal in the parish of Ryton.
398
MONTHLY CHRONICLE:
/September
1 1891.
In the year 1839, certain mines near Richmond, in the
State of Virginia, fired, and between 60 and 70 persons
lost their lives. Various ineffectual attempts were made
to restore the ventilation, and the managing owner,
Colonel Hetb, was sent over to England to negotiate a
sale of the property. Mr. Robert Stephenson, whom he
consulted, recommended him to obtain a valuation of the
mines, and nominated Mr. T. Y. Hall and Mr. Frank
Forster as suitable for the work. Messrs. Hall and
Forster accordingly went over to America. They ascer-
tained that the mines contained most valuable beds of
coal, but that the workings were filled with gas, and the
task of clearing them was one of the greatest difficulty and
danger. Several engineers had abandoned the work in
despair. Mr. Hall had seen a great deal of practice in
clearing foul workings, and, in company of a miner whom
he had taken out with him, he descended the shaft and
commenced operations. In a month he had restored the
ventilation and brought the mines into a satisfactory con-
dition. On his return to England, his report was so
favourable that the entire concern was purchased by an
English company for £50,000. His services were rewarded
by shares of the value of £10,000, and he was appointed
resident superintendent and manager for five years at a
salary of £2,000 a-year.
After his American experience, Mr. Hall settled down
in Newcastle as a coalowner and consulting engineer.
To provide occupation for a particularly active mind, he
carried on a bleaching mill at Ovingham. which had been
for a long time in the hands of Mr. Newton, whose
daughter his father married; patented inventions, dabbled
in farming, and indulged in authorship.
In politics Mr. Hall was a Liberal of the Earl Grey
type ; in religion, he was a Churchman. But neither his
political nor his religious convictions were very strong,
and he never obtruded them in conversation, or took part
in discussions respecting them. For what is termed
public life he had no taste, and could never be induced to
become a candidate for election to municipal or other
local office. He had a similar aversion to matrimony, and
died unmarried on the 3rd February, 1870.
. SUTtrtnan
j]NE of Newcastle s best known and most re-
spected citizens — Thomas Pallister Barka* —
passed away on the 13th of July, 1891. Mr.
Barka» was a native of Newcastle, to which, in all its
highest interests, he was deeply attached, and in the
streets of which he was to almost every inhabitant a
familiar and pleasing figure. His birthplace w»s a
room above Sherwood's Court (recently rebuilt and now
occupied by Messrs. Bainbridge and Co.), in the Bigg
Market. There it was that, on the 5th of March, 1819,
MB. ALDEBMAN DAEKAS.
he first saw the light, so that at the time of his death he
was in the 73rd year of his age.
From boyhood he devoted much of his time to read-
ing and study, the first book of any real value which
came into his hands being a volume of the Penny Maga-
zine, which he purchased for 3s. 6d. at Charnley's cele-
brated book-shop, near his early home in the Bigg
Market. This, however, was but the precursor to a more
varied and extensive course of mental culture ; and by-
and-bye he had
equipped himself with
a store of scientific
and general informa-
tion, to which he ever
kept adding with ad-
vancing years. When
educational facilities
were very far from
being such as they now
are, he determined to
bring his self -acquired
treasures within the
reach of his fellows.
With this aim, on
Saturday evenings,
from the 16th of May
to the 27th of July,
1840, he delivered to large audiences in the Lec-
ture Room, Nelson Street, a series of lectures on
Electricity, Magnetism, and Galvanism. In the same
place, on the 3rd of July, 1841, Mr. Isaac Pitman,
of Bath, lectured on Phonography, following up that
step by a second lecture on the 5th, in the Mechanics'
Institute ; and one of the first and most ardent students
of the new system of shorthand was Mr. Barkas, who,
having acquired a practical acquaintance with the arc,
established a number of classes for its dissemination in
Newcastle and other parts of the North of England.
Mr. Barkas was at first connected with the building
trade ; but in 1843 he purchased from Mr. Robert
Fletcher a bookselling business in Grainger Street. He
was thus brought into more immediate contact with the
subjects and associations which lay nearer his heart ; and
he continued to prosecute, with undiminished vigour and
earnestness, his scientific and literary pursuits. In this
way, he became conversant with physiology, biology,
astronomy, and geology, the last of these sciences being
brought practically to bear upon the coal measures of the
district ; and, in the course of years, he had amassed a
large collection of fossil remains, many of which .he pre-
sented to local and national museums. It was his dis-
tinction in this department of study and research that
secured his election, on the 9th of June, 1860, as a
Fellow at the Geological Society. Mr. Barkas also
worked dihgently for several years with the microscope,
the chief object of his study being Diatomacea, a large
September \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
399
variety of which he gathered, mounted, and classified.
Another subject with which he conspicuously identified
himself was that of Spiritualism, on which, between the
years 1860 and 1873, he delivered many lectures, answer-
ing all relevant questions at the close. On the same
theme he published one or two pamphlets ; but his
principal literary work was a " Manual of Coal Measure
Palaeontology," issued in 1873, with an atlas containing
numerous illustrations. To the columns of the Daily,
Weekly, and Monthly Chronicle, as well as to other local
journals, he was, moreover, a frequent contributor ;
and he took a prominent part in the proceedings of the
Contributors' Gathering in connection with the Weekly
Chronicle on the 18th of May, 1891.
Despite his many other avocations, Mr. Barkas un-
grudgingly devoted a considerable amount of time to
the public service. On the 6th of March, 1866, he was
returned to the Town Council, as one of the members for
South St. Andrew's Ward, in the room of his intimate
friend, the late Mr. John Benson. At each triennial
term, he was re-elected without opposition ; and on
the 31st of October, 1883, he was chosen as the first
alderman of the city of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. It was
perhaps, however, in his capacity of lessee of the
Central Exchange News Room that Mr. Barkas was, in
later years, known to the largest number of people. In
1870, in partnership with the late Mr. Tweedy, he entered
upon the occupation of that establishment. With the
added attractions of an Art Gallery, the spacious hall in
Grainger Street soon bncame one of the most popular
places of resort in the town. On the 12th of January,
1881, Mr. Barkas was presented by a few members of the
establishmentwith an elegant tea-service, not only as'acom-
pliment to his able and satisfactory management, but out
of respect and admiration for his character and abilities
as a man. About this time his work was rendered more
onerous by the retirement of Mr. Tweedy; and, with
advancing years, he himself felt that the cares and
responsibilities of the position were too exacting. In the
early part of 1890, he consequently resigned the more
active duties of the office into the hands of his son, Mr.
Charles E. Barkas. It was felt that the occasion was a
fitting one on which to mark, in a yet more tangible
manner, the high esteem in which the Alderman was
personally held, as well as the appreciation of his long and
spirited public services. A movement with this end in
view was initiated by the then Mayor, Mr. T. Bell, and
the worthiness and popularity of the object were attested
by the generous response which it evoked. The outcome
of the effort was the presentation to the esteemed and
venerable gentleman, on the 10th of September, 1890, of a
handsome illuminated address, and a cheque for £345.
So long ago as the 20th of March, 1837, Mr. Barkae had
espoused the cause of total abstinence from intoxicating
liquor ; and he was probably the last survivor of the early
band of temperance reformers in Newcastle. Personally,
he wan one of the most kind-hearted and genial of men ;
while his courteous and obliging disposition, coupled with
an invariable placidity and evenness of temper, rendered
him a great favourite with all classes of the community.
W. D.
ilttmrf.
||HE lower reaches of the three North of Eng-
land rivers — the Tees, the Tyne, and the
Wear — display in shipping and other trades
an amazing activity tliat is specially interest
ing to the merchant and the capitalist. Naturalists and
holiday seekers, however, would prefer to turn their
attention up river, and follow the great arteries of old
Northumbria to their cradle amongst the moss and
heather in the neighbourhood of Cross Fell, 2,799 feet above
sea level. The Tees, the Tyue, and the Wear all rise in
the immediate vicinity of this mountain, and gather into
their embrace in the upland dales a number of tributary
streams which, in their headlong course down hopes and
cleughs, leap over many a shelving rock. These breaks,
with their sheltering woods and solid crag, present beauti-
ful and bewitching waterfalls that inspire alike the poet
and the painter.
In the western confines of St. Cuthbert's land, in the
parish of Stanhope-in-Weardale, famed as the rectory of
Bishop Butler and as the birthplace of the inimitable
" Analogy," a few worthy gems in Nature's great picture
book are hidden 'midst the bleak and barren mountains of
the historic bishopric. Weardale forest was the great
hunting ground of the princes of the palatine. The
revenue of the see, with its "cathedral huge and vast,"
which, as Sir Walter Scott sings, " looks down upon
the Wear," was enriched by the lead and silver
mines of the dale, and the yeomanry of the valley,
under military tenure, guarded the sacred land with its
forest game against Scottish marauders. The forest has
now been cleared of its oak and its ash, and the red deer
supplanted by hardy tbeep and fattening cattle, which
require no watch and ward to prevent them from being
driven over the Borders by the mosstrooper. The dale of
the Wear is dotted with peaceful homesteads, and the
progress of farming and industrial operations bids us
search the mountain streams for pictures unadorned by
man. The rains, gathering on the upland moon, where
the red grouse finds its home, form tiny rills and babbling
burns that finally empty their waters into the Wear.
These streams pass many a craggy nook and wooded
bend as they tumble their moss-stained waters over rocky
ledges and pretty linns.
Amongst the most interesting of Weardale pictures of
rock, wood, and wat*r, are l;he Eastgate Linns, near the
lovely village that preserves the name of the east gate of
the old deer park of Stanhope, the home of tbe early
400
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f September
\ 1891.
Emersons. These linns are on a tributary of the Wear, the
Rookhope Burn, the gathered waters of a vale associated
with Border broils. The bishopric ballad of "Rookhope
Ryde," in rehearsing a foraying excursion into Weardale
during the rising in the North in 1569, says of the moss-
troopers :—
Then in at Kookhope-head they came ;
They ran the forest but a mile ;
They gathered together in four hours
SU hundred sheep within a while.
But the pillagers were seen by the watch, and —
The cry it came down Rookhope Burn,
And spread through Weardale hastily,
when the Bailiff of Eastgate, George Emerson, and his
trusty men, chased the intruders home again.
The wild beauty of Rookhope, with its bracken banks
and wooded glens, attracted the attention of Sir Walter
Scott. Here the foxglove tall and waving fern bedeck the
rocky brow.
Then rears the ash his airy crest,
Then shines the birch in silver vest,
as Scott sings in the second canto of " Harold the
Dauntless." It was by a mountain sprint; in this vale that
Metelill, the fair and beautiful daughter of Wulfstane of
P^ookhope,
Sate her down, unseen, to thread
The scarlet berry's mimic braid,
and sang of her lord of Wittou's lofty tower, who
loved to "roam beneath wild Rookhope's brow," when
Harold laid a weighty hand, a glove of steel, upon tha
shoulders of the woodland maid, and followed her to her
home, where the fair maid's mother, Jutta, was employed
with the distaff, and " Wulfstane trimm'd his shafts and
bow," for his archery was well known, " through wooded
Weardale's glens," and "beside Stanhope's wildwood
tree."
Beyond the wood-fringed stream, visible from Eastgate
stone bridge, the burn presents some pretty scenery.
Olose by the old water corn mill is the Low Linn, seen in
our illustration, while the pretty Dunter Linn, with ita
surroundings of hanging wood and beetling crag, is seen
in the distance. On the eastern side of the burn, the tall
firs, 'midst rugged boulders, shadowing the silver-crested
waters and darksome pools, make a fitting throne for Si!-
vanus, the god of woods. Here by Dunter Linn was found
in 1869 a Roman altar inscribed " DEO SILVANO AVEELIVS
QVIBINVS P.R.F." The stone had been erected to
Silvanus by Aurelius Quirinus, Prefect of the First
Cohort of the Gordian Legion, A.D. 238-244.
In the high forest of Weardale, near St. John's Chapel,
the Linny sports its waters on Harthope Burn. The
hope of the hart, suggestive of lodging ground for St.
Cuthbert's game, recalls the great forest hunts of centuries
ago, when the prince bishops of the palatine, even in
September!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
401
Pudsey's day, hied to the wild green woods of Weardale.
There, at the echoing from hill to hill of the sounding
horn—
"The antlered monarch of the waste
Sprang from his heathery couch in haste ;
But, ere his fleet career he took.
The dewdrops from his flacks he shook ;
Like crested leader proud and high,
Tossed his beamed frontlet to the sky ;
A moment gazed adown the dale,
A moment snuffed the tainted gale,
A moment listened to the cry
That thickened as the chase drew nieh ;
Then, as the headmost foes appeared.
With one brave bound the copse he cleared ;
And, stretching forward free and far,
Sought the wild heaths " of Harthope Carr.
Durham's great forest of Weardale was as rich in silver
and lead as in venison. Here, at Black Dean, the Dick
Whittington of the North— Roger Thornton, of New-
castle-on-Tyne — mined silver and lead when Henry the
Fourth was King. The city on the coaly northern river
sings—
At the Westgate came Thornton in,
With a hap, and a halfpenny, and a lamb's skin.
But Roger's Weardale lead mines, from 1401 onward, con-
tributed much to his wealth, so that he became one of the
most opulent merchants of his time. On the banks of
Harthope Burn, too, a wealthy fellow-citizen of Thorn-
ton's— Robert Rhodes, a great founder of churches — en-
dowed, in H65, the chapel of St. John's, under the
shadow of which sprung up the lead mining town of Upper
Weardale— St. John's Chapel.
As the foot of the eastern slope of the Pennine range is
neared at the head of the dale, we have Burtree Linn on
Kilhope Burn. Immediately above the linn the river bed
exposes one of the best sections of strata found in the
rocky North of England. Here is Burtreeford Dyke, a
basaltic barrier of whin cauning a difference in the strata,
on the sides of the dyke of four hundred and eighty feet.
Here the water ripples over the upturned sandstones,
shales, and limestones set on edge by some remote
upheaval. Not far below, the burn tumbles its waters
over the linn at Burtreeford. a small hamlet close by the
asa*.
402
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
stream, where an old corn mill helps to make the scene of
rock and wood and water one of the pictures of the dale.
W. M. EGGLBSTONE.
/September
1891.
Battle at
ii.
j]INCE the departure of the Northern host
from Newcastle, as related in our first paper,
Hotspur had been kept acquainted with all
their movements, and no sooner did he learn
of their encampment at Otterburn than he completed bis
plans for their intended discomfiture. Having been
joined by Sir Thomas Umphraville, Sir Thomas Grey, Sir
Robert Ogle, Sir John Lilburn, the Baron of Hilton, and
Sir Matthew Redmond, governor of Berwick, he found
himself, on Wednesday morning, August 20, 1388, at the
head of 600 knights, squires, and men-at-arms, together
with 8,000 infantry. With this force he felt quite strong
enough to beat the Scots ; and, therefore, determined not
to wait for the Bishop of Durham, who was marching
towards the Tyne with all the spearmen and archers he
could raise. After partaking of an early dinner, Hotspur
got his following in readiness, and, being mostly mounted,
made all haste towards the Border. In many respects
the cavalcade resembled that of the Scots— the only
difference being a little more taste in the armour of the
knights, and a greater variety of weapons amongst the
rank and file. They could certainly boast of one great
advantage over their adversaries, inasmuch as the English
force was possessed of many famous wielders of the long
and cross bow. Properly handled, and in a sufficient
light, these men could have played havoc amongst troops
closely packed behind entrenchments ; but when com-
pelled to fight at close quarters, their leather jerkins and
short swords afforded only slight protection against the
spears and clubs of any fierce opponents. Hence the
necessity of always supporting the archers with companies
of glaive and billmen, whose curiously shaped knives,
at the end of long poles, were not the least effective
instruments in mediaeval carnage. It is to the neglect of
well-established principles— combined with a woful error
of tactics — that England owes the reverse she was so
speedily to sustain.
The sun was setting when Percy neared the higher
reaches of the Otter, and. as it seemed desirable to sur-
prise the enemy, he massed his tired followers somewhat
cautiously behind the adjacent hills. Had this prudence
continued throughout the night, a certain victory seemed
assured, as the Scots could easily have been driven from
their position by the bowmen in the morning. But the
English leader was too impetuous. We are told that he
no sooner reached his halting ground, than —
He lighted dowyn upon his foote,
And Rchoote hys horsse clene away.
All his knights and men-at-arms did likewise. Having
arranged for an immediate attack — which meant a night
battle— they at once abandoned their steeds, shortened
their lances, and made ready for a deadly fray. Though
they had traversed thirty miles since mid-day—over roads
of the most rugged description— they seemed to have no
misgivings either as to their own endurance, or as to the
propriety of transforming their jaded archers into sword
and pike men. Yet the old ballad tells us that—
The Ynglyshe men let their bowys be.
And pulde owt brandes that were bright.
This haste proved a fatal mistake, and it can only be
accounted for by Hotspur's burning desire to wipe out the
disgrace inflicted upon him at Newcastle. But, in addi-
tion to several other errors of judgment, the doughty
chieftain committed the terrible blunder of holding his
enemy too cheaply. Being anxious to make certain of his
prey, he sent Sir Thomas Umphraville, Sir Thomas Grey,
Sir Robert Ogle, and Sir Matthew Redmond round to the
northward to " holde them in yt they fled not away." It
was while thus reduced— with tired men, and without the
benefit of his archers— that Hotspur led his followers
across the ridge, and bore down directly on the entrance to
the camp.
They came, says Mr. Robert White, with cries of
"Percy, Percy— Esperance, Percy!" and he says this, as
he naively admits, because such was the cry at Shrews-
bury, fifteen years later. But the historian overlooks a
very important difference. At Shrewsbury, Hotspur was
in full sight of his royal rival, and any attempt at conceal-
ment would have been as useless as it was impossible. At
Otterburn, on the other hand, every move was made with
a view to surprise, and it is not unreasonable to infer that
there would be no sound raised till the earliest victims of
the onslaught uttered their death cry. This, however.
is merely a note by the way. There would be no secrecy
after the initial shock of battle, as the aggressor— though
delivering his attack at an inconvenient moment — was far
from being unexpected. Having dashed among the'
Scottish serving men, the English had a comparatively
easy task at the commencement. But, in a few minutes,
the northern pikemen were to the fore, and checked the
attack till the men-at-arms were ready more effectually to
resist it. While the fight was thus proceeding at the
entrance to the camp, the Douglass— who through-
out displayed the better strategy— selected a number
of trusty knights, led them up the northern slope,
and then, wheeling sharply to the right, fell upon
the flank of his assailants. It was a splendid move,
admirably timed, and saved the camp from destruction.
The immediate effect was to compel Hotspur to recall
his leading contingents, and bring them as quickly as
possible into a more effective line. But the reverse was
not without a disastrous effect. It turned the assailants
into the assailed, brought the badly equipped archers into
close conflict with the mailclad warriors of Scotland, and
exposed them to terrible butchery. Then, as a sort of
September!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
403
final calamity, Umphraville— who found no Scots in re-
treat to the northward— returned towards the position of
the English, and, in the partial darkness, is said to have
committed the serious blunder of attacking a detachment
of his own friends. Though it is difficult to determine
whether the accounts of this strange exploit are well or ill
founded, there can be little doubt that the combatants
were speedily separated into groups, and that fighting of
a fierce character was simultaneously proceeding on all
parts of the ground. There were banners flying, swords
flashing, axes resounding on plate armour, war cries rising
above the groans of dying men. The only light was that
of a full moon — now shining brightly, now dimmed by
passing clouds, and eventually obscured to such a degree
that the fighting had to cease.
In reality, however, it was only a temporary lulL No
sooner did the moon reappear than hostilities were re-
r.ewed, and the English, having re-formed their line,
delivered such a brilliant and well-sustained attack that it
seemed likely to secure an easy victory. This was the
crucial moment of the struggle. The Douglass was quick
to realise the danger, and, seizing a mighty axe, took up
a position at the weakest point. For a time he succeeded
in burling back all opponents ; but, venturing too far into
the English ranks, he was borne to the ground by no fewer
than three spears — one piercing his shoulder, another
entering the stomach, and the third going clean through
the thigh. In this plight he was found by Sir John
Sinclair, with a ring of dead around him, and had barely
time to give a few directions before he died. His down-
fall, he said, must remain a secret ; his banner must be
kept aloft by some other champion ; his name must
continue to be heard upon the breeze, because, he added.
" there is an old prophecy in my family that a, dead man
shall gain a field, and, to-night, I trust it will be accom-
plished." Then more plaintively, as the ballad tells, he
murmured —
My wound is deep ; I fain would sleep ;
Take thou the vanguard of the three ;
And hide me by the braken bush.
That grows on yonder lilye lee.
Oh '. bury me by the braken bush,
Beneath the bloominc brier,
Let never a living mortal ken
That ere a kindly Scot lies here.
The hero's instructions were obeyed to the letter, and his
followers, fighting valiantly, began to advance. As
though to cheer their exertions, a series of disasters for
the English soon ensued. Sir Ralph Percy, badly
wounded, was made prisoner by .Sir Henry Preston;
Hotspur himself was shortly afterwards overpowered by
Sir John Montgomery, and sent with all haste towards
the Border. Then, with the dawn of morning, the
English began to lose heart. Having travelled all day.
having fought all night— being utterly weary and almost
hopeless— they at last gave way. The indecision quickly
resulted in panic, and, in a short time, the remnant of
Percy's gallant force was flying in all directions from the
ground.
Though there were many other picturesque incidents of
the fight, they need not be enumerated here. It is suffi-
cient to know that a splendid opportunity was lost
through the indiscretion of a hot-blooded chief; that
every Englishman of distinction was taken prisoner ; and
that the list of casualties on the losing side amounted
to nearly three thousand men. The total is a big one, no
doubt, but when we remember the conditions under
which the battle was fought — with so many poorly
equipped archers opposed to men in complete armour— it
is not surprising that they should have been cut down in
such vast numbers. The Scottish reverses, which are
said to have been below four hundred, require to be taken
oum grano salts. Their men, it is true, were fresher than
those of the attacking host ; they were, for a part of the
time, behind entrenchments ; and they were always on
the higher ground. But still, taking all these advantages
into account, it is probable that the losses of the party
were much more serious than they felt disposed to ac-
knowledge.
Looking at the matter from almost any standpoint, it is
impossible to deny the sublime courage which the Scots
displayed, or to question the tenacity with which they
stuck to the position and the treasure they had won.
After scattering the forces of Hotspur, after taking cap-
tives whose ransom has been estimated at more than half
a million of money, they showed no disposition to leave
the country till they were ready. Their chivalrous atti-
tude after Otterburn is in striking contrast to the pusil-
lanimity of the English. Absolutely no excuse can be
made for the vacillation of the Percy reserves. Hotspur,
as we have said, made a grievous mistake in not waiting
for them at the outset ; but, having decided to allow them
to follow him, we are presented with a picture rare in
history. The king of France, on a famous occasion,
is said to have had ten thousand men, whom he
first marched up a hill, and then marched down
again. But Walter Skirlaw, one of the princely Bishops
of Durham, did something infinitely more absurd.
Having gathered "5,000 foot, and 2,000 horse," he
proceeded to Newcastle, where he arrived a few hours
after Percy's departure. He gave his men a supper, and
then, in the cool of evening, set off to augment the preced-
ing force. It thus happened that, as the Bishop was
marching over the moonlit landscape, Hotspur was making
his hurried assault on the camp at Otterburn. As the
"column of succour" reached the scene, the remnant of
the English force was in full retreat, and the reports of
the defeated men were so discouraging that they effectually
damped the ardour of the Bishop's followers. Numerically
they would have exceeded the strength of the Scots even
before the recent fighting ; but, coming, as they did, at
the end of a night-long struggle, they might by a prompt
attack have completely avenged the previous disaster.
404
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
J September
1 1891.
There waa, however, no stomach for an exploit of the
kind, and the reserves, without striking a blow, went
back to Newcastle with all conceivable alacrity. Here
they met more fresh troops, and as the night somewhat
restored the waning courage of the party, it was agreed
that the combined force — now exceeding 10,000 men —
should once more make haste to Otterburn, in the hope of
still retrieving their laurels. The Scots received early
information of this new onslaught, and at once began to
discuss the desirability of crossing the Border with their
plunder ; but as this would have exposed them to attack
in the open, they resolved to await events in the shelter
that had already served them so well. Having repaired
the defence?, having irritated the horses of the approach-
ing force by blowing horns and turning rattles, they once
more armed themselves for the anticipated assault. But it
was never delivered. For the second time the Bishop came,
saw, and — instead of conquering — went ignominiously
away. His courage evaporated at the sight of the en-
trenchments, and the Scots were left to carry their cattle,
their prisoners, and the rest of their plunder in quietness
from the land. WILLIAM LONGSTAJT.
j[WING to the comparative silence of con-
temporary writers, little is commonly known
of an author whose name is yet a household
word on the Borders, and who enriched
our literature with a pastoral drama in which shepherds
and shepherdesses are depicted, not as inhabitants
of Arcadia, but as real, sentient, hard-working
beings, who kept their sheep, milked their cows, and
made love — earnest love — in their own flexible Doric, not
foreetting even in their courtship to calculate, with a true
touch of Scotch "canniness," the pros and cons, for and
against matrimony, the cost of "plenishin"a bouse, and
a probable provision for a possible family. The truest
proof of the lasting merit of "The Gentle Shepherd''
is that now, after the lapse of more than a hundred and
fifty years, it is still universally read and relished by the
people whose habits and manners are therein described,
while the scenery is so accurately delineated that the
hinds and ploughboys of the Pentland Hills can yet point
out to the inquiring stranger
The hills, the woods, the stream
Where beauteous Peggy strayed listening the while
Her gentle shepherd's tale of love.
Proud of the local associations with a poem which is as
fatniliar to them as their catechism, they eagerly show the
cottages of Claud and Symon, the ancient tower of
Woodhouse Lee and Habbies' Howe, where
A trottin' burnie, wimplin' throw the ground.
Its channel Peebles shining smooth and round,
attests the truth of the poet's picture ; while the pretty
tale, so carefully identified with the classic neighbourhood
of Tweeddale and North Esk lends another charm to a.
district which, from its countless memories, is sacred
ground to all lovers of poetry and tradition.
A zealous genealogist would have little difficulty in
proving that Allan Ramsay was descended from the family
of the Earl of Dalhousie, and he himself claims that,
through his grandmother Janet Douglas, of Muthill,
He was a poet sprung from a Douglas loin.
His father, however, was not in a very exalted position.
At the time of Allan's birth, in 1686, he was employed in
a lead mine belonging to Lord Hopetoun, of Crauford
Moor, Lanarkshire. Allan Ramsay had the misfortune to
lose his parent while he was yet an infant, and bis mother,
who was left in poor circumstances, married a few months
after her widowhood a Mr. Crighton, acock laird or small
proprietor in a county mainly owned by the great families
of Hamilton and Douglas. In this wild district the
future bard remained for fourteen years. Here, from per-
sonal experience "amang the heather whin," he acquired
that knowledge of pastoral pursuits, and imbibed that
love of rustic life which was afterwards so markedly a
characteristic of bis writings. Nor was his general educa-
tion neglected. As usual in Scotland, there was a good
parish school at Crauford Moor, where he learned
to read and write, and made some progress in
Latin ; but the death of his mother put a stop to
further instruction at school. After this sad event,
his stepfather was not long in discovering that it was high
time for the lad to earn his own living. The boy, who had
already developed that fine perception of the beautiful in
nature which coloured all his life, earnestly desired to
become a landscape painter. This wish met with no
encouragement ; success seemed doubtful and distant ; and
Mr. Crighton, who was not only niggardly but needy,
took Allan with him to Edinburgh, and there apprenticed
him to a wigmaker, in order that he might learn a handi-
craft which was likely soon to provide him with a live-
lihood.
A periwig was then an indispensable ornament to the
heads of lawyers, doctors, and clergymen, and was in
general use among the upper-classes of both sexes. Wig-
makers were not then, as now, barbers and hairdressers,
and, though the position was a humble one, Allan entered
into his new life with a fair character and an honest trade
which gave him opportunities, of which he adroitly took
advantage, for making himself known to the best
educated and best born people in "Auld Reekie." In-
dustriously learning his business, years flew on with the
usual rapidity. Allan grew up to manhood. His apprentice-
ship was a thing of the past. He set up wigmaking on
his own account, and in the course of business made a
peruque for an Edinburgh lawyer named Ross. Now,
this gentleman was very particular about his wig, and
had it curled once a fortnight by Ramsay, who, somehow
or other, formed the acquaintance of the old gentleman's
daughter Christian. Up to this time the bard had not
September!
1891. |
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
405
published a single verse, and was absolutely obscure,
unfriended, and unknown. What induced a pretty young
lady to take a fancy to a stunted, black-visaged young
fellow in an inferior station I cannot say. She made
numerous visits to Allan's shop all about "papa's wig."
The youth soon discovered how matters stood, and, in
spite of opposition from parents and rivals, carried off
the prize, and made her his wife.
About the time of his marriage Allan, who was of a
lively disposition, and ambitious to rise in the social scale,
joined the Easy Club, and found there an opportunity
of making friends and acquaintances of a better standing
than those he had previously known. The members were
all young men, possessing talent and vivacity, and they met
regularly two or three times a week, and passed the even-
ings in harmless mirth and conversation. As one of the
fundamental conditions of the society was that each
member should assume some characteristic name, he chose
the poetical appellation of Gavin Douglas. The club,
however, was suppressed during the rebellion of 1715, being
suspected of fostering Stuart proclivities. One of
its last acts was to declare that Dr. Pitcairn and
Gavin Douglas (Ramsay), having behaved themselves for
three years as members of this club, were adjudged to be
"gentlemen." While this association was in existence
the future laureate wrote his earliest poems, and found
the Easy Club a convenient place for their publication.
As he became more practised in the art of versifying, he
wrote many songs and ballads, which he issued printed
on coarse, loose sheets of paper. In this way his poetry
first became popular. It was a common thing for women
of the humbler classes in Edinburgh to send their children
out with a penny to buy " Ramsay's last piece."
His first important venture was the publication, in a
cheap form, of " Christ's Kirk on the Green, "an almost
forgotten poem by James I., to which he added a second
canto, written in the same obsolete style. This second
part having stood its ground, he, fearless of criticism, had
confidence enough in his own powers to add a third
canto. In spite of a certain coarseness, this publication
took the fancy of the multitude, and speedily ran through
three editions. It was not, however, till 1721, when
Ramsay was thirty-five years of age, that he gathered
together his various scattered compositions, and issued
them in the more dignified form of a quarto, to which was
prefixed a print of himself from a portrait by Snibert, a.
painter, who afterwards emigrated to America. This
volume, now extremely rare, brought the author a profit
of £400. His personal popularity at that epoch may be
inferred from the fact that the subscription list included
the names of almost every person of eminence in Scot
land.
Ramsay was now on the high road to success; wig-
making was abandoned ; and he pursued his conjoint
avocations of author, editor, and bookseller, at the sign
of the Mercury, in a small house on the north side of the
High Street, below the Trou Church. Here he produced
in rapid succession the "Fables and Tales," the "Poem
on Health," and the "Tea Table Miscellany," a collec-
tion of English and Scotch songs, which was dedicated to
Ilka lovely British lass
Frae Lady Charlotte Anne and Jean
Down to ilk bonny singing Bess
Whae dances barefoot on the green.
The time chosen for the publication of this, the first col-
lection of Scotch tunes ever brought together, was a most
fortunate, one ; for never in its palmiest days was Edin-
burgh so crowded by members of the aristocracy and their
families as it was then. Jealous of the privileges of the
English House of Lords, the Scotch nobility refused to
take their seats as representative peers, or to attend the
Court of St. James's, preferring to make the ancient
capital their winter resort and the scene of their social
festivities. Mingling freely with each other, they ad-
mitted the respectable portion of the citizens to their
parties and assemblies, where, in the less complex and
healthier state of society, the singing of simple ballads
without any accompaniment was an amusement against
which cards and gambling could not compete.
How far Ramsay mingled in such assemblages one
cannot ascertain ; but the allusions in his songs, not
only to the personal attractions of the reigning belles of
the day, but to the charms of their singing, are so special
and frequent, that one naturally comes to the conclusion
that he was acquainted with them, and had many oppor-
tunities of hearing them sing. The fairest ladies in the
laud took part in these unconventional concerts, and
when the lovely Lady Mary Scott, the " Flower of Yar-
row," to whom Ramsay dedicated several poems, sang his
ballad of "Lochabar, " she did it, says Stenhouse, "with
such feeling and effect as to draw tears from all who
heard her." Music and song were then indeed in
their golden prime, and formed a great portion of the enter-
tainment of the better classes, and honest Allan, with a keen
eye to the main chance, as he published volume after volume
of the "Miscellany" and " Evergreen," seized every fair
opportunity of dedicating his verses to young ladies of
birth and position. These noble beauties were only too
glad to sing the pretty trifles, wherein their sparkling
eyes and rosy cheeks were so tenderly described, at all the
fashionable assemblies they attended. For example,
Lady Grissel Baillie, whose tea parties, given at her
house in Parliament Street, were esteemed the most
delightful affairs possible, was very partial to Ramsay's
compositions, and frequently induced her daughter, Lady
Murray of Stanhope, to sing his set of "Tweedside."
This she did with such thrilling effect that, at the end of
each mournful cadence, a sob of tenderness was heard
from the company, who were not ashamed of being found
in tears when she concluded.
In 1725, our poet, then in the plenitude of his powers
and the zenith of his success, published the work on
which his fame rests— "The Gentle Shepherd, " which is
406
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/September
\ 189L
one of the finest pastoral dramas in any language. It
was dedicated to Susannah, Countess of Eglinton, a
celebrated patron of poets, who fifty years after retained
lier powers of pleasing so little impaired that Dr. Johnson,
who then paid the stately old dame a visit, though he
rarely praised anyone, is reported by Boswell to have said
that in visiting such a woman he had spent the day well.
Scotchmen in that age generally wrote English, and that
Allan was able to express himself in Anglo-Saxon many of
his poems show. But he wrote with greater ease in his
native dialect, avowing that he did so not only from
inclination, but "at the desire of my best and wisest
friends and most reasonable." He felt that, when he
wanted to portray with fidelity the manners of his
countrymen, it was only natural to make them speak in
their own idiom-an idiom which, with its simplicity and
strength, has been more successfully employed in poetic
composition than that of any other part of the country,
and which was, as a matter of fact, at that time the com-
mon speech of all the Border counties from Edinburgh to
York.
Ramsay's nature had two sides— the poetic and the
practical. And as, after the publication of " The Gentle
Shepherd," his desire for fame was fully gratified, a
desire for profit determined him to busy himself, not
by writing, but by selling and circulating books. He,
therefore, removed to a house at the end of the Lucken-
booth. Change of house brought change of sign, and,
instead of the original Mercury, he now adopted the
heads of two poets— Ben Jonson and Drummond of
Hawthornden. With this adornment to his new abode,
he opened the first circulating library that had ever been
attempted in Scotland. This undertaking met with some
censure from the stricter members of the Kirk, who
feared that vice might be propagated by the profane
books of plays brought down from London and
lent out to anyone for a few pence. Ramsay's popu
larity was, however, too firmly established for his de-
tractors to do him any real barm. His shop became
the daily haunt of all the wits and literati, who amused
themselves by dis'.ussinf the news of the day and the
must recent intelligence in the world of books. Gay, the
poet, who was for many years installed^ in the family of
the Duchess of Queensberry at her house in the Canon-
gate, was a frequent visitor, and ia said to have much
enjoyed Allan's humorous descriptions of the leading citi-
zens as they gathered daily at the Cross in sight of his
windows.
In 1736 Ramsay, at a great expense, built a theatre in
Carubber's Close, but in vain did his troop of players
Preach from moral fable
The best instruction they were able.
The magistrates, refusing to believe that amusement
and religion could exist together, shut up the play-
house, and left our dramatist without relief for
what the law considered was a damage with-
out an injury. Nor was pecuniary loss the only
mortification which followed the non-success of his
theatrical undertaking. Like all successful men, he
had enemies, and they seized the opportunity to publish
a vile series of lampoons which professed to give an
account of the " Flight of Religious Piety " from Scotland
consequent on the circulation of Ramsay's "lewd books,"
and the importation into Edina of his " hell bred play-
house comedians, who debauch the soul of our rising
generation." The language seems strong, but pious.
Puritans of that period did not scruple to express their
opinion in words more emphatic than decent.
Many editions of " The Gentle Shepherd" were pub-
lished, but Ramsay wrote no more, and in course of time
he moved with his family to a house on the North Castle
Bank. This house was of a fantastic shape, and it is said
that Ramsay, who was devotedly attached to his wife,
applied to the Crown for as much ground from the Castle
Hill as would enable him to build a cage for his " burd."
This accounts for the strange shape of the building. His
wife, however, did not live to share its comforts and glories,
her death having occurred in 1743. She bore him many
children, and passed to her grave without an elegy, as
his grief at losing her was too deep to find expression
in rhyme. After relinquishing his shop, he" lived in this
absurd-looking octagon house, which he indeed thought a
paragon. Showing it to his friend Lord Elibank one day.
he indignantly remarked that some foolish people thought
it resembled a goose pie, to which his lordship readily
replied : " Indeed, Allan, now that I see you in it, I think
the term very properly applied." Notwithstanding such
jokes, Ramsay was highly respected. He numbered
among his familiar friends men of rank and talent, and
was generally regarded as a man whose genius reflected
honour on his native country.
Ramsay, although a short, fat man, with a figure
like Falstaff, a smiling face and a round wig, was by no
means dissatisfied with his own appearance, and tells us
that he, a little man who loved his ease, was always
popular with the fair sex. A good father, a loving
husband, this wigmaker, dramatist, and shopkeeper, was
not only the first man who made poetry pay, but was also
able, at the close of a life of honest endeavour, to proudly
declare that, though he had made an ample provision
for his family, he could still thank a merciful Providence
that he had been enabled, through all the trials and
successes of life, to hold fast his integrity and keep his
conscience white and sound.
Singularly enough his son, Allan Ramsay, afterwards
portrait painter to George III., though inheriting much
of his father's genius, had little or no admiration for
his father's works ; and on one occasion at the house of
Lady Strange, widow of the celebrated engraver. Sir
Robt. Strange, he is said to have declared that if he could
purchase every copy of his father's writings, even at the
cost of a thousand pounds, he would commit them all to
September
!
;
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
407
the flames. "Indeed, sir," replied the lady, "then let
me tell you that, if you could and should do so, your
labour would be lost, for I can repeat from memory every
word of 'The Gentle Shepherd;' and were you to con-
sume every copy of it I should write out that matchless
poem with my own hand and cause it to be printed at my
own charges." Though the author of "The Gentle
Shepherd " died in 1758, and was buried in the church-
yard of the Grey Friars, the images of rustic life are
as truthful as they were when the jocund little man, true
to his early love of nature, penned the famous pastoral
which has since been the delight of so many generations
of North-Country folk. M. S. HAKDCASTLE.
3Tfte ftitiitm 2Bvacj>
[ICKTREE, near Chester-le-Street, is famous
for two reasons— first, because it was the
home of the heroine of the popular song,
" Ailsie Marley " ; and, secondly, because it
was the haunt of one of those mischievous goblins that
were formerly supposed to infest almost every old in-
habited place m the North Countrie.
The existence of the Picktree Brag was as firmly
accepted in the early part of the century by many of
the people in the neighbourhood as any article of the
Apostle's Creed. Sir Outhbert Sharp gives an account
of the apparition, taken verbatim "from the deposition
of an old woman of respectable appearance, of about
ninety years of age, living near the spot "—at Pelton,
we presume. The old woman said : —
I never saw the Brag very distinctly, but 1 frequently
heard it. It sometimes appeared like a calf, with a white
handkerchief about its neck, and a bushy tail. It came
also like a galloway, but more often like a coach horse, and
went trotting along the lonnin, afore folks, settin' up a
great nicker and a whinney every now and then ; and it
came frequently like a dickass, and it always stopped at
the pond at the four lonnin ends, and nickered and
whinnied. My brother saw it like four men holding up a
white sheet. I was then sure that some near relation was
going to die, which was true. My husband once saw it in
the image of a naked man without a head. I knew a man
of the name of Bewick that was so frightened that he
hanged himself for fear on't. Whenever the midwife was
M'nt for, it always came up with her in the shape of a
galloway. Dr. Harrison wouldn't believe in it ; but he
met it one night as was going home, and it maist killed
him, but he never would tell what happened, and didn't
like to talk about it; and whenever the Brag was men-
tioned he sat tremblin' and shaking by the fireside. My
husband had a white suit of clothes, and the first time he
ever put them on he met the Brag, and he never had them
on afterwards but he met with some misfortune ; and once
when he met the Brag, and he had his white suit on (being a
bold man) and having been at a christening, he was deter-
mined to get on the Brag's back ; but when he came to the
four lonnin ends, the Brag joggled him so sore that he
could hardly keep his seat, and at last it threw him off
into the middle of the pond, and then ran nway setting up
a great nicker and laugh, just for all the world like a
Christian. But this I know to be true of my own
knowledge, that when my father was dying the I'.ru
was heard coming up the lonnin like a coach and
six, and it stood before the house, and the room
shaked, and it gave a terrible yell when my father died,
and then it went clatterin' and gallopm' down the
lonnin as if " yeben and yerth was comin' together."
Sir. Henderson, in his "Folk Lore of the Northern
Counties of England," says, the northern spirite was
closely akin to Robin Goodfellow, whom Ben Jonson
represented as speaking thus : —
Sometimes I meete them like a man,
Sometimes an ox, sometimes a hound,
And to a horse I turn me can,
To trip and trot about them round.
But if to ride
My back they stride.
More swift than wind away I go ;
O'er ridge and lands,
Through pools and ponds
I whinny laughing, ho ! ho ! ho !
But there was another goblin that haunted a neighbour-
ing district— or was it the same?— the Portobello Brag.
About this goblin, Thomas Wilson, author of the "Pit-
man's Pay, "has the following note: — "The description
of the Pelton Brag by Sir Cuthbert Sharp, in his
'Bishoprick Garland,' induces me to believe that it must
have been the same roguish sprite that played such tricks
at Portobello. It delighted in mischief, and whoever
mounted it (for it always appeared in the shape of an ass)
was sure to be thrown into some bog or whin bush at the
last, when the creature, as if enjoying the mischief, would
run off ' nickerin' and laffin'. ' "
As to the word "brag," it is a common North-Country
term for ghost or goblin. There is a goblin called bar-
guest, but it does not seem to haunt Northumberland,
unless brag be the local equivalent of the name. Dealing
with the term bar-guest in his "Northumberland Words,"
Mr. R. O. Heslop says brag sounds like a shortened form
of that word, brag and bar-ghaist being both of them local
"boggles."
CUfftf a Wutttrrrtr
SKETCH of Tynemouth Cliffs, crowned with
the picturesque old priory and castle, appeared
in a bulky tome entitled "The Modern Uni-
versal British Traveller ; or, a New, Complete, and
Accurate Tour through England, Wales, and Scotland."
As the work was published in 1779, the view may be
accepted as a fair representation of what the place was
like a little more than a hundred years ago. Not being
without interest, the sketch is reproduced on page 408.
Looking at the scene from an artistic point of view, we
see that the general aspect of Tynemouth at that time
accorded more with the painter's taste than it does now.
The castle was a picturesque rum, not an unsuitable
companion for the grand old priory. Now the castle has
been enlarged to such an extent that it is difficult to define
its true character : it may be anything — a gaol, a work-
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
(September
Seplamberl
1891. J
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
409
house, a barracks — in fact, any-
thing but a castle. It can hardly
be regarded as a fortification ;
for modern artillery would make
short work of it.
As a place of defence, Tyne-
inouth Castle dates back to the
time of William Rufus, who
besieged it. Previous to that, it
is thought that the Romans had
a strong fortress on the rocks.
Daring the civil war, it was a
place of considerable importance ;
for we find that in 1642 it was
placed in a posture of defence,
and in 1645 it withstood a short
siege, when the defenders were
allowed to march out with their
baggage. The following year,
Colonel Lilburn, the deputy-
governor of the castle, revolted
in favour of the King, and the
stronghold was taken by storm,
the garrison put to the sword,
and Lilburn executed, his head
being stuck on a pole. The
•jastle appears to have been
neglected until 1783, when it was
made a depot for arms and mili-
tary stores.
As to the priory, we find that
Edwin, King of Northumber-
land, built a wooden chapel at
Tynemouth in 625, which was
plundered and destroyed by the
Danes. Tostig, Earl of Northum-
berland, rebuilt the monastery
from the foundations. In 1090
Earl Mowbray refounded it, and
filled it with black canons.
Having revolted against William
Rufus, Mowbray converted the
monastery into a fortress, which
was taken by storm. The earl
then fled to Bamborough Castle ;
but, finding himself insecure
there, returned to the sanctuary
at Tynemouth, whence he was
dragged to prison. During this
siege, the edifice was reduced
to a ruin : it was, however,
rebuilt in 1110. The monastery
was plundered by the Scots in
1389, but does not appear to have
suffered from pillage after that
date. At the Dissolution the
•* imM"t
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'I' ii 1 1 — =^^lRiikWssl€;-' \ i:i In
^ ifj «-
,11 • >ii
fer
?S& ;; i"i
410
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{September
1891.
church became parochial, and continued so until 1657,
wheu the roof began to fall in, and a new church
was erected at North Shields. Cromwell's icono-
clastic soldiers showed little respect for the old building,
and it suffered much at their hands. Besides, the
exigencies of military occupation rendered it necessary
to pull some of the out-buildings down and utilise others.
Thus the little oratory of the Virgin at the east end of
the chancel was converted into a magazine for military
stores. But sufficient remains to show the extent and
magnificence of the structure.
It is a matter of regret that the old ruins occupy their
present position ; for at some future date it may be neces-
sary to fortify the rock, and mount artillery of large
calibre, in which case the ruins would perhaps have to be
removed altogether.
iftariitt |jlnrr, jtaratfc
SCENE familiar to " the folks o' Shields " is
depicted in the accompanying illustration.
The Market Place is the gathering ground for
all demonstrations held in South Shields. The principal
object of interest in the square is the Town Hall. It was
erected in 1768 by the Dean and Chapter of Durham.
The building was purchased in 1853 by the Corporation
for five hundred pounds ; but it still presents the appear-
ance it wore in the days of George III. Another promi-
nent feature in the Market Place is St. Hilda's Church.
shown on the right of the Town Hall. The edifice can
boast of great antiquity, being supposed to be contempo-
raneous with Jarrow Church, to which it was, until some
fifty years ago, a chapei-of-ease ; but it is devoid of archi
tectural grace, though it was almost entirely rebuilt in
1810-11, and again restored in 1879. The tower is a part
of the original building. In the churchyard of St. Hilda's
lie the remains of Willie Wouldhave, the inventor of the
lifeboat.
(Eft* Hmrtfednmtrp
at £>rrttg.
LUCKEY'S DREAM.
HOMAS MARSHALL, most favourably
known as a local writer, was a native of
Newcastle, where he was born in the year
1809. He was a brush-maker to trade,
having both served his time and afterwards worked for
many years as a journeyman with Mr. Robert Laidlaw.
In 1829 he published a collection of his songs, which are
full of allusions to local eccentrics, of whom Newcastle in
his day had a famous supply, and in his songs he appears
to have delighted in recording their grotesque bye-names
and preserving their most marked peculiarities. Marshall
died suddenly about the year 1869, having attained a little
ever his 60th year.
The oth - er neet aw went to bed, Being
wear - y ivi' maw warn , man , A w
dreamt that Bil - ly Scott was dead, It's
curious to re
mark, man. Aw
thowt aw saw his bury - in' fair, An'
a' poor Bil - ly's friends were there. To
law
Blind Willy slawly led the band,
As beagle o' the way, man ;
A staff he carried in his hand,
An' shook his head se grey, man.
At his reet hand was Buggy Jack,
With his hat brim set broad, man.
An' on his left was Billy the Black,
To lead him on the road, man.
Big Bob, X Y, and other two,
That leeves upon the deed, man.
They bore his corpse before the crew,
Expecting to be feo'd, man.
His namesake Euphy Scott was there.
Her bonny Geordy, tee. man ;
Distress'd, they cried, this happy pair,
" Ne mair we will him see, man."
Bold Jocker was amang them, tee.
Brave Cuckoo Jack, and a', man :
An' Hairy Tom, the Keelman's Son,
An' bonny Dolly Raw, man.
An1 Bella Roy, an' Tatie Bet,
They cried till oot o' breeth, man,
For sair these twosome did regret
For canny Billy's deeth, man.
But Hangy luickt abuve them a',
He is se sma' an' Ian?, man ;
An' Bobby Knox, the Dogbank ox,
Was sobbin' i' the tbrang, man ;
An' Corner, wi' his swill an' shull,
Was aqueakin' like a bairn, man :
An' knack-kneed Mat, that drucken fyul,
Like a monkey he did gairn, man.
September!
1891. ;
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
411
Tally-i-ho, that dirty wretch,
Wes then the next aw saw, man :
An' Peggy Powell, Step-and-Fetch,
Wes haddin' up her jaw, man ;
An' frae the Close was Bobby Hush,
Wi' his greet gob so wide, man ;
Alang wi' him was Push-Peg-Pusn,
Lamentin' by his side, man.
An' Roguish Ralph, an' Busy Bruce,
That leeves upon their prey, man,
Did not neglect, but did protect
Their friends upon the way, man.
An' Jimmy Liddle, drest in black,
Behint them a' did droop, man ;
He had a coat on like the quack
That feeds us a' wi' soup, man.
Noo, when they got him tiv his grave,
He then began to shoot, man.
For Billy, being but in a trance,
Be this time cam aboot, man.
Then Jocker wi' a sandy styen
The coffin split wi' speed, man —
They a' rejoiced to see agyen
Poor Bill they thowt was deed, man.
When a' his friends that roond him stood
Had gettin' him put reet, man,
They a' went tiv the Robin Hood,
To spend a jovial neet, man.
Ne mair for Billy they did weep,
But happy they did seem, man ;
Just then aw waken'd frae my sleep,
An' fund it was a dream, man.
MBOUT the beginning of the present century the
theatre at Durham, which had then been in
existence about ten years, was under the
management of Mr. Stephen Kemble, a brother of the
famous John Philip Kemble. Stephen resided at Durham
for many years, and varied his professional duties there
by travelling with his company to Newcastle, Sunderland,
and other neighbouring towns. His domestic life seems,
from all that we can learn of it, to have been of the
happiest character. His household included himself, his
wife, his daughter Fanny, and very often, and for long
periods, a sister of Mrs. John Philip Kemble, Miss
Adelaide De Camp.
The whole family was engaged in theatrical duties ; and
of the way in which they, or rather the ladies, succeeded in
blending their Thespian and domestic employments Mr.
Kemble's niece has given a most charming account.
"They learned and acted their parts; devised and
executed, with small means and great industry, their
dresses; made pies and puddings, and patched and darned,
in the morning ; and by dint of paste and rouge became
heroines in the evening. " When Miss De Camp was at
Durham she and Miss Kemble were constant companions
and fast friends. "A merrier life than that of these
lasses, in the midst of their quaint theatrical tasks and
homely household duties, was seldom led by two girls in
any sphere of life." Mr. and Mrs. Stephen Kemble were
most worthy people, and afforded to the two young ladies
guardianship which, whilst encouraging their inherent
leaning towards merriment, did not forget to prepare them
for the serious duties and responsibilities of life. The
girls, we are told, "were well conducted, good young
things, full of the irrepressible spirits of their age, and
turning alike their hard home work and light stage labour
into fun." Like most gay people at that period, they
were addicted to practical jokes. Of those which they
perpetrated, one has been thought sufficiently good to be
recorded. It had at all events the merit, possessed by
very few practical jokes, of injuring no one. The two
young ladies were proceeding alone to Newcastle in a post
chaise to fulfil an engagement. Amongst the stage
properties which they were taking with them in the coach
was part of a military equipment, intended to be employed
in some farce. Miss De Camp " accoutred her upper
woman in a soldier's cap, stock, and jacket, and, with
heavily corked moustaches, persisted in embracing her
companion, whose frantic resistance, screams of laughter,
and besmirched cheeks, elicited comments of boundless
amazement, in broad, North-Country dialect, from the
market folk they passed on the road, to whom they must
have appeared the most violent runaway couple that ever
travelled. "
Miss Kemble was, at least on one occasion, the instru-
ment of a joke perpetrated by another. For a consider-
able time Liston. the famous comedian of the first part of
this century, was a member of the Durham company.
One evening he painted Fanny Kemble's face like a
clown's, and then planted her at one of the stage side
doors, so that her mother, who was just about to enter
from the opposite side, to perform a pathetic part in some
very serious scene, should see her just as she reached the
stage. She, "on suddenly beholding this grotesque appari-
tion of her daughter, fell into convulsions of laughter
and coughing, and half audible exclamations of 'Go
412
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/September
\ 1891.
away, Fanny, I'll tell your father, miss !' which must have
had the effect of sudden seizure of madness to the audi-
ence, accustomed to the rigid decorum of the worthy
woman in the discharge of her theatrical duties."
Miss Kemble must have been a very charming young
lady. The Kemble's were a family of striking personal
appearance. It is of Fanny that her cousin, the better
known Fanny (Frances Ann) Kemble, thus writes: —
"She had inherited the beauty of her father's family,
which in her most lovely countenance had a character of
childlike simplicity and serene sweetness that made it
almost angelic. Far on in middle age she retained this
singularly tender beauty." But she was gifted as well as
pretty. She composed many charming ballads, both the
verses and the music being hers, and these she herself
sang in a way which, at one time, was the one great topic
of society in London. Her voice was exquisitely pathetic,
and her manner charmed everyone who saw or heard her.
" It was in vain that far better musicians, with tar finer
voices, attempted to copy her inimitable musical recita-
tion ; nobody ever sang like her, and still less did any-
body ever look like her while she sang."
In time, as might reasonably be expected, the inevit-
able lovers appeared upon the scene, and wooed and won
the hearts of the two charming belles of the Durham
theatre. Both the young men were officers in a militia
regiment, and both belonged to families of wealth. It
was quite natural that they should fall in love with two
young ladies of great personal charms, each combining
the character of actress and belle of a country
town. But the young ladies were, if not poor,
at least portionless, and it was therefore just as
natural that their lovers' matrimonial intentions should
be resisted by their families. The tale of Miss De Camp's
lover is short and disastrous. His father was a wealthy
Yorkshire squire. On hearing of his son's attachment,
he summoned him home, and peremptorily demanded he
should give up his mistress. This he refused to do, where-
upon his father called together all his servants and tenants,
and declared before them all that the self willed young
man, his son, and also his supposed heir, was illegitimate,
and was thenceforth to be disowned and disinherited.
The son enlisted, went to India, and never saw his
Durham sweetheart again.
The course of Miss Kemble's love, though far from
smooth, came to a happier consummation. Her lover was
the son of a man whose name is known to fame. He was
originally a poor barber in Bolton, Lancashire, but became
an inventor, or, as has been contended, an appropriator of
other men's inventions. Be this as it may, he certainly
got the credit of inventing valuable machines for the
spinning of cotton, for which he was knighted, and by
which he acquired enormous wealth. This was no other
than Sir Richard Arkwright. Fanny Kemble's lover was
his son and heir. Forgetting his own lowly origin, he
also opposed his son's project of marrying a poor actress.
The son, however, would have his way ; the young
people were married ; and Sir Richard, to his credit,
accepted the inevitable with a good grace.
Fanny Kemble exchanged her modest home at Durham
for wealth and luxury in a splendid mansion in one of the
most charming parts of the Peak of Derbyshire. First at
Stoke, and afterwards at Sutton, she realised the enjoy-
ment of everything that riches could supply. Her
domestic relations were all that she could desire ; but the
shadow of death again and again crossed her home, and
the gaiety of her youthful years gave place, in mature
life, to a tender habitual sadness. Later in her life, she
had the advantage of the intimate friendship of the two
great magnates of Derbyshire, the Dukes of Devonshire
and Rutland. Of her character at this period her cousin
says: — "In the society of the high-born and gay and
gifted with whom she now mixed, and among whom her
singular gifts made her remarkable, the enthusiasm she
excited never impaired the transparent and childlike
simplicity and sincerity of her nature. There was some-
thing very peculiar about the single-minded, simple-
hearted genuineness of Mrs. Arkwright, which gave an
unusual charm of unconventionality and fervid earnestness
to her manner and conversation." Her voice and face are
described as being still heavenly sweet. With the then
Duke of Devonshire, a man of great intellectual attain-
ments, she was an especial favourite, and with him she
maintained a long and most cordial friendship.
In the later years of her life, she renewed her acquaint-
ance with the North, spending a considerable part of every
year at the village of Cullercoats, which was then almost
exclusively the abode of fisher folk, and had not come to
be heard of as a summer resort. In choosing this quiet
and then secluded spot, she was solacing her sorrows in
the remembrance of her happy early days ; for, after her
marriage, she was in the habit of spending a few days in
every summer with her father and mother " by the rocks
and sands and breakers of the Northumbrian shore. " The
Duke of Devonshire, who was many years her senior,
remained her constant and attached friend to the end of
her life. He enjoyed her conversation, but he was an
ardent lover of music, and was always delighted to hear
the fine and sweet voice which never left her. Although
he was in his later years very deaf to a spoken voice, her
softest notes were always perfectly audible to him. Her
residence at Cullercoats brought him, like a true knight
errant, thither also, and for a time the fisher folks lived
beneath the smile of "good society " in the truest sense of
the words. There, in her own North-Countrie, Mrs. Ark-
wright died, leaving a sad memory of her beauty, her
virtues, her gifts and her talents, in the hearts of all who
knew her, and in no heart was the sorrow keener than in
that of the venerable Duke of Devonshire.
The house which Mrs. Arkwight occupied at Cullercoats
was afterwards the residence of Mr. William Bainbridge,
author of "Fata Morgana" — Cliff House, close to the
September 1
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
413
rocks above the north pier. It is still occupied by Mr.
Bainbridge's family. There is a story current that Mrs.
Arkwright, when a member of her husband's familv died,
put her drawing-room at Cullercoats into mourning.
JACOB BEE.
©Uirrtt, at
j]DWARD ELLIOTT was a familiar figure
from my earliest recollection. I do not know
whether he was born in Earsdon, but my
memory does not carry me back to a time when he
did not live there, and I know that, he died there.
Edward was a man— and a married man— when I was
a boy. The only offspring he ever had, I believe,
was a daughter. The daughter and I were school-
fellows, and at one
time took our lessons
in the same class.
She pied in early
womanhood. Elliott
lived several years
in a small cottage on
the north side of the
centre of Earsdon
village. He was a
stonemason to trade.
Sometimes he was
his own master, and
sometimes he worked
for another master.
I only remember two
masons in Earsdon
when I was a boy —
"Ned Elliott" and
"Tom Brown." Sometimes Ned worked for Tom,
sometimes Tom worked for Ned, and sometimes they
worked for nobody The only competition between them
was who could swallow the most beer ! Occasionally they
would be "on the spree "for several days. And those
were grand days for spreeing ! There was no "close
time" then for public-houses, A paternal Parliament had
nob then begun to interfere with the liberties of free-
born Britons in the matter of getting drunk. Publicans
could keep their houses open when they liked, and as long
as they liked. At the week-ends especially, the business
was conducted on the " double shift " system, either on
the pitmatic plan of "follow'n in," or "stannen her
through," night and day. If the customers wanted
victuals with their drink, they were supplied with penny-
rolls and cheese ; and they could have clean straw for
nothing.
"Ned Elliott," with all his drinking, never, so far as I
am aware, descended to the low level of the drunken
EDWARD ELLIOTT.
blackguard. When on the spree, he took a hobby in
practical joking, but now and then got the " wrong sow
by the ear." Sometimes, when he had been on the spree
for two or three days, he would take it into his head to
go home, and would walk up to his own door, take his
hat off, and throw it in. If the hat was allowed to re-
main, he followed the hat ; but if the hat was thrown out,
he would take it up and march back to his welcome
quarters and jolly companions. All these years, when
Ned worked when he liked and drank when he liked,
he had a select and particular business in Earsdon
in which he had no competitor. Earsdon was
then a large parish, and the inhabitants of " God's
Acre " required tombstones to tell their virtues to future
generations. Elliott was a skilful hand at making and
lettering tombstones, and the evidences of his skill are
plentiful at the head of " many a mouldering heap " in
Earsdon Churchyard. It was he who executed the
monument to the victims of the great Hartley Accident.
When not busy with other work, he could always occupy
his time in preparing tombstones, with the certainty
that there would be a market for them at no distant
time.
But it is a long lane that never has a turning. The
turn in the right direction came at length to Edward
Elliott. Where the practice of moderation in the use of
intoxicating drink was impossible with the habitual
drunkard, teetotalism brought an infallible remedy. The
principle adopted by the Preston cock-fighters spread all
over the country. It reached Newcastle and Northumber-
land, and Elliott became a teetotaller. Then, from
being a "jobbing mason," he became a builder and
contractor. Soon afterwards, the Taylors and partners
commenced East Holywell Colliery, and Edward Elliott
built the engine-house, and, I think, all the workmen's
houses, except one row. The houses were all built of
freestone. Elliott opened a quarry in Holywell Dene,
to which he laid down a light railway. This gave him a
fair start in business, and he never looked back either in
business or teetotalism. He joined the teetotallers in
their efforts to spread their principles. He was soon
induced to go on the platform, and his ready wit, ex-
pressed in his Northumbrian Doric, with his exhaustless
repertoire of droll stories, soon made him a great favourite
all over Northumberland, Durham, and even Cumberland.
If Yorick could "set the table in a roar," Edward Elliott
could set the hall in a ferment when on a platform ; so
much so, indeed, that the meeting was sometimes almost
broken up with irrepressible laughter. He never at-
tempted to refine his mother tongue, knowing full well
that any attempt of the kind would only spoil the
diamond. It must not, however, be supposed that
because he was rough he was an ignorant man. On the
contrary, he was not only a good business man, and a
man of sound common sense, but he was, comparatively,
well read. He was even a composer of local songs. I
414
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f September
I 189L
have beard him, times out of number, in teetotal meet-
ings, and I have met him many times in private, in his
own house and elsewhere. In every instance he was
pleasant company.
I have heard him give two reasons for becoming a
teetotaller (both amusing, of course)— one in public, the
other in private. On one occasion he was speaking at a
teetotal meeting, when he told about being "on the
spree. " He said he either could not find his way home,
or was unable to walk there; and, seeing a "pig-cree,"
he managed to get inside, and crept in beside the pig—
where there was some nice clean straw. Next morning,
the good woman to whom the pig belonged came to feed
it. When she caught sight of Ned, she made him
out to be a hundred degrees worse than her pig.
By this time he was Retting sober, and he thought
if he was not fit company for a pig he was "ower
bad for owt." He never went back to the public-house.
On the other occasion, in private company, I heard
him give the second reason for being a teetotaller. One
day as he was about to go on to the bridle road between
West Holy well and Earsdon. he was joined by Mr. Tom
John Taylor, the eminent mining engineer. Mr. Taylor,
doubtless expecting some amusement, said to Elliott,
" Well, Elliott, what made you turn teetotaller ?" Elliott
replied — " Aa've hard it said there's a sartin quantity of
drink brewed for ivvory man, and a'am sure aa've drunk
ma share lang since."
Mr. Elliott died suddenly at Earsdon, of disease ol the
heart, on the 29th of April, 1867, at the age of 67.
G. HALLIWELL.
23uetj)
FEW facts about the origin of the name of
this famous seam of coals may not be without
interest. Many readers will have climbed the
hill from Rowland's Gill Station to Burnopfield. Not far
below where the footpath enters the plantation, the road is
crossed by a lane, leading in one direction to Bryan's Leap,
in the other downwards towards Gibside Woods. Near
the place where tbe lane crosses a stream of water, is the
mouth of an old coal drift, now connected with workings of
the Marley Hill Colliery at Byerinoor, by which horses are
occasionally taken in and out of the workings. Formerly,
a small farm-house stood at the foot of this lane. The
name of the farm-house was Busty Bank. How it got this
name the writer cannot say, unless the following offers any
solution to the question : — Not far from the mouth of the
dritt, the road which now leads into Gibside Woods is cut
out of the side of a rather steep bank. In the formation
of this road the outcrop of the Busty Seam is laid bare.
The coal and shale above it, being thus exposed to the in-
fluences of frosts and rains, are frequently seen crumbling
on to the road. The idea is suggested that this may have
been known as a bursting bank ; or, as is frequently the
case, bursty bank. £uat is not infrequently used for
burst ; so that this bank may have become known as the
Busty Bank. Busty Bank is also the name of a farm-
house belonging to the Marquis of Bute.
It is quite certain that the seam took its name from the
title of these two farm-houses, for the reason that, with
perhaps one exception, this was the earliest place where
the Busty Seam, as known by this name, was worked.
The coal worked here was for the use of the occupier of the
Hall at Gibside, and possibly for the use of some of the
tenants. It continued to be used for this purpose until
some time about the commencement of the present cen-
tury, when it ceased to be worked from the fact that either
one or both of the two men who were getting the coal
were killed by a fall of stone. Probably from superstitious
fears men objected to again work in the place, as it would
be very lonely in the early winter mornings. Coal for the
Gibside Hall and tenants was afterwards worked from
the same seam in Snipe's Dean, also in the Gibside
Woods. This drift was discontinued from the same
causes, an accident having happened to the men who
were working in it. A little coal seems to have been
worked from the Busty Seam on the Bryan's Leap
estate, probably in the latter part of the eighteenth
century.
An old shaft, partly open within the memory of tiie
writer, was to be seen just within the wood where the
footpath to Burnopfield enters the plantation. The old
waggonway from Pontop to Derwent Haugh passed close
to this shaft : so that possibly some Busty coal may
have been shipped before the seam was sunk to
and worked at Marley Hill by the present owners.
But this probably did not succeed, as the Busty
Seam at this part is rather a coking and
manufacturing coal than one adapted for household
consumption. The foot of this old shaft was not long ago
reached from Byerinoor Colliery, when some of the gear
of the former workmen was found. Not far to the west
from here the Busty Seam is found to have a thick band
of stone in it, which band increases in thickness to the
west and north to such an extent that the seam can no
longer be worked as one seam, but has to be worked as two
different seams, known locally as the Top Busty and the
Bottom Busty. Across the Derwent it is known by other
names. The seam crops to the surface in different parts
of the vales of Derwent and Pont, especially on those
portions of the valleys which have been exposed to the
denuding agents of frost and water. Not much further
to the west it disappears altogether, from the rise of the
coal measures to the west by northwards. What may be
its limit to the south and east will not be known yet, as,
independently of the upper coal measures lying upon it, it
September!
1891. ;
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
415
may possibly dip under the Permian strata which cover
these measures in the south-eastern parts of the county of
Durham. JAS. F. ROBINSON.
aittr 3mta ^fartit ftarttr.
pAMOUS in the history of fiction are the names
of two ladies who were born in Durham to-
wards the end of the last century — Jane and
Anna Maria Porter.
These two ladies were the daughters of a retired
army surgeon, who, after leaving the service, resided for
some years in Durham, where the sisters and a brother
(who also became famous, Sir Robert Ker Porter) were
born— Jane in 1776 ; Anna Maria in 1780 ; and Sir
Robert Ker Porter also in 1780. The mother, it is said,
was well connected in the North of England, " being allied
with the Anglo-Saxon Barons of Blenkinsopp and Hilton,
the learned Adamsons of tho North, and the celebrated
John Tweddle, the Grecian traveller." At the death of
the father, Mrs. Porter retired to Edinburgh with her three
children, for the benefit of good education at a moderate
expense.
It was in the capital of Scotland that the namea of
Wallace and Bruce and other Scottish heroes were made
familiar to them, the maids of the nursery lulling the
children to sleep with songs of " Wallace Wight," and
the serving men entertaining the brother with tales of
Bannockburn and Cambus Kenneth. An elderly female,
Luckie Forbes, is said to have been the chief instructress
of the sisters in legendary lore. It was no doubt to these
legends and traditions that we owe the existence of "The
Scottish Chiefs," as Miss Porter says of herself that "for
long, long after I heard these things I never thought of
becoming a writer at all. "
Whilst residing in Edinburgh, they became acquainted
with Sir Walter Scott, who at that time was "a light-
hearted youth, " the mothers being on terms of intimacy.
This intimacy was broken off for some time owing to Mrs.
Porter returning with her family to the North of England
(Durham), "where their residence happened to be near
that of a venerable bishop, and where they had free
fljaria forte r
access to the Episcopal Library. Here they first read
Spenser's 'Faery Queen,' and here they studied many old
black-letter chronicles." Some time after this they re-
moved to London, where they soon became acquainted with
West, Flaxman, Northcote, Shee, and other artists. Their
society was also sought by several naval and military
veterans, old friends of their father's. As a rule, they
lived in a quiet and retired manner, until their genius
became known to the world by its published manifesta-
tions.
The works of the sisters are so numerous that it would
occupy considerable space even to mention them. Anna
Maria died near Bristol in 1832 ; the brother, who had
made himself so distinguished in arts, in diplomacy, in
war, and in literature, died suddenly at St. Petersburg,
in 1842 ; and Jane died in 1850. WEST END LANK.
***
The following anecdote, illustrative of the early days of
416
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{September
1891.
the celebrated authoress of "The Scottish Chiefs," and
other historical romances, is told by William Henderson
(himself an old resident of Darham) in his work "My Life
as an Angler " : —
I have always felt a keen interest in ray mother's girlish
friendship for Jane Porter, whom I myself remember
when a child. I recollect the arrival of a note from the
Waterloo Hotel, with a request that it should be delivered
immediately to ray mother. The note was from the
authoress in question, conveying an affectionate request
that the friend of her early days would come and pass a
few hours with her at the hotel, while she was resting on
her way to London. It appeared that the lady was
returning from Scotland, where she had been collecting
materials for her well-known work "The Scottish Chiefs,"
and she was glad to pause fora short time in the home of
her childhood. For Miss Porter, her sister Anna Maria,
and their brother Robert, had been brought up at Durham,
and were such near neighbours of my mother, herself an
only child, that they were constant companions, occupied
together in pursuits which have not failed to leave their
mark in history. -I have often heard my mother describe
the following scene : — The little party was collected in
a low room with long windows looking into Bow
Lane, then, as now, the quietest and most ancient
looking part of the city. Miss Porter and my mother
were engaged in needlework; Robert, stretched on
the floor, was busy painting battle scenes on tissue
paper; while Anna Maria, with a timid glance at
her sister, drew from her pocket a manuscript which
she was to read aloud, according to promise. It was
the first part of that charming volume afterwards
known as " Artless Tales "—certainly a remarkable pro-
duction for a girl of (I believe) only fourteen years of ape.
The listeners were loud in their praises, till at last Miss
Porter rose with an air worthy of Mrs. Siddons, a manner
which clung to her through life. " Anna," she said, " you
have written well." There was a pause of some moments.
" When I write," she added, " I shall write history," and
she swept out of the room with the air of a duchess. The
reading of this, the first "Artless Tale," decided the
future of the elder sister ; from that day she applied herself
to literature, in which she has left a not unhonoured
name. A. H.
(Ore
REAT is the contrast shown in the two pictures
which are here reproduced. The artist, Mr.
Hedley, has realistically delineated two im-
portant epochs in the social and domestic history of
Northern miners. These pictures depict the customs
which obtained amongst them at the beginning of the
century, and the habits which characterise them to-
day.
The first picture— "The Pitman's Pay: Old Style"—
recalls to mind a time when the working day was exces-
sively long, and when the calling of a coal hewer was
pursued under vastly more dangerous and disadvantageous
conditions than it is now. It was a time, too, which was
singularly void of educational facilities — when, even if
these facilities had existed, the sons of miners could not
have benefited by them, because it was then a common
thing for boys to commence work in the pits at six years
of age. With no reading-rooms or mechanics' institutes
to which they could resort after their day's toil was over—
Beptpraberl
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
417
with no means or opportunity for social relaxation — it was
quite natural that, when the Saturday night came
round, and with it the cessation of work, the miners of an
earlier day should gather at the village tavern. It was
this custom which Thomas Wilson described in "The
Pitman's Pay," and which Ralph Hedley has illustrated—
And though the yel's resistless power
Had silenced many a noisy tongue,
Two vet'rans still, 'midst dust and stour,
Conn'd o'er the days when they were young.
But the advance of time has brought with it the social
and industrial advancement of the mining population.
Mr. Hedley's second picture — "The Pitman's Pay:
New Style " — forms a striking contrast to its companion.
Here we see the miners receiving their fortnight's pay,
not as of old in a public-bouse, but at the pay office con-
nected with the colliery. The picture also reveals a pro-
minent trait in the miner's character — his readiness to
assist the poor and indigent. Thrift, a desire for in-
tellectual improvement, a love of music, literature, art,
science, and athletic sports— all these have in a very great
measure taken the place of the revels, sports, and
pastimes favoured by the pitmen of a past age.
antr
Sltrftrut,
[JILLIAM WORDSWORTH, the greatest and
best of the Lake Poets, has, in his works,
provided the thoughtful tourist with an
admirable guide to the English Lakes.
The simplicity and natural tenderness of the poet is set
forth in each of his pages. He describes with equal
power the playful daffodils and the raging storm ; the
desolate tarn and the beauties of Windermere. So
rich, indeed, are some parts in Wordsworthian
lore that an enthusiast may feel be breathes
the influence of the poet in the very air. Grasmere,
Hawkshead, Langdale, Ennerdale, Ullswater, and Win-
m
J. .."
27
418
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{September
189L
dermere are raade additionally attractive by the poet's
meditations and descriptions. " Meditation and sympathy
were the main strings of his serene and stormless lyre."
As he himself says: —
The moving accident is not my trade ;
To freeze the Wood I have no ready arts ;
'Tis my delight alone in summer shade
To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts.
For " thinking hearts " no holiday could be better spent
than by walking through the English lakes with Words-
worth as a guide. The peculiar charm of the Lake
District would, under such circumstances, be more highly
appreciated ; for his poems have done for Cumberland and
Westmoreland what Sir Walter Scott in his novels and
metrical romances has done for Scotland. And Scott's are
the only works which can be even remotely compared to
Wordsworth's. On the other hand, the power of Words-
worth cannot be fully known by one who is a stranger to
the Lake District. He chose the most common object in
life as well as in nature for poetic treatment, and in pure,
terse, and graceful form, writes so that the least learned
may not mistake him —
O.'reader 1 had you in your mind
Such stores as silent thought can bring,
O, gentle reader I you would find
A tale in everything.
Of the Lake District generally the poet writes:— "I
do not know any tract of country in which, within so
narrow a compass, may be found an equal variety in the
influences of light and shadow upon the sublime and
beautiful features of landscape. . . . Though clustered
together, every valley has its distinct and separate char-
acter ; in some instances, as if they had been formed in
studied contrast to each other ; and, in others, with the
differences and resemblances of a sisterly rivalship."
The intention of this paper is merely to attract atten-
tion to the connection between Wordsworth and the
Lakes. Space will not permit quotation to any extent, so
that I give only a general outline of a most enjoyable and
instructive tour which may be taken with the poems as a
guide.
We start, say, at Patterdale. Two of Wordsworth's
poems refer to Ullswater, and both perfect in their way.
Theone is entitled " Airey Force Valley, "and the other is
the poem on "The Daffodils." The latter is such a fine
example of the poet's style that I append it in full :—
TBB DAFFODILS.
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at onoe I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils ;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way.
They stretch in never-ending line
Along the margin of the bay ;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing th'eir heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced ; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee :
A poet could not but be gay.
In such a jocund company ;
I gazed— and gazed— but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude ;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
Leaving Ullswater, ascend Helvellyn and find pages of
poems dedicated to this majestic height and its wonderful
prospect. Descend by way of Grisedale Tarn, where the
brothers William and John Wordsworth parted before
John set out on his fatal voyage. The verses on John,
and the description of Grisedale Tarn, are well worthy of
remark. Pass on by Tongue Ghyll, the beauties of which
are referred to in the "Prelude," down to Grasmere. This
pleasant village may also be reached from Ullswater by
way of Kirkstone Pass instead of over Helvellyn. On this
road Brothers' Water is passed, where Wordsworth
rested and composed the stanza commencing — "The cock
is crowing." To the right of Brothers' Water is th«
valley of Hartshope, where the poet saw that grand
atmospheric effect described in the second book of the
"Excursion." Thence ascend Kirkstone Pass and read
" The Pass of Kirkstone. " Then proceed to Grasmere.
The poems which first occur to my memory in thinking
of Wordsworth as the interpreter of Grasmere are those
in that series of seven " On the Naming of Places." Eas-
dale Beck, EasdaleTarn, Helm Crag, the Rothay, Lough-
rigg, Fairfield, Rydal Mount, the WishingGate, and many
other well-known heights, nooks, and places are treated in
these seven poems. The poems undoubtedly render these
charming spots more attractive, and the student of
Wordsworth begins to feel the poet's power when studying
the poems in sight of the objects described. " In the
vale of Grasmere, by the side of the old highway leading
to Ambleside, is a gate, which, time out of mind, has been
called the Wishing Gate, from a belief that wishes
formed or indulged there have a favourable issue." The
two poems on "The Wishing Gate," and "The Wish-
ing Gate Destroyed, " treat this interesting object in appro-
priate style. "The Primrose of the Rock" describes a
spot in the valley leading from Grasmere to Rydal. In
the quarry near the "primrose rock, " Wordsworth met
" The Beggars," on whom he wrote two poems. And
near the Wishing Gate he met " The Sailor's Mother."
Majestic in her person, tall and straight,
And like a Roman matron was her mien and gait.
Alittleway from Dove Cottage, Wordsworth mettlie old
leech-gatherer who is referred to in his poem " Resolution
and Independence." The poems, " The Brothers " and
" Michael," were written by the poet near Dove Cottage.
The island in Grasmere Lake is frequently referred to
in the poems of "Inscriptions." Allan Bank, the House
in which Wordsworth spent four years of his. life, is
chiefly interesting as the place where most of "The
Excursion " was composed. LoUghrigg Tarn is described
Sept ember 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
419
in the "Epistle to Sir George Beaumont." Grasmere
Church is dealt with in "The Excursion," as also are
Lingmoor, Wray Ghyll Force, Grasmere Lake, Lanpt-
dale, Blea Tarn, &c., &c.
Grasmere is the centre of the Wordsworth country.
His prime and closing days of life were spent there. The
full richness of his strength as a writer may be said to
date from December, 1799, when he and bis sister
Dorothy settled down in a two-storied cottage at Town
End, Graemere. Poetry then became the business of his
life. He was married in 1802 to his cousin, Mary
Hutchinson, and brought her home to Town End Cottage,
and three years later wrote the following lines in her
praise. It may well be asked, where may we hope to find
verses more full of tender, loving devotion, or more truly
poetic than these ?
TO MRS. WORDSWORTH.
She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my syht :
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament ;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair ;
Like twilight, too, her dusky hair ;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn ;
Advancing shape, an image gay,
To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.
I saw her upon nearer view,
A spirit, yet a woman too !
Her household motions light and free,
And steps of \irgin liberty;
A countenance in which did meet
Sweet records, promises as sweet ;
A creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food ;
For transient sorrow, simple wiles,
Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.
And now I see with eyes serene
The very pulse of the machine ;
A being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death ;
The reason firm, the temperate will.
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill ;
A perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command ;
And yet a spirit still, and bright,
Y\ ith something of angelic light
I hope to have aroused in some readers a desire for
further acquaintance with the poet and the poet's country.
If so, I invite them to Hawkshead, where Wordsworth's
earlier days were spent. Here he first took to writing
verses, and carefully observed and noted down many
natural appearances "hitherto unnoticed by any poet he
had ever read."
At the age of nine years, Wordsworth was placed in the
grammar school at Hawkshead, where he remained for
about nine years, till he went to St. John's College, Cam-
bridge. During that period he associated himself with
the Vale of Easthwaite so much that with the aid of his
writings the tourist may pass from height to height and
nook to nook and observe the beauties of the district with
the poet's eyes.
At the age of sixteen he wrote the "Conclusion of a
Poem Composed in Anticipation of Leaving School," and
in manhood's prime, still full of love for the dale, he re-
cast this poem,^n the blank verse of " The Prelude."
Both are appended, that the reader may chose between
the impromptu utterance of a boy of sixteen with its fresh
simplicity, and the version written in the strength of the
poet's manhood.
By the boy of sixteen :—
Dear native regions, I foretell,
From what 1 feel at this farewell,
That, wheresoe'er my steps may tend,
And whensoe'er my course may end,
If in that hour a single tie
Survive of local sympathy,
My soul will cast the backward view.
The longing look alone on you.
Thus, while the sun sinks down to rest
Far in the regions of the west,
Though to the vale no parting beam
Be gi\en, not one memorial gleam,
A lingering light he fondly throws
On the dear hills where lirst he rose.
From " The Prelude " :—
— — A grove there is whose boughs
Stretch from the western marge of Thurston-mere,
With lengths of shade so thick that whoso glides
Along the line of low-roofed water, moves
As in a cloister. Once — while in that shade
Loitering, I watched the golden beams of light
Flung from the setting sun, as they reposed
In silent beauty on the naked ridge
Of a high eastern hill— thus flowed my thoughts
In a pure stream of words fresh from the heart :
Dear native regions, wheresoe'er shall close
My mortal course, there will I think on you ;
Dving, will cast on you a backward look ;
Even as this setting sun (albeit the vale
Is nowhere touched by one memorial gleam)
Doth with the fond remains of his last power
Still linger, and a farewell lustre sheds
On the dear mountain-tops where first the}' rose.
The best approach to Hawkshead is from the ferry on
Winderinere by way of Sawrey. At the top of the ridge
between the two Sawreys, a little to the right, the spot
lies where stood the yew-tree, on which Wordsworth
wrote the lines commencing: — "Xay, traveller! rest,
This lonely yew-tree stands." From this spot a grand
panoramic view is obtained of the vale of Easthwaite,
with Hawkshead lying at the head of Easthwaite Lake —
one of the prettiest views in the Lake District. In this
vale the poet's early days were spent. His
Morning walks
Were early, oft before the hour of school
I travelled round our little lake, five miles
Of pleasant wandering.
Here he imbibed the spirit of the muse.
Magnificent
The morning rose, in memorable pomp,
Glorious as ere I had beheld — in front,
The sea lay laughing at a distance ; near,
The solid mountain shone, bright as the clouds,
Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light;
And in the meadows and the lower grounds
Was all the sweetness of a common dawn —
Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds.
And labourers going forth to till the fields.
Ah ! need I say, dear friend ! that to the brim
My heart was full ; I made no vows, but vows
Were then made for me ; bond unknown to me
Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly,
A dedicated spirit On I walked
In thankful blessedness, which still survives.
In the Grammar School at Hawkshead the letters " W.
Wordsworth " may still be seen on one of the old forms,
cut out by the boy poet. On the walls of the schoolroom,
recently, some fancy scrolls have been fixed. These
420
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
f September
t 1891.
scrolls present the following familiar mottoes, gleaned
from the poet's works : —
Small service is true service while it lasts.
The child is father to the man,
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
Books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good ;
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
We live by admiration, hope, and love.
The old Norman church, built at Hawkshead in 1160,
is a pretty and conspicuous object in the landscape.
The snow-white church upon the hill
Sits like a throned lady, sending out
A gracious look all over her domain.
Anne Tyson's cottage, where Wordsworth lived for
nine years, is well known and easily found, and there in
the bedroom is
That lowly bed whence I had heard the wind
Roar, and the rain beat hard ; where I so oft
Had lain awake on summer nights to watch
The moon in splendour couched among the leaves
Of a tall ash, that near our cottage stood ;
Had watched her with fixed eyes while to and fro
In the dark summit of the waving tree
She rocked with every impulse of the breeze.
Frequent reference is made in " The Prelude " to the
schoolhouse, the church, and Mrs. Tyson. The following
is the commencement of the poet's lines on Mrs. Tyson : —
The thought of gratitude shall fall like dew
Upon thy grave, good creature ! While my heart
Can beat never will I forget thy name.
Heaven's blessing bo upon thee where thou liest.
While the tourist is in this valley, the full force of tho
following magnificent lines may be the better realized,
tor herein the poet describes the influence of nature upon
himself, moulding, and educating him in his early
days :—
Wisdom and Spirit of the universe !
Thou soul that art the eternity of thought ;
That givest to forms and images a breath
And everlasting motion, not in vain
By day or star light thus from my first dawn
Of childhood didst thou interwine for me
The passions that build up our human soui ;
Not with the mean and vulgar works of man,
But with high objects, with enduring things—
With life and nature — purifying thus
The element of feeling and of thought,
And sanctifying, by such discipline.
Both pain and fear, until we recognise
A grandeur in the beating of the heart.
Nor was the friendship vouchsafed to me
With stinted kindness.
The skating scene in "The Prelude" refers to the poet's
winter sport on Easthwaite Lake. It is a production
worthy of the pen of a poet in style and composition, and
it is useful as a guide to the neighbourhood. In short, all
who delight in Wordsworth must take special interest
in Hawkshead. Here he
Held unconscious intercourse with beauty
Old as creation,
And saw
Gleams, like the flashings of a shield ; the earth
And common face of Nature spake to him
Rememberable things.
To many it would be good practice to find out the force
of the following lines as they bear upon the poet's child-
hood : —
These recollected hours that have the charm
Of visionary things ; these lovely forms
And sweet sensations that throw back our life,
And almost make remotest infancy
A visible scene, on which the sun is shining.
To the works of Dr. Craddock and Professor William
Knight I am indebted for much of the matter of this
article. CHAS. J. DEAN.
STfte
at
IffitDr.
|OHN HODGSON, the historian of Northum-
berland, was born in the year 1779, in the
deep, narrow, secluded vale of Swindale, in
Westmoreland, a few miles north-west of
Shap, forming part of Thornthwaite Forest. He began
life in the capacity of schoolmaster of Matterdale, in
Cumberland, with a salary not exceeding ten or elevtn
pounds a year. Here, in the heart of the mountains, he
had excellent opportunities for pursuing the study of
natural history, particularly geology ; but the smallness
of his certain income, diminished, through the mismanage-
ment of the trustees, to less than a third of what it ought
to have been, soon compelled him to look out for a better
berth. And being connected by marriage with a celebrated
master of the Free Grammar School of Houghton-le-
Spring, the Rev. William Hawes, he was induced by that
gentleman's representations and influence to cross Stain-
more into the County Palatine, and locate himself at
Sedgefield, where he took the mastership of the school in
1801. His scientific attainments, wholly self-gained, were
September \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
421
already such as to bring him an offer from the Tyne Iron
Works Company at Lemington, who had started business
some years before, of the responsible post of manager of
their works, at the then handsome salary of £300. But
he declined the offer, flattering though it was, having
other views.
Mr. Hodgson had determined to study for the Church.
But his first trial was not successful. Having given him-
self too little time for preparation, and being, moreover,
nt all times timid even to excess, he lost confidence the
moment he entered the room to be examined ; and he was
accordingly rejected by the bishop's chaplain, Dr.
Burgess, prebendary of Durham and rector of Winston,
afterwards successively Bishop of St. David's and Salis-
bury, and, according to Dr. Kaine, in his life of Hodgson,
"a mild, amiable man, and a consummate classical
scholar, but well known for his strictness in conducting
his examinations." He was more successful next time
he tried, which was in 1804. when he was admitted into
the order of deacons by the Bishop of Carlisle, Dr.
Vernon, afterwards Archbishop of York. Having on
this occasion travelled to Carlisle on foot, without a
gown for the ceremony (for he had " lost the coach " at
Newcastle, and been obliged to drop his portmanteau),
the prelate lent him one, with this kind remark : " Mr.
Hodgson, this is the gown in which I myself was first
ordained, and I hope it will be as lucky to you as it has
been to me. "
Immediately after his ordination, he accepted the sub-
curacy of Esh and Satley, chapels of ease in the parish of
Lanchester. He now took up his residence in the latter
town, in the neighbourhood of which he had ample scope
for the study of Roman antiquities, it having been a
celebrated Roman station, which, after ages of depreda-
tion, still exhibits perhaps "the boldest and proudest
monument of the Roman arms in the North." A young
man of his temperament, with abundant leisure, could
scarcely fail to cultivate an acquaintance with the rich
antiquarian treasures which were then lying all around —
broken down ramparts, ruined towers, fallen pillars,
choked up baths, aqueducts, military roads, &c. And so
his biographer says :— " To Hodgson's short residence at
Lanchester must be attributed that faculty of patient
inquiry into the subject of Roman antiquities for which he
was afterwards so highly distinguished, and which, in
process of time, led to such signal discoveries on other
and more extended fields." Vandalic ignorance had even
then committed sad ravage on these noble remains, for he
tells us himself in his description of the place that the
dwelling-house on the farm of Hollingside was in a great
measure built from the remains of the Roman Wall, and
that the masons the proprietor employed, according to
that gentleman's own account, preferred the stones that
were carved to those that had been used for ordinary
purpose?. One stone in particular, he affirmed, made a
yard of wall, and had a beautiful female figure cut on one
side, which the. masons turned inwards. It was at Lan-
chester also that Mr. Hodgson commenced his knowledge
of the coal formation.
In 1806, be became curate of Gateshead, under its then
rector, Dr. Prosser, a punctilious though pre-ritualistic
clergyman, who, it seems, insisted upon his curates wear-
ing a hat of a peculiar kind at visitations ; and Hodgson's
hat, we are told, was kept by him, to the last, as a curi-
osity. Dr. Prosser's successor at Gateshead was the cele-
brated Dr. Philpotts, afterwards Bishop of Exeter ; and
Mr. Hodgson was making arrangements for a continuance
of the curacy, when he received from Mr. Ellison, of
Hebburn Hall, the living of Jarrow, which he had in his
gift.
Mr. Hodgson's connection with Jarrow matured more
and more the fruit which had already begun to ripen at
Lanchester; and be had not been there above a year
before he commenced those systematic researches into the
history of Northumberland which eventuated in his pub-
lication, thirteen years afterwards, of the first part of
that great work which will for ever stand as the monu-
ment of his fame. He delighted in the hallowed
memories of the Venerable Bede, and drank in greedily
the classic associations that hovered round his quiet house
and garden, placed, as it was, betwixt the interesting old
church and the fast crumbling ruins of the monastic
offices.
In 1810, two years after his settlement at Jarrow, he
married a Miss Kell, of Heworth Shore, who made him
an excellent wife.
When one of the most tremendous explosions recorded
in the history of coal mining took place at Felling Col-
liery, on the 25th of May, 1812, Mr. Hodgson was one of
the first to hasten to the spot, to administer such conso-
lation and aid as he could give, as a man and a minister,
to the bereaved friends of the unfortunate sufferers, who
were ninety-two in number. He afterwards wrote a
pamphlet, giving an account of the explosion, with a plan
and description of the colliery, a briet statement of the
fund raised for the widows of the sufferers, suggestions
for founding a colliers' hospital, and a funeral sermon on
the occasion. The profits arising from this publication
were applied to the erection of a monument to the men
in Heworth churchyard — a neat, plain obelisk, some nine
feet high, fixed in a solid stone base, and having four
brass plates let into the pillar on the four sides, on which
are inscribed the name and age of each.
Mr. Hodgson's connection with the Antiquarian Society
of Newcastle date's from its commencement in November,
1812. In conjunction with Mr. John Adamson, he was
chosen its first joint secretary. The first volume of the
society's Transactions, the " Archaeological JEliana," is
chiefly valuable on account of some elaborate papers con-
tributed by him. He naturally soon became intimate with
such men as Robert Surtees, the historian of Durham.
Sir John Swinburne, Bart, the Rev. Anthony Hedley,
422
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
i* September
I 1891.
Mr. Ellis, of Otterburn, and other devoted North-Country
antiquaries, and his correspondence on subjects of mutual
interest with these kindly and congenial spirits bears
testimony to his high character as a man, as well as his
first-class qualifications as a local historian.
The following anecdote told by Dr. Raine, relating
to an ecclesiastical conference at the card-table on the
canons of the Church, refers, we believe, to this
era: —
"That's a wonderful man, that Mr. Hodgson," said a
gentleman one evening in Durham, in a crowded room,
whilst looking on and talking over a whist table ; "ye'll
hardly believe it, but he has the churches of Heworth and
Jarrow ; and he has so many duties every Sunday, of one
kind or another, that he's never done ; and yet, after all,
he gives a second evening service at Heworth; but he is
sometimes so tired that he can only read the exhortation
and confession before he begins his sermon." "That's
very wrong," spoke a reverend personage, " very wrong,
sir; quite contrary to the canons." "The canons!" re-
plied the first speaker, "the canons, did you say '! Why,
as to canons, just that " (snapping the forefinger and
thumb of his right hand with such a noise that there was
an instant silence in the room) ; " the canons, you know,
my lord, say a clergyman is not to play at cards ; and
there you are — a bishop — with the ace of trumps in your
hand ! " The bishop, adds Dr. Raine, was the chaplain
of 1802, by whom poor Hodgson had ueeu rejected in his
examination for holy orders.
'^.n January, 1816, after having had some correspondence
with Sir Humphrey Davy on the subject of his safety
lamp, then in process of trial, Mr. Hodgson one day
startled a pitman in the Hebburn coal workings by
appearing there with a lamp in his hand. Dr. Raine tells
the story :—
A solitary man was working by no other light than the
sparks of a steel-mill. No notice had been given to him
of what was about to take place. He was alone in an
atmosphere of great danger, "in midst of life in death,"
when he saw a light approaching — apparently a candle
burning openly — the effect of which he knew would be
instant destruction to him and its bearer. His command
was, instantly, " Put out that candle !" (with a threat to
send his pick through the body of the advancing in-
truder.) The flame came nearer and nearer. No regard
was paid to his cries— which then became of the most
terrific kind, mingled with awful imprecations against the
. comrade (for such he took Hodgson to be) who was
tempting death in so rash and certain a way. istill, not
one word was said in reply. The light continued to
approach ; and then oaths were turned into prayers that
his request might be granted, until there stood before him,
silently exulting in his heart, a grave and thoughtful man
— a man whom he well knew and respected — who, four
years before, had buried in one common grave 91 of his
fellow-workmen — holding up in his sight, with a gentle
smile, the triumph of science, the future safeguard of the
pitman.
It was not until the year 1821 that the first (or rather,
as it was designated according to his arrangement, the
fifth) volume of his History of Northumberland appeared.
The work was received with great favour by all persons
of taste and literary acquirement ; but that class, unfor-
tunately, was not sufficiently numerous to make it a
lucrative or even payable speculation. The world is,
therefore, under obligations to that munificent prelate.
Bishop Barrington, who marked his approbation of Mr.
Hodgson's ambitious adventure by spontaneously confer-
ring upon him the vicarage of Kirkwhelpington, worth
about thtee hundred pounds a year. He likewise fol-
lowed up this with a present of two hundred pounds. At
Kirkwhelpington, where he went to reside, Mr. Hodgson
was almost in the centre of the county whose history he
had made a life's study for the benefit of coming ages.
Successive portions of his work appeared in 1827, 1828,
1832, 1835, and 18*0, the last volume being almost entirely
occupied by a description and history of the Roman
Wall.
When, in 1833, he was appointed to the vicaraee of
Hartburn by Bishop Van Mildert, he resigned his other
preferments, to the great regret of his parishioners. His
failing health, however, necessitated this step. Just
when he was on the point of completing his labours as a
historian, he was seized by a serious illness, brought on
by his incessent application ; and he was thereby incapaci-
tated for further mental exertion, and forced to leave
the work in a fragmentary state. It was on the 20th of
August, 1839, just when he had got that portion of it
which relates to the Wall ready for the press, that
he " was struck down by the blow under which he never
ceased to labour, until he was released from his troubles
by the hand of death." Thereupon Dr. Raine says : —
Till the 21st of November there is a melancholy blank
in the journal of which I have so often availed myself.
On the latter day it recommences, but far too frequently
gives indications of great bodily pain — and, in many of
its entries, of that defective state of memory under which
its writer never afterwards ceased more or less to labour.
Of its numerous mistakes in words and names some
appear to have been corrected afterwards, when he had
the temporary ability to do so ; others remain ; and the
journal itself, and the few letters which he wrote after
this period, may in general terms be said to be full of woe.
Now and then he brightens up, in the absence of pain ;
and now and then there are indications that he was in
full possession of his powers of memory ; but, in a general
way, no other conclusion can be come to than that the very
contrary was in both respects the case. At all times,
however, both journal and letters breathe the spirit of
patient resignation, and a due acknowledgment of the
Hand from which cometh affliction.
Here are some extracts from Mr. Hodgson's diary and
letters, painfully yet pleasingly suggestive : —
1839.— Isle of Wight, December 7.— The rocks that God
has fixed into the hills, and his works that man has
planted into the fields, still, as I did in my ardent youth,
still now I love to search and gaze among — to venerate
the ancient oaks and clay of the streams and fields of
Medina. But the elasticity of my mind is gone; the
strength of my frame is fled ; my words have lost their
sprightly names ; I cannot collect them into multitudes
of names ; I cannot paint my soul into beautiful lines and
flowers. The child of Poesy does not visit me. and carry
me through wilds that cities love to live among, and are
fast tilling the earth. Still, however, I love to see oranges,
though not exuberant in size, growing in the midst of
December in the gardens of Wight. Man is restoring to
her some of the pristine beauties of the garden of her
ancient Father — the glories that he has obscured.
December 9. — Wrote frodej by the side of the Solent to
Gurnard's Bay, were L where] the land near the limekiln
is sliding into the side of the sea. The apple trees near
the houses sadly stunted, and yellow with lichens. The
beautiful plant I saw on Friday last, in a shrubbery at
East Cowes, is the Arbutus ura ursi, which grows even
in Northumberland, as I think, in the open air, at Cress-
well.
1840.— Clay Hill, Beckenham, April 19.— Stil! I cannot
September 1
1891. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
423
read any sore of book, and with great difficulty read a
whole [word] as I write it :— that is, to read a few lines
either of books or writing troubles me very much.
HAHTBUBN, July 26.— 6 Sunday after Trinity. — I read
the Lord's prayer, the collect, and the ten commandments
of the Holy Communion ; but, from the imperfect state
of my eyes, did not dare to read any more.
1841. — January 7. — I have to-day, for ;the first) time
since I have been unwell, been able to remember the
name of Hildebrand, the vigorous Pope Gregory the
Seventh.
April 21. — Poesy was my most early adoration. My
head is broken ; my language lost ; my ears hear, but I
understand not. Still, however, my soul hears the song
of poesy. I hear it in the four winds — in the four voices
of the year — in day and night — in the morning and the
evening. It is in the brooks— in the fields — in the woods
and the gardens.
May 24. — Mild west wind. Warm and dry. Apple
trees blossom in great glory. All day in the garden, or
selecting stones in the river for tbe wood walk near the
school-house. Till half -past nine breaking stones for the
garden walks. These rolled masses, gathered from my
garden, or from the heaps of rubbish thrown against the
tower of the church-wall, reprove me (.not] for doing them
any injury. They chide me for no idleness, no useful-
ness [uselessness], no mention that my head is in pain,
my brain in distress. I can muse upon them as I break
them, and consider how many thousand ages they have
rolled in rivers or by the sides of the sea— how many more
ages they have reposed in the earth. And now I am
breaking them — a restless, busy man, that must soon,
must soon be silent, and not disturb man, or break the
fragments of the broken earth, any more. But I rejoice
that, as I break them, I can find myself happy, and even on
earth be at rest — can forget the idle and the hard-hearted,
and the wicked — be happy — and find a time, and many
times and places, " where the wicked cease from
troubling, and the weary are at rest."
May 22. — Drive to Morpeth. My ears still in pain. Can
talk little. But the year is bursting forth into great
beauty ; and though I cannot hear the voice of m»n, I
can, and do, rejoice in the silent and glorious works of
God. Ceedmon spoke in his poetry the deep words of God
and the sweet words of Christ; and Milton raised his
" pealing organ " to the same high and ecstatic height. In
this world they both brought all heaven before their eyes.
Now, I can no longer listen to their voice or read their
"service high and anthem clear." I cannot sing in the
songs of the Church ; yet, while I can see the young and
beautiful year, mighty blessings are left to me.
May 29. — Very rich, mild weather. Anxious to think
as little as I can ; to sit or lie in the warm sun ; to bask
like an animal ; or to crawl out of the scorching sun, and
lie under the shadow of a tree. Thought in my study
distresses my brain.
December 9.— Called on John Brown, of High Anger-
ton, one about my own age, and feeble now like myself ;
but, till a few months since, never had a headache. But
I wish he could dream like me, and think of flying over
rivers, and hearing music over lakes, and think his soul
in the Milky- Way — though every day my head, by the
slightest thoughts and words, is often distracted.
December 18. — Began to make a new catalogue of my
books — Northumberland and Antiquarian. The next to
be Poetry. But the sound of the poet and of music to me
is now brought low, and all their eons and daughters are
silent and dead ; and nothing is heard as in the night, but
the murmur of the brooks and the voice of the sea.
1842.— May 13.— Blessed and beautiful weather. The
first day this year, I heard the cuckoo, the sweet sound of
balmy and benevolent weather.
May 29.— At St. Nicholas' Church, Newcastle. O, the
delightfulness of the service ! Delicious to hear the voices
of the sons of music ! The house of God, when glorious
and full of joy, is indeed delightful. O, that I could again
join in the service, and live for ever in the house of my
God!
1843.— November 4.— This is my 64th birthday, and I
thank my Creator that my health is as good as it is.
1844.— April 22.— (To Dr. Raine).— Since October last,
I have had almost constant and distressing pain. I can
seldom get to my garden, though my fruit trees, all planted
by myself, are in beautiful blossom, and the whole of the
garden trim and beautiful as any modest lady would array
herself for a drawing-room.
September 5. — I was struck with a paralytic stroke, and
deprived of the use of my left side.
October 26. — The weather still very fine. I fear I must
give up to write notes to my journal, as my memory gradu-
ally decreases.
1845. — January 5. — (To Dr. Raine). — Very seldom en-
deavour to write a word of any kind, chiefly because I am
so very unable to read what I write.
April 10— (To Mr. Raine).— My sight is so bad that I
cannot turn my paper. Your old friend Hodgson.
On the 12th of June, 1845, the great and good man— for
he was both — finally rested from his labours. His demise
took place at Hartburn, when he was in his sixty-sixth
year. His remains rest in a place where, in his own
words when on earth, " the jetties of grey crag are
fringed with fern, wild grasses, and shrubs, and the river's
ever- varying and everlasting song ' imposes silence with a
stilly sound.'"
It is on his History of Northumberland that Mr.
Hodgson's fame rests ; but he likewise contributed
several papers to the "Beauties of England and Wales,"
the " Collectania Topographica," &c. Moreover, he found
time while at Lanchester to cultivate the muse, which
resulted in the publication of two volumes of poems. He
also devoted much time, and that successfully, to
botanical, geological, and philosophical studies, solacing
with such pursuits many a weary hour of ill-health, from
his boyhood till the day of his death.
0f tft* $)artrilrg;e
•dFffttttlt).
jjHE partridge (Perdix cinera) is a plentiful
bird throughout the United Kingdom and
over the more temperate parts of Europe.
It has a high reputation as a game bird, and
is consequently strictly preserved by landed proprietors.
In the Northern Counties, as Mr. Hancock observes, and
the same remark applies to other districts, the stock is
liable to great fluctuation, according to the state of the
weather.
The plumage of the common partridge is smooth,
mottled with deep orange, ruddy brown, and grey, and
similarly coloured in both sexes. Its food consists of in-
sects, grain, and plants. The nest is a mere hole
scratched in the dry mould, generally under the shelter of
some bush or tuft of grass, or in turf banks underneath
hedges. The eggs, from twelve to twenty in number, are
hatched in three weeks. The hen bird sits exceedingly
close, and will sometimes suffer herself to be captured
rather than take flight from the nest. The male takes no
part in nidification, but he is bold in the defence of his
mate and the young brood, and both birds practise
cunning devices to draw intruders from the vicinity of the
nest. The young are reared on small insects, larvae, and
424
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{September
189L
the eggs of insects, the parents leading them to the places
where they are deposited, and scraping away the mould.
Enormous numbers of ants and larvee are devoured by the
young brood.
The flight of the partridge is strong and quick, and
when sprung the covey goes off with a whirring noise,
caused by the rapid motion of the winifs. Two hen
birds have occasionally been found occupying the same
nest and hatching their eggs in common. The partridge
varies in size and weight according to locality, but gener-
ally measures slightly over a foot in length. The wings,
which expand to the width of one foot eight inches, are
short and much rounded, and the tail is short and hidden
by the coverts. The female is very nearly the size of the
male.
Partially white varieties have occasionally occurred. A
curious local variety, of a brown colour, has appeared in
recent years, and seems not to have been observed out of
Northumberland.
The red-legged partridge (Perdix rufa) was introduced
into this country in the reign of Charles II. in the neigh-
bourhood of Windsor, and afterwards more recently by
the Duke of Northumberland and others. According to
Mr. J. W. Fawcett, it is occasionally found in the county
of Durham. It frequents cultivated grounds, especially
hilly parts where bushes and copsewood abound, but
seems to prefer heaths, commons, and other waste
lands.
The food of the red-legged partridge consists of seeds,
grain, clover, and other vegetables, beetles, flies, ants and
their eggs, spiders, caterpillars, and small snails. The
nest is made of grass and a few feathers of the bird itself.
and is placed, as a rule, among corn, grai>s, or clover,
or near a bush. The eggs, which generally number
from ten to twelve, or even more, are of a reddish
yellow-white colour, spotted and speckled with reddish
brown.
The male measures in length from one foot one inch to
one foot two inches. The bill is bright red ; a black
band runs from its base to the eye and down the neck,
widening towards the front, where both sides meet, and
from it numerous black spots and streaks descend towards
the breast. Forehead, grey ; sides of the head white,
tinged with grey ; crown, behind the neck and nape,
reddish brown ; sides of the neck, greyish white, tinged
with brown and spotted with black, margined with
greyish brown, and followed by a broad band of ash-
colour ; chin, white ; throat, white, tinged with grey ;
breast, light yellowish red ; on the sides are broad bands
of red, followed by others of grey, white, black, and
reddish yellow ; back, reddish brown, tinged with grey.
The legs, which have blunt spurs, are bright red. The
female, which has no spur, is not so rich in colouration as
the male bird.
The quail (Pcrdix coturnix, Bewick ; Coturnix vulgaris,
Yarrell) is a spring and autumn migrant, though some-
what erratic in its movements, and has been found in this
country both in winter and summer. Mr. John Hancock
tells us that it is occassionally found breeding in North-
umberland and Durham, nests having been found at
Howick, Cullercoate, Fulwell, Callerton Fell, Wallsend,
and Westoe. Writing in December, 1879, Mr. Clarke, of
September \.
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
425
Blaydon. said that a quail's nest had been taken in the
middle of June the previous year near Byton.
Quails migrate north and south in spring and autumn
in flocks of many thousands. In the south of Italy as
many as one hundred thousand are said to have been
captured in one day. They migrate in flocks, travelling
at night, and the males are believed to precede the
females. They arrive here at the end of April or
beginning of May, and depart again in September. Not
being strong on the wing, many of them perish in
crossing the seas, and the survivors are often so exhausted
when they reach land that they can be killed or taken
easily.
On the ground these birds move quickly, with tail
hanging down and neck drawn in, each step being accom-
panied by a slight nod of the head. Their flight is very
rapid, and occasionally changes to a beautiful hovering
motion. The males, which are considered to be poly-
gamous, are most pugnacious, and in the love season they
fight bitterly. Their food consists chiefly of grain, seeds,
green leaves, and insects. The call is a shrill whistling
note, like " whit, whit," generally repeated three times in
succession. In the spring season the note is often inces-
santly repeated nearly all day long, but especially towards
evening.
The quail is a plump, handsomely plumaged bird, and
is shaped rather like our common partridge. The male is
eight inches in length, and the wings expand to a width of
one foot two inches. The plumage on the upper part of
the body is brown, striped with reddish yellow ; the head
is somewhat darker than the back, the throat reddish
brown, and the region of the crop reddish yellow ; a pale
yellowish line passes from the base of the upper mandible
over the eyes and down the sides of the neck across the
throat, where it is bounded by two narrow dark brown
lines. The blackish brown primary quills are spotted
with reddish yellow in euch a manner as to form stripes ;
the first quill has also a yellow border ; the reddish yellow
tail feathers have white shafts, and are spotted witli
black at their edges. In the female all these colours are
comparatively indistinct, and the reddish brown on the
throat inconspicuous.
The Virginian quail (Ortyx Virginiana ), says Mr.
Hancock, is "an introduced species." " A specimen," he
adds, " was shot on October 2, 18*1, at Rothbury, out of
a covey of partridges. It was an adult female, and had,
when fresh, all the appearances of having reared a brood
that year ; and it may be questioned whether the birds
with which it was associated were quails or partridges."
A considerable number of this species were set at liberty
on the banks of the Coquet, a short distance above Wark-
wortb, in the spring of 1872, by Mr. W. R. Pape, and
it was stated that several broods were reared the same
year.
The male bird measures in length a little over nine
inches. From the base of the upper mandible begins a
black band, which continues above the eye, and forms a
broad collar round the throat ; over the eye and down the
neck is a white streak underneath the black one ; under
the eye is a black band running down the neck on each
side and meeting in front; forehead, white ; crown, rich
red brown, edged on each side with black, of which colour
are the centres of the feathers ; neck, on sides and nape,
yellowish red brown, spotted with white and black, most
of the feathers edsred with bluish ash colour and pale
yellow ; chin and throat white ; upper breast pale reddish
brown ; lower part, pale yellowish or greyish white, edged
with arrow heads of black ; sides elegantly marked with
rich chestnut brown, bordered with black lines and white
margins; back, yellowish red brown, slightly pencilled
over with black. The tail, of twelve feathers, short and
much rounded, is greyish blue, sprinkled with reddish
brown, waved towards the end with yellowish red. The
female is a little less in size, and not so rich in colour
as the male.
426
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I September
1 189).
Capture 0C &mttfc
grots',
I T was during the memorable siege of Newcastle,
in 1644, which has already been described in
this work (see vol. V., page 114), that the
small fort of South Shields was captured by the Scots.
The reduction of the fort at the mouth of the Tyne was
deemed a matter of great importance, as, were that accom-
plished, Newcastle, it was clear, would soon follow through
want of provisions. Tyneinouth Castle was the more im-
portant, but the possession of the fort of South Shields,
which occupied very nearly the site of the old Roman
Station at the Lawe, was likewise indispensable. That
fort was commanded by Captain Chapman, a brave and
gallant officer. On the 15th March, it was hotly
attacked by the Scots, but the garrison succeeded in beat-
ing them off. Ou the 16th, in the morning, "about the
opening of day," picked men were detached by General
Lesley to assault it again, but these, " fearing too much
the danger and difficulties," returned ingloriously with-
out doing anything. The next day, being the Sabbath, was
devoted by the Scottish army, as was their wont, to rest
and worship. Monday seems to have been spent in com-
parative inaction, or probably in preparations for storm-
ing. On Tuesday a solemn fast was kept ; •' and it
pleased God," says one of those concerned, "to show us
the next morning a token of His favour." The narrator
continues thus : — " A party not so strong as the former
was sent to storm the fort, there being no other way of
taking it. Col. Stewart, Col. Lyell, Lieut. -Col. Bruce,
and Lieut.-Col. Johnston, with dome inferior officers, led
on the party. The fort was very strong, the graft without
being esteemed twelve feet broad and eleven deep, the
work above ground three yards high, and within it five
pieces of iron ordnance, some nine pound balls, some more,
one hundred soldiers, seventy musketeers, and thirty
pikemen. It was situated with great advantage, being
defended on one side by the ordnance of Tynemouth Castle,
and on the other by a Dunkirk frigate, with ten pieces of
ordnance. Notwithstanding, 140 of our soldiers, without
any other arms but their swords, carried bundles of straw
and sticks wherewith they filled the ditch, set up the
scaling ladders (whereof some did not reach the top of the
fort, the ditch not being well filled), and with their swords
gave the first assault ; then a party of musketeers, and
after them a party of pikes, all marching up till they
entered tbe ditch, where they disputed the matter above
an hour ; in which time the enemy discharged upon
them 28 shots of cannon, some with musket ball, others
with cut lead and iron, besides many musket shots. Our
soldiers did resolutely scale the ladders, and some entered
at the gun ports. The defendants behaved themselves
gallantly till it came to stroke of sword, and then they fled
away by water in boats. Sixteen of them were killed ;
a lieutenant and four soldiers, who stood out to the last,
were taken : and so we gained the fort with the pieces,
and some barrels of powder, and their colours. The provi-
dence of God wonderfully preserved our men, for only
seven of them were killed, and some few hurt with stones
and cut iron, but none deadly. No officers at all killed."
€ammmtatti&
KEMMEL'S PATH.
The term Camel's Path, Gamble's Path, Gammel's
Path, Kemmel's Path, &c.. is applied to the Roman
Watling Street which leads from High Rochester
(Bremenium). and crosses the bead of Coquet at Chew
Green Camp (Ad Fines), and leads thence into Scotland.
" Gamel's Path " was one of the places appointed by the
Scotch and English wardens where a dispute between two
Borderers might be settled in single combat. Hutchin-
son, in the second volume of his History of Northumber-
land, says : — "Anj' Scottishman accused of committing
robbery, theft, and homicide, or any other crime in
England that ought to be tried by single combat, was to
answer at places fixed." It was "at Gamble's Path''
that Robert Snowdon, of Hepple, in the 16th year of his
age (according to Mackenzie), fought and slew John
Grieves, a celebrated Scotch champion, in a pitched
battle with small swords. In 1550, " Kemylpethe " and
" Kemylspethe Walles " were debateable ground (Hodg-
son, part iii., vol. ii., pp. 208-211). Only the short
northernmost stretch of the Watling Street is known as
"Gamel's Path." I know the spot well, at the very
source of the Coquet, twenty miles west from Rothbury.
The path runs over the western ridge of Thirlmoor, a hill
with three tumuli on its summit (a height of 1,833 feet
above the sea). About a mile along the road to the south
are the "Golden pots" — two stone bases for standing
stones. D. D. DIXON, Rothbury.
THE MEASE FAMILY".
Mr. Solomon Mease was a native of Stokesley in the
Cleveland District of Yorkshire. When a youth he came
to North Shields and served his apprenticeship with Mr.
James Marr, surgeon and druggist. He afterwards com-
menced business as chemist and druggist in Tyne Street,
North Shields. In 1823 he married Miss Mary Ann
Dryden, a sister of Mr. John Dryden, shipowner. He
had three sons who grew up to manhood— Robert Dryden
Mease, John Augustus Mease, and George Dryden
Mea-e, and also several daughters.
He was a most kindly-natured and large-hearted man.
took a very prominent interest in all public matters, and
worked unceasingly to get the river Tyne into commission.
He was an alderman of the borough of Tynemouth, and
had also been mayor. He lived, in later life, in Cleveland
House, in the outskirts of North Shield?. He was a
September \
189L /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
427
Wesleyan, hut, like many of the old-fashioned Wesleyans,
lie had a warm heart towards the Church of England. He
was married at the Parish Church, and, I believe, all his
children were baptized in it.
In addition to his business, he was largely interested in
shipping. He opened the chemical works at Jarrow-on-
Tyne, his son, Mr. George Drydan Mease, being the
resident partner in and manager of the concern. He was
a very tall man. Mr. Solomon Mease died on 27th June,
1871, at Bristol, aged 72 yews, much and deeply lamented.
He was a devoted and affectionate father. His son, Mr.
Kobert D. Mease, died unmarried in 1863, aged 38 years.
Mr. John Augustus Mease married Emma, daughter of
Mr. George Shottou, shipowner, and died in 1857, aged
28 years. Mr. George Dryden Mease married a Miss
Gabriel, of London, and, after carrying on the works
at Jarrow-on-Tyne for a short time after his father's
death, he closed them »nd went abroad. The eldest
daughter of Mr. Mease married the Rev. J. D. Gedess,
Wesleyan minister ; and another daughter married the
Rev. F. E. Toyne, vicar of St. Michael's Church, Bourne-
mouth. TYNEMOUTH, North Shields.
A REMINISCENCE OF THE STAGE COACH.
The following old stage-coach bill will serve as a
reminder of the slow methods of travelling previous to the
advent of the locomotive engine : —
NEWCASTLE POST-COACH,
During the Winter Season,
BEGAN to run three Days a week on Monday, the 2nd of
November, 1772, and will continue setting out from the
George and Blue Boar Inn, Holbonrn, London, every
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday ; and from the Black
Bull, in Newcastle, on the same Days : To carry six
inside Passengers, and will perform in three Days as
usual (provided no material Accident happens). No
Livery Servants will be carried, except such Servants'
Master or Mistress is in the Coach at the same Time.
Saddle Horses, if required, will be provided for them at
every stage 3d. per Mile. Children under two years old
will not be taken in this Coach ; all above that Age to pay
full Price : And if any Proprietor suffer a Dog to be
taken into the Coach, forfeits 51., and for every outside
Passenger 40s.
*»* The Proprietors of this Machine beg leave to
acquaint the Public, th»t no Money, Plate, Jewels, or
Watches, will be carried upon any Consideration what-
ever ; and that the said Proprietors do hereby eive Notice
they will not be accountable for any such Articles which
may be sent by the said Machine.
As Witness our Hands,
GODFREY HIRST. JOHN TEHKIWEST,
MATT. GLENTON, WILLIAM HOLDEN.
CUTHBKRT HOME TRASLAW, Cornhill-ou-T\veed.
THE BAPTIST CHURCH IN NEWCASTLE.
Of the past history and pastorates of the Baptist church
in Newcastle, the Monthly Circular of the Westgate Road
and Jesmond churches says : —
Its earliest records are somewhat obscure, but there is
substantial reason for believing that it was established by
officers in Cromwell's army about 1650 or 1651. The first
mention of the Church is in the records of the Baptist
CburchatHexham, which tell us. that on June 16, 1652, that
church was visited by "Captain Simpson, Captain Mason,
and Brother Blenkinsopp," who came by orders from the
churches at London and Newcastle, and were " sweetly
and lovingly welcomed as brethren." The following is a
list of the Baptist ministers of Newcastle, so far as
known :—
Thomas Gower 1652
James Turner 1674
Richard Pitts 1689
Mr. Weir 1749
Mr. Bowser 1762
David Fernie 1765
John Allen 1769
Wm. Pendered 1780
John Forster
Thos. Skinner 1793
Thos. Hassell 1796
Thos. Berry 1803
Richard Pengilly 1807
George Sample 1845
Thos. Pottinger 1849
Wm.'Walters 1860
James Mursell 1871
J.M.Stephens 1877
J. T. Forbes, Westgate 1888
Frank Smith, Jesmond 1889
BURIED ALIVE.
Several cases are recorded of women having been buried
with their rings on their fingers, and afterwards resusci-
tated by robbers trying to sever the ring fingers. One
case was that of a French lady in Provence, and another
the mother of the celebrated brothers Erskine. The fact
of the same story having been told of several women has
led to them all being discredited. But we need not go to
France, or Scotland, for a case of this sort ; there is one
well authenticated much nearer home — to wit, Hutton
Rudby, Cleveland.
The house situated on "the bottoms" at Rudby, now
occupied by Mr. Joseph Mease, was formerly known as
Rudby Mill. At the beginning of the present century,
it was in the occupation of a man about whose name there
is some doubt, but it was something like Neville, and he
was a weaver. This man's wife died, and as some diffi-
culty was experienced in attempting to remove her rings,
she was buried with them on. This excited the cupidity
of the sexton, who was also parish clerk, and a tailor by
trade. He went late at night, and, having obtained
access to the body, attempted to cut off the ring finger
with his pocket knife. The woman immediately raised
herself, and sat upright in her coffin. The tailor fled in
affright. The woman, realising her situation, set out for
her home enveloped in her shroud. The distance is not
great, and is along a lane, in a straight line from the
churchyard. She succeeded in awaking the sleeping
household, but had (treat difficulty in convincing her
husband that she was really his wife arisen from
the tomb. They lived together for years after-
wards, and the husband, instead of prosecuting the
tailor, presented him, annually, with a web of the finest
linen.
Now for the verification of this strange story ; it is
mentioned in Ord's "Recollections of Cleveland," and in
Whellan'a "History of North York." I was personally
acquainted with Mr. Ralph Charlton, a well-to-do farmer
at Rudby ; he died about ten years ago at the age of 97.
Mr. Charlton was personally acquainted with the persons
mentioned in the above story. I also heard the story
428
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f September
\ 1891.
from my grandfather, another native of Hutton Rudby,
who died at an advanced age about fifteen years ago.
H. W. R,, Seaham Harbour.
TRESPASSING.
A native of Bishop Auckland was met on a portion of
the North-Eastern Railway by one of the officials. " Do
you not know," said the official, "that no person is
allowed to walk upon this line ?" "Well, sor," said the
trespasser, "aa waddent hev waaked, but aa cudden't get
a ride !"
THE SPELLING BEE.
Some years ago, two men, on board one of the New-
castle boats, were discussing the advantages of spelling
bees. One remarked, "Man, they're sic clivvor things.
They're sic a grand intertainment tee. What you're
short on you can aalways pick up thor. That was hoo aa
hirnt to spell cinder !"
THE SHOWMAN AND HIS OLD ACQUAINTANCES.
Billy Purvis, standing one day on the steps leading to
the stage in front of his famous booth, caught sight of an
acquaintance of his younger days among the crowd.
"Hey, lad," shouted the showman, "is thoo not comin"
in ? If thoo had a show, and aa wis thoo, aa'd coora in !"
BOMAN REMAINS.
A party of tradesmen were refreshing themselves in a
bar-parlour at Blyth shortly after the discovery of the
Roman Station at South Shields. Some of them were
discussing the events of the day; but a shipowner was
busily reading the Newcastle Chronicle. Looking up from
his paper, he remarked to his friends, " Whaat's aall this
aboot ? Aa seed it every noo and then in the ChronikU.
Here it's agyen — ' The Roman Remains at Sooth Shields.'
He's been thor a lang time noo. Whe is this Roman ?
and whaat in the warld is he demg at Sooth Shields?"
THE SOLDIER AND THE PRIEST.
A minister one day got into conversation with a soldier
who belonged to the North. The latter answered a good
many questions, such as how he liked his profession, what
regiment he was in, where it was lying, &c. Then he
thought it was his turn to ask a few questions. "Noo,"
said he, " aa wad like to knaa whaat ye are." " I am a
soldier, too, " said the minister. " Ay, and what regi-
ment are ye in, and whor is't lying?" The minister,
pointing up to the sky, said, "My regiment is in
Heaven, sir." "Man," returned the soldier, "butthoo's
a lang way frae the barracks !"
THE SHOWMAN AND HIS PATRONS.
Some years ago, a fat woman was being exhibited in a
shop in Dean Street, Newcastle. Two Quayside gentle-
men, sauntering up the street, were persuaded to enter.
When the lady had presented herself and retired behind
the screen again, the company departed. As the gentle-
men emerged into the street, they were surprised to find
quite a crowd outside. Feeling rather ashamed of having
patronised such an exhibition, they were anxious only to
hide themselves among the throng. Their horror may be
imagined as they heard the showman at the door directing
special attention to themselves in the following speech : —
"Mark the character of the haristocracy as they leave
the pavilion ! "
A FEARFUL DREAM.
A workman at the Elswick Ordnance Works related the
following dream to a friend : — "Man, aa dreamt that aad
Harry wes eftor us. He gained on us, and aa fund aa
couldn't get inte a hole afore he copped us, se aa torned
roond and fyeced the beggor. Off he went, and aa eftor
him, ower the dykes till we cam te a lake, where thor wes
a big tree in the middle wiv a string tull't, reaching te the
bank. Up the string went the aad un, and he gat inte
the tree. Se aa said te mesel, ' If thoo can run up thor
aa can tee.' Aa scrambled up the string aboot half way,
when the divvil began te shake hor, and aa dipped ower-
heed— and that wakkened us. Man, aa believe if aa
hadn't wakkened, aa wad ha' been drooned !"
THE CAPTAIN'S FATHER.
In former days, when ships were laden in the Tyne out
of keels, a keel went to load a foreign-going ship, which
had a monkey of the baboon tribe on board. As the keel-
man was going to get his dinner, the monkey was leaning
on the rail. Mistaking him for the cook, the keelman
handed him a basin, saying, "Cook, gie us a drop of
soup." The monkey smelt the basin, and broke it over
the man's head. The keelman vowed vengeance when he
caught the cook ashore ; but when, after the keel was
discharged, he went on board to get his glass of grog, the
monkey was lying on the sofa in the captain's cabin.
Taking up his glass, the keelman nodded to the skipper :
"Here's te ye, captain, and yor canny aad feyther there.
Aa thowt he wes the cook !"
On the 10th of July, the Rev. Charles Popham Miles
formerly vicar of Monkwearmouth, and honorary Canon
of Durham Cathedral, died at Great Chesterfield, Essex,
at the age of 80 years.
Mr. Alderman Thomas Pallister Barkas died at his
residence in Lovaine Place, Newcastle, on the 13th of
July, in his 73rd year. (See page 398.)
On the 20th of July was announced the death, which
had taken place very suddenly, of Mr. Henry W.
Watson, J.P., of Burnopfield House, in the county of
Durham.
Mr. Alexander Joel, landlord of the White Hart Inn,
Cloth Market, Newcastle, died at Cullercoats on the 21st
of July, in his 71st year.
On the 22nd of July, the remains of Mr. Thomas Dean,
coroner for Darlington Ward, county of Durham, who
had died at Redcar, were interred in the Cemetery af
September!
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
429
Bishop Auckland. The deceased was in the 73rd year of
bis age. The most memorable of his inquests were those
which he held on the victims of the poisoner, Mary Ann
Cotton.
The death was announced, on the 22nd, of Colour-
Sergeant John Marley, a well-known local volunteer,
who had been for upwards of twenty years attached to
the Felling detachment of the 4th Durham Rifles.
Mr. Samuel Monkhouse, a well-known tradesman in
the city of Durham, and a former member of the Town
Council of that borough, died on the 24th of July, aged
56 years.
Mr. George Julian Harney, in a letter to the Newcastle
Weekly Chronicle of July 25th, grave a biographical sketch of
Mr. Thos. S. Horn, who had died on the 4th of June. The
deceased was formerly connected with the firm of Horn
and Story, music sellers, Grey Street, Newcastle. He
had learned the business of organ building in London,
and bad also passed some time in a pianoforte factory.
Coupled with his mechanical capacities was a strong
spirit of adventure; and when he was 22, in the year
1845, he went to Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, which he made
his headquarters, whence, in prosecution of his calling, be
made repeated voyages to Barbadoes, St. Thomas's, and
other islands of the West Indies. Mr. Horn, who was 67
years of age, during his early career in Newcastle took an
active part in the Chartist movement, and was identified
with the Northern Political Union.
On the 25th of July, Lieut.-Colonel Thomas Calderwood
Brown, a retired military gentleman, and a member of an
old Newcastle family, died at the residence of a relative
in Benton Terrace, in that city, aged 67. The deceased,
who had risen from the ranks, was present at the battles
of Alma and Inkerman in the Crimea.
Sir Charles Forster, M.P., who had represented Walsall
in Parliament since 1852, and who was married to the
younger daughter of Mr. John Surtees, of Newcastle-on-
Tyne, the lady beinor a niece of Lord Chancellor Eldon,
died in London on the 26th of July, in his 75th year.
Mr. William Hodgson, who had been clerk to the
Darlington Board of Guardians for 23 years, and who was
also superintendent registrar of the Union, died somewhat
suddenly on the 28th of July. The deceased, who had
only just retired from his post, was about 45 years of age.
The Australian papers received on the 27th of July
announced the deatb, as having taken place on the 23rd of
'May, of Mr. William Tomsett, an old resident of Port
Adelaide, South Australia. Mr. Tomsett was a Sunder-
land man, and was brother of Mr. Edward Tomsett, of
that town, who died only two months before him. The
age of Mr. William Tomsett was 64 years.
Mr. Christian Forster, a frequent contributor, under
the nom de plume of Christian December, to the Newcastle
Weekly Chronicle, died in Newcastle, on the 1st of
August. The deceased, n young man of great promise,
was only 22 years of age.
Mr. Robert Foean, said to be the oldest tobacco dealer
in Newcastle, died on the 4th of August, aged 54.
On the 5th of August, Mr. William Blackador Johnson,
for many years passenger superintendent of the North-
Eastern Railway Company, died at York.
Mr. James Rewcastle, journalist, and for some time
sub-editor of the Northern Daily Express, died in New-
castle, on the 7th of August, at the age of 52 years.
On the 10th of August, intelligence was received of the
death, in Scotland, whither he had gone to spend his
holidays, of Dr. McKay, of Sunderland, at the age of 47.
©ccurrencex.
JULY.
11. — A handsome park, covering an area of about thirty
acres, was formally dedicated to the use of the large
population in and around Consett and Blackhill, by Mrs.
David Dale, wife of the chairman of the Consett Iron
Company. The company not only gave the land as a
free gift to the public, but defrayed the entire cost of
laying it out as a pleasure ground and place of recrea-
tion.
— The Northumberland miners held their annual gala
and demonstration on the Castle Banks at Morpeth.
The chair was occupied by Mr. John Nixon, president of
the Northumberland Miners' Association, and the prin-
cipal speakers were Mr. R. B. Cunninghame Graham,
M.P., Mr. T. Burt, M.P., Mr. S. Storey, M.P., and
Mr. C. Fen wick, M.P.
14. — At the Durham Assizes, Catherine Dunn, an elderly
woman, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter, at Gateshead,
of her daughter, Anastasia Dunn, whom she said she
had struck, but did not mean to kill her. (See page 287.)
The judge released the prisoner, and bound her over to
come up for judgment when called upon. In the same
court, Felix Wood, labourer, aged 22, was sentenced to
twelve months' hard labour for the manslaughter of John
Greham, at Winlaton. (See page 335.)
15. — Harriet Harlidge, aged 30, was found guilty at
Durham Assizes of the manslaughter of George Dixon, at
South Shields, on the llth of May; and Mr. Justice
Day, who characterised the case as a very aggravated
one, sentenced her to 20 years' penal servitude. Subse-
quently, however, his lordship reduced the sentence to
15 years' penal servitude. (See page 332.)
—Mr. James Ford, merchant, was elected a member of
the Gateshead Town Council, for the East Central Ward,
in the room of the late Mr. George Storey.
— Mr. J. S. Foggett, of Newcastle, was admitted into
the freedom of the City of London, being the last of six
prize-winners on whom the Worshipful Compaq' of
Coachmakers bestowed their honorary freedom in Nov-
ember last.
16. — James Collins, 18, labourer, and Eliza McGover-
ing, 33, were convicted at Durham Assizes of the man-
slaughter of Mary McLachlan, at Sunderland, and were
sentenced, the man to twelve months', and the woman to
eighteen months' imprisonment. (See page 286.) On the
same day, John Hardy, labourer, was sentenced to penal
servitude for life for the attempted murder of Sergeant
Applegarth, at Spennymoor, on the 16th of April. (See
page 284.)
— At the Durham Assizes, John Reed and Philip
Hodgson, police-constables, were charged with wilful and
corrupt perjury in the police cases arising out of the
evictions at Silksworth, but in neither case was any evi-
dence offered, and the defendants were discharged. Mr.
Samuel Storey, M.P., next took his place in the dock,
430
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{September
1891.
and was charged with committing wilful and corrupt
perjury in the Sunderland Police Court on the 7th March.
The prosecution, in this instance, was also abandoned,
— Mr. Dennis Doyle delivered a lecture in the Geo-
graphical Institute, Barras Bridge, Newcastle, on
" Matabeleland, Mashonaland, and Adjoining Countries."
Mr. Doyle was at the time on a visit to England as the
guide and interpreter of two principal induanaa, or chiefs,
of Gungunhana, king of Gazaland, who had sent envoys
to Queen Victoria to seek British protection for the
African king's territories.
— A new Roman Catholic Church, dedicated to Our
Lady and St. Cuthbert, was opened at Prudhoe Hall, the
seat of Mrs. Matthew Liddell, by whom the mission is
maintained.
17. — The memorial stones of a new Wesleyan Chapel
were laid in the village of Stamfordham.
— A severe thunderstorm, accompanied by heavy rain,
passed over Newcastle and district. Some damage was
done to property at Middlesbrough.
18.— Mr. C. S. Parnell, M.P. for Cork, addressed a
largely attended meeting in the Town Hall, Newcastle.
— A young man named James Carruthera, about 17
years of age. was drowned while bathing in the river Tyne
near Hexham. Several other drowning cases occurred in
the district during the month, incuding that of 1'elham
Yateman, a member of the Sunderland Amateur Canoe
Club.
— The Channel Fleet, consisting of twenty-one vessels,
under the command of Admiral Seymour, anchored off the
Tyne, remaining till the morning of the 20th, when it left
for Berwick.
— The first pic-nic of the Tynesiders of Birmingham
took place at the village of Arley.
20. — At a special meeting of the Newcastle City
Council, Mr. Thomas Bell was elected an alderman of the
city, in the room of the late Mr. Aid. Barkas. (See vol.
for 1890, page 89.)
— As the maker of the highest total of marks in the
volunteer aggregate at
the meeting of the
National Rifle Associa-
tion at Bisley, Cor-
poral John Roscamp,
of the 2nd Volunteer
Battalion Northum-
berland Fusilieraf
whose quarters are
at Walker, was
declared to be the
winner of the Hop
Bitters Jubilee Chal-
lenge Trophy of
£1,000 value, with £25
in money. At the
same meeting, Private
Edward Adams, the
veteran marksman of
CORPORAL BOSCAMP. Swal well, secured the
Wimbledon Cup, worth £100. The two volunteers who
had thus distinguished themselves were', on their return
to Newcastle on the 25th, received with demonstrations of
great enthusiasm.
—Cherry Fair, which had its origin in a charter granted
in 1310 by Anthony Bek, P'rince Bishop of Durham, was
held at Stockton.
— The Bishop of Durham laid the foundation stone of a
new Sunday School
and Institute for St.
Thomas's parish, in
Sussex Street, Sunder-
and.
21. — Mr. Augustus
Harris applied to the
Town Improvement
Committee of New-
castle Corporation for
the renewal of the
license to the Tyne
Theatre for the per-
formance of stage play s
fortwelve months, and
it was granted unani-
mously. During the
hearing of the applica-
tion, information was
received in Newcastle
that her Majesty the
Queen had conferred
the honour of knight-
hood upon Mr. Harris,
PKITATE E. ADAMS.
who is one of the sheriffs for London and Middlesex.
— The thousand-and-eighth anniversary of the parish
Church of Chester-le-Street was celebrated by special
services.
— The Rev. Dr. Bowman* Stephenson, President of the
Children's Home in London, and a native of Newcastle,
was elected President of the Wesleyan Conference at
Nottingham.
23.— William Burke, a butcher, was committed for trial
by the Berwick magistrates on the charge of having
wilfully murdered John Burns, a fellow-workman, at
Tweedmouth, on or about the 1st of August, 1882.
— The twin-screw steamer, Saratov, built by Messrs.
Hawthorn, Leslie, and Co., Limited, was launched from
the Hebburn shipbuilding yard in the presence of a large
gathering of spectators from Newcastle and district. The
vessel was an addition to the Russian Volunteer Fleet.
24.— Mr. Joseph Reed, jun., a native of New Bpnwell,
was appointed principal
tenor at Trinity College,
Cambridge University.
The candidates for the
post, which was com-
peted for before Pro-
fessor Villiers Stanford,
Mus. Doc., included
twenty - five vocalists
from all parts of Eng-
land and from Paris.
Mr. Reed was for some
1 time a member of the
choir of the Elswick
Road Wesleyan Cff apel,
and of the Church of
St. Thomas the Martyr,
Newcastle. At a later
period he secured the
position of tenor vocalist
in the choir of Canter-
bury Cathedral.
25. — Mrs. Ropner cut the first sod and laid the founcla-
HR. JOSEPH REED, JUN1.
September \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
431
tion stone of the principal lodge of the new park pre
sented to the borough of Stockton by her husband, Major
Ropner, of Preston Hall, in that town. The ground,
which is nearly 40 acres in extent, cost between £8,000
and £9,000.
— It was announced that the first anniversary of the
East London Hotspur Club, at the Cape of Good Hope,
had been celebrated by a banquet on the 12th of June.
—High Espley estate, near Morpeth, consisting of 327
acres, was purchased by Mr. E. M. Bainbridge, of Eshott
Hall, Northumberland.
26. — An appalling catastrophe occurred at the Friar's
Goose Chemical Works, near Gateshead. Shortly before
seven o'clock in the evening, when the night-shift men
had gone in to duty, four of the condensers suddenly
collapsed, burying the following seven workmen in the
ruins : — William Parkinson, aged 25 ; George Robertson,
47; William Heslop, 40; James McCaskin, 50; James
McTierman, 52 ; Henry Shorey, 45 ; and Robert Johnson,
EO. The whole of these were instantly killed, with
the exception of McCuskin, who was held fast between
two great slabs of stone, which imprisoned him tightly
without crushing him. The most strenuous efforts were
put forth with a view of rescuing him from his perilous
position, but, unhappily, without success, as the poor
fellow, after bearing his sufferings most manfully and
heroically for twelve hours, at last exclaimed "I'm done,"
and expired. The whole of the seven men who met with
so sad a fate were married, except Parkinson. As to the
cause of the accident, it was stated that the water had
been turned on to the tank, for the purpose of extinguish-
ing the fire which had canght the coke in one of the
condensing chambers below. Steam was thereby quickly
generated, and, not finding ready vent, was sufficient to
cause an explosion. This brought the centre condenser
down, and, the whole framework being loosened, the
others followed.
— Mrs. Annie Besant lectured on "Theosophy" in the
Nelson Street Lecture Room, Newcastle.
27. — A terrible fire broke out in the chemical depart-
ment of the Wear Fuel Works, South Docks, Sunderlancl,
resulting in the total destruction of that extensive estab-
lishment.
— At the twenty-third annual meeting in connection
with the Wellesley Training Ship, in Newcastle, under
the presidency of Mr. James Hall, it was resolved, by a
majority, to terminate the engagement of the commander.
Captain Ryder, owing to the friction which had latterly
prevailed between that gentleman and the committee,
but he was unanimously absolved from everything like a
charge of cruelty or excessive punishment in his govern-
ment of the boys.
28. — Mr. C. H. Leach was appointed clerk to the Dar-
lington Board of Guardians.
— On this and the following day, the twentieth annual
conference on Local Government Administration for the
four Northern Counties was held at Gilsland, under the
presidency of Mr. J. Lloyd Wharton, M.P.
29.— The Mayor of Newcastle(Mr. J.Baxter Ellis), enter-
tained a large company at a garden party in Jesmond Dene.
— The foundation stones of a new Wesleyan Chapel and
schools were laid at Tantobie.
— At the Central Criminal Court, London, whither the
venue had been transferred, Kdward Jloross, described as
a "medical electriciian, " pleaded guilty to indecently
assaulting IsabeDa Burner and Florence Crossling, at
Newcastle, and was sentenced to eight months' imprison-
ment with hard labour.
30. — In the playing off of the final tie between the Leazes
and Castle Leazes Bowling Clubs, in the Brandling Park,
the Cowen Challenge Cup was won by the Leazes Club.
— The annual festival of the North-Eastern Cathedral
and Church Choirs was held in Durham Cathedral.
— During a heavy squall, a diver named Elsdon was
drowned while proceeding in a boat from the wreck of the
Gothenburg City on St. Mary's Island to the mainland.
— Mr. James Joicey, M.P., laid the foundation stone
of St. Mary's District Church of St. Columba, Alexandra
Road, Gateshead.
31. — The discovery and restoration were announced of
the baptismal font, which had been long missing, belong-
ing to the Church of the Holy Cross, now in ruins, but ab
one time the parish church of Wallsend. Arrangements
were made by the Rev. James Henderson, vicar of Walls-
end, for the placing of the relic in the existing church of
St. Peter's. Mr. Henderson, it was also stated, had put
in a place of safety the stocks which for more than half a
century had stood unused and exposed to the weather
immediately within the gates of the cemetery adjoining
the parish church of St. Peter's.
— About this time great havoc was caused to the turnip
crops in various parts of the country by the diamond-back
moth caterpillar ; and the Board of Agriculture directed
an inquiry to be made in those districts, including North-
umberland and the Scottish Borders, where the pest was
most prevelant, with a view to the discovery of a remedy.
— The regiment of Northumberland Hussars, at the
conclusion of the annual ten days' training, was inspected
on the Town Moor by Colonel Duncombe.
— An entertainment was given in the Banqueting Hall,
Jesmond Dene, by the Norwegian and Swedish residents
in Newcastle, in honour of the visit of the officers of the
Norwegian warship Nornen.
AUGUST.
1.— A new passenger station was opened at Carville,
near Wallsend, on the riverside line of the North-Eastern
Railway.
— Mr. Thomas Stamp Alder, chemist, was returned to
the Newcastle City Council as member for North All
Saints' Ward, in the room of Mr. Thomas Bell, made an
alderman.
—His Excellency, Carlisle Bey, of Alexandria, one of
the chiefs of the Egyptian Government Railway, arrived
on a short visit to Tyneside.
2.— St. Jude's Church, Shieldfield, Newcastle, under
the charge of the Rev. Charles Digby Seymour, son of
the Recorder of Newcastle, was consecrated by the bishop
of the diocese.
— A new building was opened as a barracks for the
Salvation Army in Lambton Street, Sunderland.
3. — There was a general observance of Bank Holiday in
Newcastle and district.
— A horse procession was held, for the first time, in
Gateshead.
— The fifty-fourth show of the Tyneside Agricultural
Society was held at Hexham.
— A" religious-convention was held at Christon Bank, in
connection with the laying of the foundation stones of a
new Primitive Methodist Chapel at that place.
— A new place of entertainment, termed " The,People's
Palace," was opened in High Street West, Sunderlaud.
432
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/September
I 1891.
3. — A society was formed in Newcastle, under the title
of the Northumberland Baseball Association.
— During a severe thunderstorm, some damage was
done by lightning to St. Aidan's Church, BlackbilL
4. — Mr. J. D. Proud, solicitor. Bishop Auckland, was
elected coroner for the Darlington Ward of the County
of Durham.
5. — At a special meeting of the Newcastle City Council,
it was unanimously resolved to confer the honorary
freedom of the city on the Right Hon. William Ewart
Gladstone, " in recognition of his eminence as a man of
letters, and of the distinguished services he has rendered
to this country. "
— The result of the triennial election in connection with
the Benfieldside School Board — the first contest since the
constitution of the Board fifteen years ago — was declared,
the Rev. James Foran, parish priest, Blackhill, being at
the head of the poll.
— A very exciting and alarming tramway accident
occurred in Westgate Road, Newcastle. The horses
attached to an empty car became frightened, owing to the
breaking of one of the traces, and they dashed along at a
rapid rate. The pole snapped, and the horses became
detached from the vehicle. The car dashed at great
speed down Westgate Hill. At the corner of Cross
Street, it was pitched into Mr. Gibson's furniture shop,
opposite the Westgate Police Station. Several persons
were injured, and a little boy, named William Henderson,
9 years of age, was so severely crushed that he died shortly
afterwards in the Infirmary.
6. — It was announced that, in the course of the re-
arrangement of the Corporation books and documents at
Berwick-on-Tweed, there had been discovered the con-
firmation by the Long Parliament of King James's
Charter to Berwick. The document was dated 28th
January, 1649, old style.
— The Retributiou, a new cruiser for the British navy,
was launched from the Howdon yard of the Palmer
Shipbuilding and Iron Company. The christening
ceremony was performed by Mrs. Chadwick, wife of Mr.
J. O. Chadwick, a director of the company, West
Hampstead, London.
7. — At the half-yearly meeting of the North-Eastern
Railway Company, at York, a dividend of 6 per cent, per
annum was declared.
— A woman named Ann Hollands died in the New-
castle Workhouse from fever consequent on injuries
alleged to have been inflicted by her husband, John
Hollands, on the 18th of July.
8. — A schoolboy named John Thomas Gray, 11 years of
age, died at the Hospital, Hartlepool, from the effects of a
fall from a wooden horse on a steam roundabout, in the
High Street, in that town.
10.— The will of Mr. Matthew Kearney, J.P., late of
the Ford, Lanchester, Durham, was sworn, the value of
the personalty being £2,005 11s. 5d.
(general ©ccumnccjs.
JULY.
12. — A great review of volunteers was held at Wim-
bledon before the Emperor of Germany.
14. — The German Emperor's State visit to this country
was brought to a conclusion by Ins Majesty leaving Leith
en route for Norway.
15. — A native of Switzerland, named Eastioni, was
sentenced, at Zurich, to eight years' hard labour and
twelve years' deprivation of civil rights, for killing
State-Councillor Rossi during the Ticino revolt.
18.— A train of twenty-three waggons and two loco-
motives was precipitated over an embankment upon a
gang of men working in the Manchester Ship Canal.
Ten men were killed, and many others wounded. The
accident was caused by a pointsman, aged 17, who made
a mistake in manipulating the points. He was arrested,
but was afterwards discharged.
22. — The Prince of Naples arrived in London upon a
visit to England.
— It was announced that the Queen had conferred a
baronetcy upon the Lord Mayor of London, and a
knighthood upon Mr. Sheriff Farmer and Mr. Sheriff
Augustus Harris, in connection with the recent visit of
the German Emperor.
24. — The result of a Parliamentary election at Wisbech
was declared to be as follows : — The Hon. A. Brand
(Gladstonian Liberal), 3,979; Mr. S. W. Duncan (Con-
servative), 3,719.
26.— Death of Sir Charles Forster, Member of Parlia-
ment for Walsall, for which borough he had sat since
1852. Sir Charles married a daughter of Mr. John
Surtees, of Newcastle, and a niece of Lord Eldon.
— A fearful railway accident occurred at St. Mande\
France. While one train was leaving the station another
ran into it in the rear. Thirty-five people were killed,
and many others injured.
30. — Mrs. Turner was convicted at the Leeds Assizes
of being an accessory after the fact to the murder of a
child at Horsforth by her sou, and was sentenced to penal
servitude for life. Subsequently, Mr. Justice Grantbam
reduced the term of imprisonment to twelve months.
Next day the woman's son was sentenced to death for
having horribly murdered and mutilated the little girl,
Barbara Waterhouse.
AUGUST.
2.— A band of fifteen men attacked the barracks at
Barcelona. In the fight that ensued several men were
shot on both sides. The greater number of the aggressors
were arrested.
5. — The sixth session of ths twelfth Parliament of her
Majesty the Queen was prorogued.
— Police-constable Alfred Bradbury and Sergeant
Cottle were acquitted at the Winchester Assizes on a
charge of having committed perjury in giving evidence
against Alice Millard, whom they had charged with
being a disorderly person.
6. — A railway collision occured near Port Byron, U.S.
Eleven persons were killed, and nineteen others were
injured.
8. — A parachutist named Higgins was killed at Leeds.
Owing to his legs having become entangled in some tele-
graph wires, he was thrown from the balloon in which he
was ascending, striking a wooden barrier in his descent.
The unfortunate man died on the way to the hospital.
10.— The Venerable Gilbert Elliot, Dean of Bristol
died, aged 91.
Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling-on-Tyne.
Gbronicle
OF
NORTH-COUNTRY*LORE*AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 56.
OCTOBER, 1891.
PRICK Six
tfte Vftmtofctfttl, flittt fearattr, Itirrtt 0f War.
j|HE Danes have preserved many particulars
relating to the history of Northumberland
which are not to be found in Bede, the
Saxon Chronicle, William of Malmesbury,
Florence of Worcester, or any other original English
authority. Our national annals are, in fact, very
imperfect down to about the time of Alfred the Great;
indeed, we may say till the period of the Norman
Conquest. With regard to many important sections of
the country, we know very little of what actually took
place during several hundred years. Of the particular
incidents of the various Saxon invasions we are almost
quite ignorant. We know hardly anything of .the
conquest of Mid-Britain, and but little more of the
conquest of the North. Such narratives as have come
down to us are rather mythical than historical. They are
founded on fact, no doubt, but the fillinga-in are fable.
Beyond the lists of names of barbarous petty kings, in
many cases plainly and palpably forged, there are only a
few reliable incidents given. We have portents and
prodigies and miracles in great plenty, but all else is
blank. The Heptarchic Age is a time, therefore, in
which fanciful historians may revel at their own sweet
will.
Having premised this much, we shall proceed to relate,
from Danish popular tradition, a curious episode in the
history of Northumberland during these dark ages, of
which we find no trace in any of our old chroniclers, and
which, so far as absolute truth goes, is probably as re-
liable as the bulk of the British legends about King Arthur
and the Round Table, the German legends about the
Nibelunger, or the Spanish legends about the Cid. It
concerns a certain Princess Ada and her son Harald,
neither of whom, so far as we know, is mentioned at all
by the English writers.
Ada was the only child of a renowned Scandinavian
chief, Iver, the Wide-grasping, who, from the province of
Scania, of which he was a native, and over which his
father seems to have ruled, had extended his lordship not
only over the whole of Sweden, but over a great part of
Saxony, Courland, Esthonia, and other countries, and
likewise over Northumberland, of which he caused his
daughter to be proclaimed princess, she having been born
at Gyrwoe in that province of Britain, probably our
modern Jarrow. Ada, otherwise called O3da and Unna,
was the richest heiress in the North, and her hand was
naturally sought by a number of aspiring youths, to none
of whom, however, did she seem inclined to listen, while
her father was still more fastidious in his estimate of a
worthy wooer. There were two young Danish under-
kings, indeed, who might fairly claim a preference over
the rest, for political reasons, if for no other. These were
Rorik, surnamed Slingtie, and Helge, surnamed the
Sharp. Though full brothers, the pair • were very unlike
indisposition. For Rorik was a man of peace, while
Helge was a bold and hardy sea king, scouring the narrow
seas every season in search of wild adventures. Helge
had long courted Ada, and she would willingly have given
her hand to him ; but her scheming father would not
allow her to do so, because Helge had as yet no position.
At length he made Ada positively forbid Helge to come
into her presence, the very last thing she would have
done of her own accord ; and he artfully succeeded in
making the young man believe that it was the lady from
whom the objection came, not from himself, and that he
had done everything in his power, but in vain, to induce
28
434
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
J October
\ 1891.
her to marry him. Disheartened by this cruel rebuff,
Helge retired, being, with all his pirate-like daring, a very
modest man.
And now his brother Rorik, who was, as we have said,
of a quite different temperament, was advised by his
friends to pay his addresses to the coy princess. The
hint came originally from King Tver, who desired to have
for his son-in-law a person of whom he could more easily
make use for his own selfish purposes than Helge. Ada
was in nowise disposed to favour the elder brother's suit,
but it was her father's will and pleasure that she should
do BO, and she had no alternative but to obey. Rorik, on
his side, was too lymphatic, or too timid and bashful, to
go a-wooing personally, and the generous, self-denying
Helge offered to act as bis ambassador, and crossed the
sea in that capacity. Iver, the old dog, protested to
Helge that it was quite inconceivable to him how his
daughter could have come to prefer the less to the more
famous of the two brothers. But it was contrary to his
principles, and abhorrent to his sense of what was due to
feminine modesty, to interfere with the princess's inclina-
tions ; she was old enough to judge for herself, particularly
as she inherited so ample a share of her mother's power
as a wise woman as to have already got the surname of
" The Deep Thinker " or " The Thoughtful One."
But when the king spoke of more and less famous,
Helge only said :— "If my brother is less famous than I,
it is because he sits at home in peace and rules his people
like a father ; while I roam about the world, working all
sorts of mischief for my own pleasure : so I think be is
the wiser and better man of the two."
The preliminaries having been all duly settled, Helge
escorted Ada to her new home in Denmark, from her
father's palace. In the course of the voyage, mutual
explanations took place, and both Ada and Helge learned
with astonishment the nature of the trick that had been
played upon them. They felt heartbroken at the blank,
dreary prospect that lay before them, for they had truly
loved each other, and their affections had been most
cruelly trifled with. They remained, nevertheless, true
to their honour, though Ada was ready toinvoke-ourses
on the head of her mercenary, heartless parent, And Helge
could scarcely help suspecting that his brother was an
accomplice with Iver.
But the nuptials between Rorik and Ada were duly
solemnised, and the issue of their union wae one of the
greatest heroes the North ever produced, the -celebrated
Harald Hildetan. Harald was the handsomest boy that
ever was seen. He throve so well that in his third year
he was as tall, stout, and active as other lads were in their
tenth year.
In the following summer, King Iver began making a
tour through his dominions, and, calling at Zealand by
the way, on his route to West Gothland, he «ent a mes-
sage to Rorik's palace to inquire after his daughter, bis
son-in-law, and his grandson's health. Ada, knowing her
father's crafty turn, and suspecting he had pome sinister
motive, was anxious on her husband's account, when he
intimated his intention of going to the shores of the
Sound to have an interview with the old tyrant, who had
expressed a strong wish to see him. Being, as the reader
will recollect, a wise woman, or reimkennar, of the sort
personified by the author of " Waverley " in Norna of the
Fitful Head, she made ready with her own hands, on the
floor of a room in the palace, a new bed, with new sheets,
and on it she got her husband to lie down to rest, telling
him, at the same time, to take particular note of his
dreams, as from the nature and complexion of these she
would be able to read his fortune.
Rorik dreamed that he saw a noble hart quietly brows-
ing in a rich level meadow, and that a leopard sprang out
of the wood upon it, to make it its prey. But the hart
struck its horns into the ferocious beast, just behind the
shoulder, BO that it died. A great dragon thereupon
came flying through the air, seized hold of the hart with
its claws, and tore it to pieces. A she-bear stood near
with her cub, which the dragon would otherwise have
destroyed ; but the dam protected her offspring, and the
dragon was foiled. Finally, the dragon disappeared,
falling into the sea and perishing there. "These, "said
Ada, "are the evil spirits by which my father is pos-
sessed, contending with each other, and destroying him
in the end. But have a care, then, husband, how you
meet him. for the dream portends you no good."
Rorik set out with a great following to greet his father-
in-law, and after they had conferred with each other a
while, he courteously invited Iver to become his guest for
a few days. The old king, however, excused himself, on
the ground that pressing necessity called him to West
Gothland ; but, with deeply concocted villainy, he told
Rorik that his wife Ada was unfaithful to him, and that
Harald was not his, but Helge's son. He accordingly
advised him to divorce her, and turn the bastard out of
doors; or, at least, if he could not make up his mind to do
that, he ought certainly to avenge himself on his wife's
seducer and paramour. He would otherwise be branded
as a " niding" — the most contemptible of men. Iver then
proceeded on his voyage northwards, leaving Rorik writh-
ing as if stung by an adder, as one Scald expresses it.
Helge came home in the autumn from a long and suc-
cessful course, and Ada, to whom her husband had said
nothing on the subject of her alleged infidelity, made a
grand banquet in bis honour. The gallant sea king was
in capital spirits, but his sedate brother the reverse.
Helge urged Rorik to make merry along with his guests,
as the laws of hospitality demanded, and to drive away
dull care with ale and mead and dancing, as he was fain
to do himself. But the more urgently be pressed him the
more moody and sullen did he become. At length it was
resolved to get up a tournament, and in that Rorik con-
sented to take part. But whilst Helge innocently tilted
against him with a blunt spear, Rorik ran at his brother
October \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
435
furiously with a sharp-pointed lance and pierced him
through the heart, so that he fell off his horse dead.
No sooner had King Iver heard how well his wicked
plot had succeeded than he assembled his fighting men,
and told them what a horrid crime Rorik had committed,
and in what a dastardly fashion he had done the fratri-
cidal deed. He spoke eloquently of the frank, manly cha-
acter, gallant bearing, and glorious deeds of the murdered
hero, and contrasted his life and acts with those of the in-
dolent and listless Rorik. He asked them to help him to
avenge his friend Helge, who should, by rights, have been
his son-in-law. They followed him, as in fealty bound,
and Rorik was vanquished in the field, took ignominiously
to flight, and was killed during the pursuit by some one
who did not recognise his rank, but felled him from behind
with a mace.
Ada managed to raise some fresh troops, who made
head for a while against Tver's forces ; but, despairing of
ultimate success, she gathered all her treasures together,
and fled with her son to Norway, where, consulting her
interests rather than her inclinations, she married
Radbard, one of the petty kings who ruled over that
country.
On the other hand, Iver made himself master of the
whole of Denmark, which from the beginning had been
at the bottom of his hateful plans. He then fitted out
an expedition by sea against Radbard, his new son-in-
law, whom he accused of having married his daughter
without his consent. But while lying storm-bound in
a bay off the Swedish coast, he had a quarrel with
his foster-brother Hord, who, in a fit of ill-humour,
alluding to his insatiable greed of dominion, had com-
pared him to " the huge serpent, begotten of the devil,
which lies at the bottom of the ocean with its tail in
its mouth, encircling the whole earth, causing storms and
tempests, sucking in ships, and suffocating everything
that comes near it with the floods of rank venom which
it vomits forth." Hord stood on a cliff jutting out
into the sea. Iver sprang at him like a wild cat from
the lofty prow of his ship, the Great Dragon. They
caught each other by the throat, but both fell head-
long into the sea, which swallowed them up, and they
were never more heard of.
When Harald was fifteen years old, he enlisted under
the banner of Halfden the Strong, a hero whose name
is perpetuated in several localities on Tweedside, a dis-
trict more than once harried by him. Some authorities
will have it that Halfden was Harald's real father ;
but, however this may have been, it appears that Ada,
of whose second husband we hear no more, was pre-
sent during this campaign. For we are told that
when her son was sore wounded in a great battle in
which Halfden fell, she took him upon her back and
carried him off the field into a neighbouring wood,
where, in a humble cottage, she nursed him with great
care, and soon had him restored to health and strength.
It was the custom in those days for the Norse women to
accompany their fathers, husbands, or sons into the field
to serve as "leeches" and surgeons when there was
need — to probe, wash, and bind up their wounds — to
give them reviving medicated drinks— and generally to
minister to their wants.
But, if all tales be true, this was the last occasion en
which Ada would have any necessity to perform any such
service to her son. For Odin, whose sincere worshipper
the young hero was, and whose special favourite he
became, granted him, in response to his mother's prayers,
the gift of invulnerability, as Thetis did to Achilles.
Thenceforth, neither iron nor steel could harm him, so
that the weapons which were deadly to others played
harmlessly around him. No wonder, then, that he
devoted to Odin everyone whom he overcame in battle.
No wonder that his contemporaries gave him the surname
Hildetan, or Lord of the Battle Field. His marvellous
acts and deeds were recorded in many parts of Scan-
dinavia, and possibly also of North Britain, cut in runes
in the face of the living rock. He overran all Scania,
Zealand, and Jutland, and formed Denmark into a
united kingdom. He did all this — as well he might, con-
sidering Odin's miraculous gift to him — without helm or
hauberk, cuirass, or cuisse, habited only in a plain red
cloak, with a cap surmounted by an eagle's plume. He
also helped several of the under-kings of Norway, who
were always fighting amongst themselves, to beat their
enemies ; and after having restored several of them to
their dominions, he would accept of no fee or reward,
reckoning himself sufficiently paid with the eternal
honour he had won. Inspired by Odin, he cured his
soldiers of a dreadful epidemic disease, that threatened
to cut them all off when upon a long, weary march, the
god directing him to make use of a particular herb,
which grew in the damp meadows, and which acted as
a specific against the otherwise fatal distemper. This
valuable plant is said to have been the Pulicaria dysen-
tetica, or common flea-bane, with which, according to
Linneeus, Marshal Keith once cured the Russian army
of dysentery.
After returning from the Far North, Harald sailed up
the Elbe and Weser, and attacked the Frieslanders. He
then chased the Germans a considerable way up the
Rhine. Next he vanquished the Wends on the southern
shores of the Baltic. Subseqently, he invaded Aquitaine
or Southern Gaul. After that, he started for Britain,
from the mouth of the Garonne and JJoire, bent on vindi-
cating bis rights ; for the restless Northumbrians had risen
in rebellion, thrown off the Danish yoke, and chosen to
themselves a native king, of the Anglian race, whom,
however, Harald very soon dethroned. Then, crossing the
Firth of Forth, which was the northern boundary of his
English dominions, he marched through Fife, Angus, the
Mearne, Buchan, Moray, and back, ravaging with fire
and sword, to make ample reprisals for the assistance
436
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/October
1891.
which the Pictish king had given the turbulent Northum-
brians.
The story goes that he afterwards sailed over once more
to Gaul, where his arms were everywhere successful, and
that, not content with these wonderful exploits, he
marched across the Alps into Italy, where he never drew
bridle till he had reached Rome. Thus did he subdue, 'say
the veracious Scalds or ballad-singers, all the countries
and kingdoms from the North Sea to the Mediterranean,
so that every one of them paid him scot and tribute for
fifty years; for so lone did his reign last, after be had
overcome the whole of his enemies round about.
During the latter part of his reign, he dwelt in perfect
peace ; but, in order to keep his men from becoming
effeminate, through want of exercise in active warfare, he
required them to be constantly drilled in the uae of
sword, spear, and mace. And they are said to have
grown so expert through these exercises as to be able to
shave the hair off each other's eyebrows with their sharp
weapons, without grazing the skin. And if any one
winked or blinked when this delicate operation was being
performed he was forthwith hooted out of the ranks as a
poltroon and coward.
Such is great part of the staple of the history of the
Middle Ages — the raw material out of which the Turners,
Kembles, Palgraves, Thorpes, and others, have en-
deavoured to construct a reliable chain of facts. It was
not the object of the Scalds, be it remembered, to record
what they knew or believed to be true, but rather to
relate what- was likely to be agreeable to their auditors.
Hence these romances, exaggerating the exploits of reul
heroes, and, in default of real heroes, inventing fictitious
ones. W. B.
ti* <&a4tielivt ffitnbilU,
jjtJRING the reign of the unhappy Edward
II., the disorders of the times, from foreign
wars and intestine dissensions, but, above
all, the cruel famines, recurring almost
every year, which forced the nobility to dismiss many
of their armed retainers, increased the number of
robbers in the kingdom to such a degree that no place
was secure from their incursions.
Among the desperadoes who flourished at this period,
one of the most reckless and daring was Sir Gosselin
Denville, of whom we find a long account in Johnson's
"Lives of the Highwaymen." This man was descended
from very honourable parents at Northallerton, in the
North Riding of Yorkshire, whose ancestors had come
into England with William the Conqueror, receiving
from him lands in that quarter for their services.
Young Gosselin was intended for the priesthood, and
for that purpose was sent to St. Peter's College, Cam-
bridge, which had just lately been founded by Hugh
de Balsham, Bishop of Ely. Here he prosecuted his
studies for some time with great assiduity and seeming
warmth, but merely, as it turned out, to please his
father, until he should get possession of his fortune ;
for immediately on the old man's death, he left the
university and gave up all idea of taking orders, plung-
ing into a course of dissipation, licentiousness, and
luxury, which soon reduced him to penury.
The natural resource of a broken spendthrift of spirit
in those days was to take to the congenial vocation of
Robin Hood and Friar Tuck. This was what young
Denville accordingly did. It would not have served his
purpose, however, to go out alnne on foraging expeditions,
so he found means to associate himself with one of the
many robber bands which were the terror of the country.
The chief under whom he enlisted was Sir John
Middleton, of Belsay, a Northumbrian baron, who, with
his brother, Sir Gilbert, and Sir Walter Selby, of
Biddleston, had -leagued themselves together, ostensibly
for mutual defence, but really to prey upon their
neighbours as freebooters. They went so far as to
disclaim the king's authority, and managed to get into
their possession all the castles in Northumberland, except
Alnwick, Bamborough, and Norham. They likewise
made an incursion into the county of Durham, at the
time when Lewis Beaumont was travelling northward
to be installed as Lord Bishop in the cathedral city, on
the high festival of St. Cuthbert's translation (4th
September, 1317). The prelate had naturally thought
that it would add to the magnificence of the ceremony
if he were to receive consecration from the hands of
two cardinals, Gaiiselinus and Lucas, who had been
sent into this country by the Pope to mediate a
peace between England and Scotland, and to terminate
the differences then on foot between Edward II.
and the Earl of Lancaster; and he therefore chose
to travel in their company, his brother, Lord Henry
Beaumont, making one of the party. At Darlington,
they were warned by a messenger from the prior of
Durham that the road was beset by marauders ; but the
notice was treated with neglect and suspicion, as the high
rank and sacred dignity of the bishop-elect, the cardinals,
and their escort, seemed to place danger at defiance.
A few hours, however, showed that the warning had been
well-timed. At Rushyford, about half-way between
Darlington and Durham, where the road crossed a small
and sullen rivulet, in a sequestered spot, well calculated
for surprise and the prevention of escape, the bishop and
his companions suddenly found themselves enveloped
in a, cloud of light horsemen, under the command
of Sir Gilbert Aliddleton, who robbed the cardinals
and their attendants of all their valuables, and carried
off the bishop and his brother to Mitford Castle, of
which (says Robert de Graystones, the historian of the
Church of Durham) Middleton was the keeper, not the
October 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
437
proprietor. The cardinals had their horses returned to
them, and were suffered to proceed on their journey to
Durham, so that they might use their influence with
the monks to raise a sufficient sum for the ransom of the
distinguished prisoners, which having been raised, and
duly forwarded to the freebooters, they were released.
But Middleton's career was soon afterwards cut short.
He was surprised in his own castle by Ralph Lord
Greystoke, William Felton, Thomas Hetton, Robert
Horncliff, and others, carried to London, and there,
in the presence of the cardinal-legate, hanged, drawn,
and quartered.
Middleton's followers, however, were neither dismayed
nor dispersed. Some of them ranged themselves under the
banner of Walter Selby, who held the little fortress
of Horton ; others seem to have followed the fortunes of
Sir Gosselin Denville, who had left the company of the
Northumbrian chiefs in consequence of some difference
between him and them with regard to the sharing of the
booty, and had moved away to the southward, putting,
says one authority, "the whole country into a terrible
panic, for the great number of persons of whom his gang
was composed enabled them to defy the laws and every-
thing else." "What they could not obtain on the
highway they sought for in houses, monasteries, churches,
and nunneries, which were rifled without any distinction,
and the most valuable and sacred things carried off.
Persons were murdered in their houses, when their goods
might have been taken without causing bloodshed ; so
that killing or doing havoc rather looked like sport or
pastime with these desperadoes." Tom Shad well's play,
called "The Libertine," published in 1676, is said to
have been founded, so far as regards its main plot, on
Denville's adventures.
It is related that one day the knight and his associates
chanced to meet, on the road between Marlow and
Henley-on-Thames, with a Dominican monk named
Andrew Symson, whom they obliged not only to
deliver up to them what little gold he had, but
also to climb up into a tree, and preach them
a sermon, which we are told he did with a great deal
of judgment and good sense. He took his text from
Luke's Gospel, where the account is given of a certain
man who went down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell
among thieves ; and if any dependence is to be placed
on the alleged verbatim report of the discourse, which ia
said by Johnson, who gives it at length, to have been
taken from a broadsheet in the Bodleian Library, a
sounder, wittier, and every way better homily can scarcely
ever have been delivered under such trying circumstances.
It was so well received, at any rate, by Sir Gosselin and
his associates, that they not only returned the monk their
thanks for the excellent sermon he had made, but gave
him back all the money they had taken from him, and,
in addition, made a collection for his benefit, and suffered
him to depart in peace.
Another time, we are told, the gang were determined
to see what the rich Bishop of Durham could afford
them by way of entertainment. Accordingly, they got
into his palace, which they rifled from top to bottom.
And, not content with the spoil they found, they bound
the right reverend prelate and his servants hand and foot,
while they went down into the cellar, where they drank
as much wine as they could well digest, and then let the
rest run out of the barrels : after which they departed,
"leaving the ecclesiastic to call upon God to deliver him
in his necessities." It must have been Bishop Beaumont
who was thus wantonly despoiled, though we do not find
the fact mentioned in any of the diocesan histories.
Beaumont was, says the Rev. J. L. Low, "plainly one of
whom the church of Durham has no reason to be proud."
He was a weak, vain man, very obstinate and masterful,
and so ignorant of Latin that, at his consecration, though
for many days previously he had been learning his lesson,
he could not read his profession of obedience. When, by
dint of prompting, he had with difficulty come to the
word "metropeliticse," he came to a stand, and finished
by saying in French, seyt pur dite — " Let it be under-
stood for said." Bystanders were aghast at such a man
being Bishop of Durham. Afterwards, at an ordination,
when he came to the words, " in senigmate," and could not
pronounce them, he burst out with Par Scynt Lewis, il ne
fue pas curlcys qui c'est parole id escrit — "By St. Lewis,
be wanted courtesy who wrote that word here." So it can
have been no great sacrilege to empty his lordship's cellar.
But Sir, Gosselin was noways indisposed to fly at higher
game than a lord bishop with palatine jurisdiction, even
though the prelate was nearly related to the Royal
families of both France and England. One of his last
and most daring exploits is said to have been to stop the
king himself upon the highway, as his Majesty was
making a progress through East Anglia, accompanied by
Ins nobles. Putting himself and his whole gang into
priests' habits, he drew up to the Royal party near Nor-
wich, and when the king halted to hear what the seem-
ingly reverend father had to say to him, the disguised
knight, after making a low obeisance, told his Majesty
that he was not come to discourse about religious matters,
but on a secular affair, which was that he should lend him
and his needy brothers what money he had about him ;
otherwise, added he, not all the indulgences he could
obtain from the Pope should save him from being exposed
to a very hard and rigid penance. The king, having
but about forty to attend him, was obliged to sur-
render—nay, be content to look on while his noble-
men's pockets were searched ; after which Sir Gosselin
and his associated left them to perform the remaining
part of their progress in peace. What amount of truth
there may be in this story we do not know ; but cer-
tainly it is characteristic of those troublous times, when
no man durst take a journey, or appear on the roads,
without having a strong escort.
438
MONTHL Y CHRONICLE.
/October
I 1891.
The impudent robbery of King Edward, however,
could not well pass unnoticed. Proclamations were
forthwith issued, and considerable rewards promised,
for the apprehension of any of the persons concerned
in it, dead or alive ; and, in less than six months,
above sixty of the gang were captured, mostly by
stratagem. Sir Gosselin himself did not long escape.
There was a tavern in a by-place in Yorkshire to
which he frequently went, " not so much for the
liquors there, as the beauty of the woman of the
house " ; and the husband at first connived at the
intimacy between the landlady and the knight,
" through a notion that his dignified customer and
the company he brought to his house would be
of considerable advantage to his trade." But,
"beginning too late to think himself injured by Sir
Gosselin and his wife pursuing their love intrigues,"
Boniface resolved to betray him to the authorities. He
therefore informed the sheriff of the county how Sir
Gosselin might be apprehended with little difficulty at
his house, provided he came that night. The sheriff
rejoiced at the opportunity. Knowing that the knight
and his associates were men of desperate fortunes, he
mustered a strong force of men-at-arms, with which he
surrounded the tavern about midnight, while the
desperadoes were revelling over their cups. No
sooner did they become aware of the predicament they
were in, however, than they stood stoutly on the
defence, and the issue was a good while doubtful, for
desperation inspired them to tight like lions at bay.
Several fell on both sides, the assailants, as was natural,
being the greatest sufferers ; but, fresh enemies coming
up and pouring in upon the bandits, they were by-and-by
hemmed in on every side and obliged to surrender.
The sheriff, exasperated at losing so many of his men,
took care to put the captive knight and three-and-twenty
of his companions, who were made prisoners at the same
time, under a very strong guard. These were safely con-
ducted to York, where, without any trial or other pro-
ceedings held upon them, they were executed, " to the joy
of thousands, gentle and simple, who waited upon them
to the gallows-tree, triumphing at their ignominious exit.'
i?0rtft=€0ttntvD (Sarlaittt
at
MY LOVE HAS 'LISTED.
VERY old ditty, and a favourite with the
peasantry in every part of England, but
more particularly in the mining districts of
the North, is that which is here printed. It
first appeared in a volume of ballads published by the
Percy Society, edited by Mr. J. H. Dixon, to whom it
was communicated by his brother, Mr. R. W. Dixon, of
Seaton Carew, Durham. The tune is very pleasing, and
the frequent repetitions of the first four syllables in the
seventh line in every verse produce a singular and some-
what amusing effect when sung in chorus, as here marked
in the melody.
Sulo.
=g=
— *— — +=-
It was one sum - mer's morn • ing. As
cross. They kind - ly did in - vite me
[L
•
* 9.
ff
» • F j
2
1
flow
f1^
ing
— •-
howl, and
Chorus
-f rV-
-h
down The\ ac
Soio
"
m-^-
— y-
— • —
•I
4-
-J -N 1-, —
/ •
vane • ed They ad • vane - ed They ad-
Chorus to end
p \ ^,
^ J J
X 1 -•-
"t/
vane •
ed TAei/ od
• • •
— > /-
uanc - ed They
0
ad-
— N — j
^>— -y —
1 P P
f X ^
1 f—
=«=^
vane
~&i .
- ed me some
mon • ey —
ten
^ -N
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H — ?==£
=j=3 —
^ — n
up
i •
1]
t'uin - eas and a crown.
" It was one summer's morning,
As I went o'er the moss,
I had no thought of 'listing,
Till the soldiers did me cross.
They kindly did invite me
To a flowing bowl, and down
They advanced me some money —
Ten guineas and a crown. "
" It's true my love has 'listed ;
He wears a white cockade ;
He is a handsome young man.
Besides a roving blade.
He is a handsome young man,
And he's gone to serve the king.
Oh/ my very heart is breaking,
All for the loss of him.
" My love is tall and handsome
And comely for to see,
And by a sad misfortune
A soldier now is he.
I hope the man that 'listed him
May not prosper night nor day,
For I wish that the Hollanders
May sink him in the sea.
October 1
189L J
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
439
"Oh ! may he never prosper.
Oh ! may he never thrive,
Nor anything he takes in hand,
As long as he's alive !
May the very grass he treads upon
The ground refuse to grow.
Since he's been the only cause
Of my sorrow, grief, and woe !"
' Then he pulled out a handkerchief
To wipe her flowing eyes —
" Leave off these lamentations.
Likewise those mournful cries ;
Leave off your grief and sorrow
While I march o'er the plain ;
We'll be married, we'll be married
When I return again."
"Oh ! now my love has 'listed,
And I for him will rove ;
I'll write his name on every tree
That grows in yonder grove.
Where the huntsman he does hollow,
And the hounds do sweetly cry,
To remind me of my ploughboy
Until the day Idle."
girutft
at
JlETER M'CLOUD was a native of Shields.
His father, a poor man of Scotch origin, a
sailor, took him up to London while he was
quite a child, and, dying a short time afterwards, left the
boy to the care, or, perhaps more properly speaking, to
the neglect of his mother, who was a woman of very
doubtful character in several ways, having amongst other
phases of ill reputation that of encouraging young lads in
the practice of theft. In brief, Mrs. M'Cloud was a
female Fagan.
In the number of her hopeful prote^s was a youth
named Younger, a year or two older than her son Peter.
The two lads were bosom companions, and it was their
habit to prowl about in the neighbourhood of Wapping
and Shadwell every night in the week on the look-out for
drunken ship captains. At length M'Cloud engaged
himself on board one of the colliers trading to Newcastle,
and while he was away in the North, Younger quarrelled
with the old woman, and accused her of having been the
receiver of stolen goods. In consequence of this, Mrs.
Younger was apprehended and brought to trial, but the
evidence being defective, she was discharged. Ou
M'Cloud's return from his voyage, a week or two after-
wards, he of course learned in what manner his mother
had been treated by Younger, and he made the most
solemn vow of taking vengeance on him whatever might
be the consequences.
That he might effect the rain of his old companion in
iniquity, he surrendered himself to a magistrate, and
gave information that himself and Younger had been con-
cerned in a robbery. On this, the latter was soon taken
into custody, and committed to Newgate, M'Cloud being
admitted as evidence for the Crown against his assumed
accomplice. But at the ensuing sessions M'Cloud was
unable to give anything like positive evidence against his
former friend, who was consequently acquitted, and the
scheme of revenge fell to the ground.
One would naturally have expected, after this, that the
two young men would have been thenceforth bitter
enemies. But this was not the case. Instead of shunning
each other, or trying to do each other more mischief, they
soon renewed their former connection, and in company
with five or six other boys, younger than themselves,
formed a sort of confraternity of pickpockets, in which
profession they for some time met with too much success.
Their thefts were of the lowest kind, being principally
confined to the stealing of handkerchiefs, and when they
chanced to be detected, as often happened, they were
usually dismissed after undergoing a sousing in the horse-
pond, or, at the worst, receiving the statutory whipping.
Had any of their thefts exceeded the value of twelve-
pence, so as to take the offence out of the category of
petty larceny, and put it into that of grand larceny, they
would, under the statute 9 Henry I., have been liable to
be hanged by the neck till they were dead, for the law
was very strict in old days.
At length, soaring above the comparatively mean art
and science of pocket-picking, this gang of young
scoundrels determined to commence housebreaking, for
which they were well qualified, not so much by their
physical strength as by their Arab-like acuteuess. They
furnished themselves with a variety of tools, proper for
wrenching window shutters open, and making their way
through locked doors. Occasionally, in the way of
business, the young burglars would clamber over roofs —
enter at the garret windows of houses, which are hardly
ever secured inside — remove, if necessary, a tile or slate
or two, and descend to the lower rooms to commit their
robberies, letting themselves quietly out into some back
street by drawing a yard door bolt or picking a common
eighteenpenny lock. At other times they would enter
through any small opening that bad been left unguarded,
and a ferret-like instinct seemed to lead them to find out
such unconsidered openings. When one or two of the
most diminutive of them had got into a house, they used to
steal softly downstairs and open the door for their as-
sociates. Sometimes only a part of the gang went in, and
the rest waited outside, some little distance off, to prevent
detection from the arrival of any casual passenger. But
there was no gas in London or anywhere else a hundred
years ago, and nobody to guard the streets of the great
metropolis but the drowsy old watchmen, and what with
the comparative darkness, even when there was no fog,
and the absence of police surveillance, the London
burglars of the eighteenth century had no bad time of it,
and ran but small risk of capture.
The depredations of M'Cloud and his gang were
chiefly confined to Ratcliffe Highway and its low
neighbourhood, near where the London Docks were
440
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/October
I 1891.
subsequently constructed, and a great number of
householders thereabouts were sufferers by their
robberies, one or more of which occurred almost
every week. At length three of the robbers, of whom
M'Cloud was one, made an inroad into Poplar, then a
detachedisouth-eastern suburb ; and there they broke open
the house of Mr. Joseph Hankey, in the dead of night.
The inmates were alarmed and M'Cloud was captured.
On the following day he was carried before the magis-
trate, who committed him to Newgate, and at the next
sessions held at the Old Bailey he was brought to trial,
capitally convicted, and sentenced to death.
The execution took place at Tyburn on the 27th of
May, 1772, the culprit at that time being less than
sixteen years of age.
JlBOUT a mile to the east of the historic old
town of Richmond, and in a delightful
situation close to the river Swale, are the
ruins of the Abbey of Saint Agatha,
commonly called Easby Abbey. The remains are
considerable ; but, owing to the action of the river and
other reasons, it is feared that some of the southern
portion of the edifice will soon fall to the ground. When
the Swale is in flood, the rushing water causes erosion of
the banks, and it is not improbable that the foundations
of the abbey have been affected.
The artist and antiquary find much to interest them at
Easby. The former is attracted by the picturesque sur-
roundings, the warm tint of the old walls, and the general
grouping of the buildings, with the foliage and rising
distance. A noble landscape is presented from a point near
the turn of the river to the east, in which the old mill is
included and the abbey walls are reflected in the glassy
water. The antiquary will spend many a profitable hour
within the shadow of the crumbling temple. Not un-
likely the old Norman arch in the cloister court will be
the first object that he scans with his critical eye. He
will then proceed to examine the refectory, with its lovely
window in the Decorated style of Gothic architecture ;
then the old Saxon doorway ; and numerous other objects
of archaeological interest. The venerable tree known as
the Abbot's Elm is credited with having afforded shelter
to the monks from the burning rays of the sun in the
warm summer time.
October!
1691. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
441
The history of Easby Abbey is uneventful. Founded
by Roald, Constable of Richmond Castle, about 1152, it
•was in course of erection during the building of the great
keep that so proudly rears its head to the west, and the
sight of which would always inspire the monks with a
sense of security. About the middle of the sixteenth
century Lord John Scrope was "received as the very true
and undoubted founder." The Scrope family rebuilt in a
style of great magnificence many portions of the abbey,
and bequeathed rich endowments. When the abbey was
surrendered in 1535, Robert Bampton, elected in 1511,
was the abbot. The site was granted to Lord Scrope of
Bolton for twenty years at an annual rent of £283 13s.
lid. In 1557 it was conveyed by the Crown to Ralph
Gower, of Richmond, for £660 3s. Id., the tenure in chief
for knight's service. When his son was attainted for high
treason, the estates were confiscated by the Crown. In
the time of Queen Elizabeth and James I., we find that
the abbey was again in the hands of the Scropes. Within
the present century it was purchased for a sum of about
£45,000 by a wealthy gentleman.
The two drawings, which are reproduced from photo-
graphs taken by Messrs. Valentine and Sons, 152, Perth
Road, Dundee, represent an interior portion of the abbey
and the Norman arch.
at ^Carfe 'fttot^t
antr
THE NORMAN ARCH, EASBY ABBEY.
Jmmtrel Hammonb, p.p.,
AN EMINENT PURITAN DIVINE.
MONG the notable preachers that came to
Newcastle during the Commonwealth Dr.
Samuel Hammond occupies a conspicuous
place. Calamy, in the "Nonconformist's
Memorial," states thas he was born at York, and edu-
cated at King's College, Cambridge, where he was
servitor to Dr. Collins, Regius Professor of Divinity,
" who heartily loved a wit, and could not endure a dull
genius about him." By the Earl of Manchester's interest
he obtained a fellowship in Magdalen College. "He
began to preach in the neighbouring church of St. Giles,
with such pious zeal, pungency, and Christian experience,
that his ministry was attended by persons from all parts
of the town, and from the most distant colleges ; and it
was crowned with the conversions of some scores (Mr.
Stancliff says some hundreds) of scholars. He was drawn
from thence by Sir Arthur Haselrigge, with whom
he went cnaplain into the North. There he was,
at first, minister at Bishop's- Waremouth, and from
thence was invited by the members of Dr. Jenni-
son's church at St. Nicholas's, in Newcastle, to
assist the Dr., who was disabled, with a design to
chuse him pastor on the Dr.'s decease. But he (for
some reasons) not chusing that, continued only lec-
turer there till some time after the Restoration. "
The biographer of Ambrose Barnes tells us that
" Mr. Hammond was a butcher's son of York, but
raised the meanness of his birth by the eminency of
his qualifications, having lived long in the Uni-
versity of Cambridge. Afterwards he was col-
league with Mr. Weld of Gateside, adjoining to
Newcastle. He married Mr. Justice Ogle's daugh-
ter, of Eglingham, a person of pious memory."
These extracts, from Puritan authorities, ehow
the position which Mr. Hammond occupied up to
the time of his arrival in Newcastle, and reveal the
tie which afterwards bound him to the North of
England — marriage with a Northumbrian lady.
Bishopwearmouth Rectory, vacant during the
Civil War by the flight or ejection of Christopher
Sherwood, had been bestowed upon a Puritan
Master of Arts named William Johnson. Mr.
Hammond was Johnson's successor, and he appears
to have entered into possession of the living in the
slimmer of 1651, for, on the 19th of August in that
year— the rectors being lords of the manor— he
held his court there. His stay at Bishopwearmouth
442
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/October
I 1891.
was brief. Dr. Jenison, who bad been recalled from
exile and appointed Vicar of Newcastle by resolution of
the House of Commons on the 5th December, 1644, was
in weak health, and the congregation of St. Nicholas', as
Calamy correctly states, invited Mr. Hammond to trans-
fer his services from the Wear to the Tyne. He must
have left Bishopwearmouth soon after the Christmas of
1651, for, on the 8th of March following, his name is
attached to a letter which the ministers of Newcastle
wrote to Cromwell, complaining of Arminian and Sociuiun
doctrines, promulgated in the town by Captain Everard,
of the garrison. On the 5th of November, 1652 (Dr.
Jenison died the day following), the Corporation of New-
castle appointed him to preach at Nicholas' Church
("St." omitted) on Sunday forenoons, and all other
solemn days, as occasion required, and to lecture on
Thursday forenoons. It had been intended, as Calamy
states, that he should succeed Dr. Jenison as vicar, but
the Corporation had not the gift of the vicarage, and
although they applied for a grant of it, their wishes do
not appear to have been gratified. There was no "vicar "
of Newcastle after Dr. Jenison's death till the Restora-
tion. Mr. Hammond held the position of chief pastor, at
a salary of £150 per annum (£10 more than Dr. Jenison
received), with Cuthbert Sydenham at £100 and William
Durant at £80 a year as afternoon lecturers.
About the time of his appointment at St. Nicholas", an
event occurred which brought Mr. Hammond into con-
siderable prominence. One Thomas Ramsay arrived in
Newcastle from Hamburg, and assuming the name of
Joseph Ben Israel, and the character of a converted
Rabbi, imposed upon Mr. Tillam, preacher to a congre-
gation of Baptists at Hexham. The Baptists were a new
denomination, and their conversion of a man who pro-
fessed to know eight languages, and to be a Jew of the tribe
of Judah, made some noise. Mr. Tillam published a
twelve-page tract on the subject, entitled : —
"The Converted Jew ; or, the Substance of the Declara-
tion and Confession, which was made in the Publique
Meeting House at Hexham, the 4 Moneth, the 5 Day,
1653. By Joseph Ben Israel. Printed at Gateside, by S.
Certain circumstances, the details of which may be read
in Longstaffe's appendix to the "Memoirs of Ambrose
Barnes,"led Mr. Hammoud and his colleagues in the New-
castle ministry to suspect that " Ben Israel" was a cheat.
Taking active measures to investigate his history, they
were able to prove, and at length made him confess, his im-
posture. Thereupon Mr. Hammond, with Mr. Weld, the
Puritan minister at Gateshead Church, issued a pamphlet
with the long-drawn title of : —
A False Jew; or A Wonderful Discovery of a Scot,
Baptised at London for a Christian, Circumcised at Rome
to act a Jew, re-baptized at Hexham for a Believer, but
found out at Newcastle to be a Cheat. Being true
Relation of the Detecting of one Thomas Ramsey, born of
Scotch parents at London, sent lately from Rome by a
Speciall Unction and Benediction of the Pope, who landed
at Newcastle, under the name of Thomas Horsley, but
immediately pave himself out for a Jew by the name of
Rabbi Joseph Ben Israel, Mant. Hebr., soon after baptized
at Hexham, by Mr. Tillam, and by a speciall provi-
dence of God, found out by the Magistrates and Ministers
of Newcastle upon Tine to be an Impostour and Emissary
of Rome, and since sent up to the Generall and Councell
of State to be further enquired into. Printed for William
London, Book-seller in Newcastle, 1653.
Having thrown this bombshell into the ranks of the
Baptists, Mr. Hammond assisted his fellow-ministers to
heave a missile at another rising sect — that of the
Quakers. In a pamphlet dated 1653, and re-issued the
following year, with the title of "The Perfect Pharisee,
&c.," the Newcastle preachers, and Mr. Weld, of Gates-
head, attacked the doctrines of the Quakers, " from their
own words and writings," with "full proofs of their
asserting of those doctrines," and "arguments for the dis-
covery of their unsound ness," While the excitement
created by the publication of these tractates was at its
height, on the 24th of February, 1653-54, Mr. Hammond
received from the Corporation the appointment of Master
of the Mary Magdalen Hospital, in succession of his col-
league at St. Nicholas'— Cuthbert Sydenham. Before it
died away, Sydenham, who had retired to London, " to
gain health, and print some of his books," was suddenly
called to his reward, and the thoughts of his coadjutors in
Newcastle were diverted from Baptists and Quakers into
a new channel. Collecting together seven of his sermons,
and prefixing a portrait of the dead preacher, they issued
in 1654 :—
Hypocrisie Discovered in its Nature and Workings.
Delivered in Several Sermons By That faithfull Minister
of the Gospel], Mr. Cuthbert Sidenham, Late Teacher to
a Church of Christ in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
On the 15th of May, 1657, the Lord Protector granted
letters patent for founding and endowing a college at
Durham out of the wreck of the bishopric, and among the
first visitors of the college, ninety in number were local
ministers in the following order : — Samual Hammond,
Newcastle ; Thomas Weld, Gateshead ; William Cole
and William Durant, Newcastle ; Richard Gilpin, Grey-
stock ; Thomas Trewren, Ovingham ; Richard Prideaux,
Newcastle ; and Henry Leaver, Brancepeth. These and
their colleagues, were to hold office for two years only,
but out of their number a body of eleven "constant"
visitors were nominated, and among them were Ham-
mond, Leaver, and Trewren. In each list precedence
among the clerical members is given to Mr. Hammond,
who was evidently regarded as the chief minister in the
bishopric.
Little more remains to be written. Within three years
of the founding of Durham College king and bishop re-
turned to their inheritance, and the reign of the Puritans
came to an end. What became of Mr. Hammond from
the Restoration to the passing of the Act of Uniformity in
1662 is not recorded. Durant, as we know, was " silenced"
midway between the two events ; Hammond, when the
Act was passed, in 1662, " desired he might leave without
suspension." He did not wait for the new law to come
October 1
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
443
into operation, but at midsummer, sailed for Hamburg,
"invited," writes Calamy, "by a society of merchants to
be their preacher" in that city. A Bible belonging to
him, long preserved at Bishopwearmoutb, contains a few
MS. notes of his departure :— " I came from N. Castle
July 14, 1662, and set saile for Hamburg the 16th, 1662,
and arrived, through the good hand of God upon me,
July 24, 1662. My wife and children set saile the 30th
of August, and arrived through the same providence at
Hambrough, Sept 5, 1662." Even there he was not free
from persecution. "We here at Hamburg," wrote a
correspondent of Ambrose Barnes, " are called with you
to be partakers of the sufferings of Christ. Mr. Ham-
mond, at the malitioua instigation of some among us, is,
by the magistracy, forbid to preach even in his own
house." From Hamburg he went to Stockholm, and
from thence to Dantzic. But England was the place of
his desires, and thither he returned in 1665, taking up his
abode at Hackney, among some merchants with whom he
had been abroad, and there he preached occasionally, in
his own and other families, till he died in the year 1666.
SHje flerj. ©eorge $)arrij5,
UNITABIAN MINISTER,
One of the oldest Nonconformist congregations in New-
castle— that which worships in the Church of the Divine
Unity — has had the merit, or the good fortune, of
attracting to its pastorate several men of exceptional
ability, learning, and influence. Yet in the pastoral
roll of that congregation there ia not to be found a single
name of local origin. Every one of its ministers, from
the illustrious physician who practically founded the
church to the gifted lecturer who at present occupies its
pulpit, has come hither from beyond the Tyne.
George Harris, who is said to have been a blood
descendant of Oliver Cromwell, was a native of Kent.
At Maidstone, in that county, where his father officiated
as a Unitarian minister for forty years, he was born in
May, 1794. His education was superintended by his
father, who, knowing how precarious was the income and
the standing of a heterodox preacher, contemplated
bringing him up to a commercial life. Accordingly, at
the age of fourteen, he was sent into a business office
to learn bookkeeping and to qualify himself for a
mercantile career. The choice of his parents, however,
was not his. He wanted to be a Unitarian minister,
and the time came when his desires could not be
repressed. Reluctantly yielding to his wishes, his father
removed him from the clerkship, gave him some little
college preparation at the University of Glasgow, and set
him out, in his eighteenth year, as a lay preacher. After
he had worked his probationary period in the capacity of
Missionary of the Lancashire and Cheshire Unitarian
Christian Association, the congregation worshipping in
Renshaw Street, Liverpool, gave him his first settle-
ment as a pastor. His next appointment was at Bolton
in Lancashire, and, in 1825, he entered upon what
proved to be a long pastorate in Scotland.
The Unitarian congregation in Newcastle, of which,
in 1845, Mr. Harris was invited to take pastoral charge,
represented for the most part the intellectual and
literary life of the town. Among its members were
James Losh, barrister, and afterwards County Court
judge ; Hugh Lee Pattinson, the famous chemist ; James
Hodgson (afterwards alderman and mayor) and his
brother Thomas, proprietors of the Newcastle Chronicle ;
James Clephan, editor of the Gateshead Observer; W,
A. Mitchell, proprietor and editor of the Tyne Mercury ;
Alderman Thomas Bell, of the firm of Losh, Wilson,
and Bell, and his partners W. S. Losh, and Thomas
Wilson, author of "The Pitman's Pay"; Emerson
Charnley, councillor and bookseller ; George Burnett,
lead manufacturer ; John Buddie, the great mining
engineer ; Mark Lambert, the engraver, and his son
Mark William ; William Garrett, bookseller ; Dr. Thos.
M. Greenhow, brother-in-law of Harriet Martineau ;
Thomas Swinburne, solicitor, and clerk to the magis-
trates of Gateshead ; Andrew Tinwell, mathematician ;
John Thornhill, librarian of the Literary and Philo-
sophical Society ; William Mather, afterwards the
millionaire; George Brown, teacher of navigation;
Russell Blackbird, ship-broker; T. K. Fife, surgeon;
John and James Selkirk, reporters and printers ; «.nd
Captain Weatherley. These were stars of magni-
tude ; with them were associated lesser lights, by whose
aid the worshippers in Hanover Square Chapel formed
a conspicuous constellation in the literary firmament of
Tyneside.
444
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
J October
\ 1891.
Mr. Harris came from Scotland with a great reputation
as a fighting preacher, but in Newcastle his polemical
gifts found little scope for exercise. William Turner's
amiable disposition and genial fellowship had created a
tolerance of heterodoxy which no one desired to weaken
or impugn. Mr. Harris, undisturbed in the domain of
controversial theology, applied himself to more pressing
and more practical issues. He had taken part in Scottish
struggles for civil and religious liberty, and now, with
more time at his dis)x>sal, he was able to devote his
energies to the work of political improvement, religious
freedom, educational progress, and social reform.
Though his church and its agencies were his first care,
his voice was heard in lecture halls and upon public
platforms, whenever oppression and tyranny could be
effectively assailed, and wherever the forces of ignorance
and sin could be baffled, weakened, or turned aside. In
company with Dr. White, he undertook a mission
among the lowest slums of Newcastle, and wrote an
earnest appeal for sanitary improvement and the better
housing of the poor. With the aid of self-sacrificing
friends he gathered into the school-room attached to
his church young men and women of the worst class,
taught them to read and write, encouraged them to be
truthful and honest, and tried to lure them from the
paths of error and vice. In promoting Kagged Schools
and Reformatories, and encouraging habits of temper-
ance and thrift, he was indefatigable. That which
William Turner had been among the cultured inhabit-
ants of Tyneside, that was George Harris among the
poor and lowly — guide, counsellor, and friend.
Shortly after his arrival in Newcastle, Mr. Harris was
impressed with the inconvenient situation and surround-
ings of the place in which he ministered. It had been
erected in 1726, since when the town had extended north,
east, and west, and members of the congregation, remov-
ing further and further into ever-widening suburbs, found
Hanover Square difficult of access and the chapel de-
ficient in accommodation. Mr. Harris devoted himself
to the task of erecting a building that should realise
modern ideas of comfort in public worship, and be
easily accessible to the greater part of his flock. His
efforts were successful. A site in New Bridge Street was
obtained, and at Easter, 1854, the beautiful edifice in
New Bridge Street, known as the Church of the Divine
Unity, one of Mr. John Dobson's happiest efforts, was
opened for public worship. This was Mr. Harris's crown-
ing work ; in accomplishing it, he attained to the high-
water mark of his career. Thenceforward the tide of his
life began to ebb. He had overtaxed his strength, and,
although he did not actually break down, he never re-
covered that vigorous health which had carried him
through the strain and struggle of an exceptionally long,
active, and laborious ministry. He preached his first
sermon in the autumn of 1812 ; he delivered his last
message on Sunday, December 18, 1859. The following
Saturday, the day before Christmas, he died, and a few
days later he was buried in Jesmond Cemetery.
William
WOOD ENGRAVES.
At the institution known to the present generation as
Bath House, Bath Lane, Newcastle-on-Tyne, William
Harvey was barn. His father, William Harvey, the
keeper of the public baths which were formerly estab-
lished on the premises, gave him a good education, and at
the age of fourteen, having shown a remarkable aptitude
for drawing, he was bound apprentice for seven years to
Thomas Bewick, the engraver. Bewick, then at the
height of his reputation, took a great liking to the d
for he was clever, industrious, and painstaking, eager to
be taught, and quick to learn. Such was his progress
that, shortly after his entry into the famous workshop
overlooking St. Nicholas' Churchyard, he was advanced
from the drudgery of engraving invoice heads, bar bills,
shop cards, and coal certificates, to the higher branches
of his calling. Bewick entrusted to him and a fellow
apprentice, Wm. Temple, the engraving of the cuts for
jEsop's Fables, drawings for which had been made, some
years before, by an early pupil — Robert Johnson, John-
son's drawings were in water colour, very small and
beautiful, and young Harvey, being an excellent
draughtsman, was employed to re-draw them on
the block, ready for his own burin, and the tools
of his master and his fellow pupil. Both the drawing
and the cutting were well done, as Bewick, in his
" Autobiography, " cheerfully acknowledges. Encouraged
by his master's approval, young Harvey produced
designs of his own. One of them, a vignette for tbo
October 1
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
445
title page of "Cheviot: A Poetical Fragment," by R.
W. (the first of the tracts issued by the Nswcastle
Typographical Society), is described as extremely
beautiful, both in design and execution, the trees and
foliage being, in particular, excellently represented. So
pleased was Bewick with his pupil's proficiency, that in
the fifth year of his apprenticeship, on the eve of the
New Year, 1815, he presented him with a copy of the
" British Birds," supplementing it next day with a letter
of sound and sensible ad vice,
At the expiration of his apprenticeship, in 1817,
William Harvey, finding that Newcastle could not
support-another engraver while Bewick lived and worked,
went to London. He had a double purpose to serve in
migrating to the metropolis ; he went thither not only to
push his fortunes, but to complete his art education.
With a view to obtain a thorough knowledge of correct
principles of drawing, he placed himself under the
tuition of B. R. Haydon, the historical painter. With the
object of learning true anatomical expression, he attended
the lectures of Sir Charles Bell, foremost man of his day
in the field of anatomical and physiological discovery. At
Haydon's studio he worked with the Landseers, Lance,
and others ; maintaining himself, meanwhile, by furnish-
ing designs for the engravers, and labouring hard with the
burin on his own account. Haydon, who painted on a
colossal scale, drew his Newcastle pupil for a time into
the cultivation of a similar style of engraving. One
of the first things by which Mr. Harvey distinguished
himself in London was the production of a huge cut
of Haydon's picture, the "Death of Dentatus." This
engraving, published in 1821, was fifteen inches high, by
eleven inches and a quarter wide, and was composed of
seven different pieces. Chatto, in the " History of Wood
Engraving," 1838, describes it as one of the most
elaborately engraved wood cuts, for a large subject, that
had ever appeared, though scarcely a successful specimen
of the art, being rather an attempt to rival copperplate
engraving. W. J. Lmton, admitting that the cut was
faulty in style, and too much in imitation of copperplate,
writes of it as "the most daring, and, in some respects,
the most successful engraving ever attempted in wood."
With the criticism which this specimen of his powers
elicited, Mr. Harvey was satisfied, and did not attempt
to imitate his teacher in colossal productions again. Book
illustrations of the ordinary size were henceforth the sole
object of his care. Among [other things he drew and
engraved vignettes and tail pieces for Dr. Henderson's
" History of Ancient and Modern Wines," published in
1824, and with these cuts, which may be considered to
have formed the groundwork of his fame as a designer,
his practice as an engraver practically came to an end.
He had been seven years in London, had established a
high reputation for drawing on the wood, and during the
remainder of his life he devoted himself exclusively to
designing pictures for copperplate and wood engravers to
execute. The pictures in most of the beautiful books
which issued from the press of that untiring pioneer in
cheap literature, Charles Knight, were of his designing ;
among them those of "The Land We Live In." the
"Book of Common Prayer," the "Pictorial Shakspeare,"
the "Pilgrim's Progress," and the "Arabian Nights'
Entertainments," The "Arabian Nights" is the book
upon which Harvey's fame as a true artist mainly rests.
" In the combination of the most luxuriant fancy, with
the strictest accuracy of costume, the splendour and gruce
of Oriental life were never more happily presented than in
the hundreds of designs in these three volumes." Other
delightful specimens of his talents are to be found in a
series of designs for illustrated editions of White's
"Natural History of Selborne," Thomson's "Seasons,"
and Milton's -"Poetical Works."
In his youth Mr. Harvey had been " Bewick's favourite
pupil " ; in.'his old age he became, like his master, one of
the fathers of his profession. Outliving the friends and
companions of his boyhood, his visits to Newcastle, in
the later years of his life, were few and far between, but
he cherished kindly remembrances of his birthplace, and
was at all times ready to assist with friendly counsel and
cheerful encouragement struggling artists and men of
letters who sought his advice from the banks of the
Tyne. At his house in the beautiful town of Richmond,
amidst the finest scenery of the Thames valley, he
enjoyed the friendship of men distinguished in art and
literature, who were attracted not more by his genius
than by his unpretentious bearing and amiable character.
At the date of his death, January 13, 1866, he was the
only survivor of Bmvick's pupils — the last link which con-
nected the prolific book illustration of to-day with the
sparse and rude embellishments of literature in the pre-
vious century.
RHE Rev. John Horsley's " Britannia Romana''
is one of those original works which will ever
hold its place in the antiquary's library. It
is a folio of 520 pages, and is divided into
three books, whereof the first contains the history of all
the Roman transactions in Great Britain, with an account
of the legionary and auxiliary forces employed here, and
a determination of the stations along the line of the
Roman Wall ; also a large description of the Wall, with
maps of the same laid down from a geometrical survey.
The second book contains a complete collection of the
Roman inscriptions and sculptures which had up to that
time been discovered in Britain, with the letters engraved
in their proper shape and proportionate size, and the
reading (interpretation) placed under each; as also an
historical account of them, with explanatory and critical
446
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/October
\ 18 1.
observations. And the third contains the Roman
geography of Great Britain, in which are given the full
text of Ptolemy, the Itinerary of Antoninus, the Notitia,
the anonymous Ravennas, and Peutinger's Table, so far
as they relate to this island, with particluar essays on
each of these ancient authors, and the several places in
Britain mentioned by them. This truly colossal work,
the earliest systematic treatise on the subject, has served
as a quarry for all subsequent writers. It was "printed
for John Osborn and Thomas Longman " and other
booksellers, and published in London in 1732, a short
time after the author's death.
Singular to say, the birthplace of Mr. Horsley is un-
certain, though an opinion prevails that he was born in
the neighbourhood of Morpeth. There seems no doubt
that he belonged to a branch of the ancient Northumbrian
family of the Horsleys, who held certain lands at Long-
horsley from a very early date, and gave at least one re-
presentative in Parliament to the borough, and also to the
county. It is probable that, being staunch Presbyterians,
his parents had been obliged to change their residence
during the persecution which the Nonconformists under-
went after 1662, for Mr. John Cay, of Edinburgh, who
furnished the Rev. John Hodgson, the historian of
Northumberland, with sundry particulars regarding Mr.
Horsley, had heard that he was born, in or about the year
1685, at Pinkie House, in the parish of Inveresk, in Mid-
lothian. On going to that place, however, to search for
the entry of his baptism, the historian did not find
it, though he looked through the registers for several
years, both before and after that indicated by
tradition as the approximate date. The Horsleys
must have returned from Scotland soon after the
Revolution and Act of Toleration, for it is under-
stood that the future antiquary received his early
education at the Grammar School of Newcastle-on-Tyne,
then conducted by Mr. John Cotteral, A.M. He after-
wards went to Edinburgh to pursue his academical
studies, and his name stands in the Matriculation Book
of that University on the 2nd March, 1698. His signa-
ture occurs in the Laureation Book on theJ19th of
April, 1701, on his admission to the degree of Master of
Arts. He subsequently lived for some time at Widdring-
ton, as is shown by his having been, in the year 1721,
under the designation of "John Horsley, of Widdrtng-
ton, gentleman, "one of a party to a deed respecting the
Presbyterian Chapel at Morpeth, to the congregation
worshipping in which the Rev. Jonathan Harle, M.D.,
of Alnwick, acted as pastor. He had by that time
begun to distinguish himself by his profound know^
ledge of the antiquities of his country, of which he
gave some specimens in letters to that eminent anti-
quary, Roger Gale, written in 1720. Several of
these have been published in the first volume of
Hutchinson's "View of Northumberland." In 1724
he sent a paper to the "Philosophical Transactions"
(No. 377), wherein he records the amount of rain
observed by him to have fallen at Widdrington in the
years 1722 and 1723. In 1729, on the death of Dr. Harle,
he was chosen to succeed that worthy man in the pas-
torate of the Presbyterian Church at Morpeth, and one
of his first duties was to preach the funeral sermon of
his predecessor, afterwards published along with some
of the doctor's literary remains. He was admitted a
Fellow of the Royal Society on the 23rd of April, 1730,
having amply qualified himself for the honour by be-
coming well versed in mathematical and physical studies.
He collected a considerable apparatus, in mechanics and
hydrostatics ; and at a time when such undertakings were
not common out of London and Edinburgh, he gave
regular courses of lectures in the several branches of
natural philosophy, with great and merited approbation,
not only at Morpeth, but at Newcastle, Alnwick, and
other places. He made what in those days were known
as "lecturing tours" through the different towns of
Northumberland. Here is an advertisement which he
caused to be inserted in one of the Newcastle papers in
the last year of his life : —
A complete course of experimental philosophy is intended
to be begun at Morpeth, on Monday, the 10th of May ;
in which will be performed all the usual experiments~in
mechanics, optics, hydrostatics, and pneumatics. A
large account and explication will at the same time be
given of the several experiments, and of the several
truths demonstrated by them. All possible pains will be
taken in these lectures to render everything plain and in-
telligible, even to those who have no previous acquaintance
with mathematical learning : though the more rigorous
demonstrations will also be given to such as understand
the elements of geometry and conic sections (if any such
think fit to attend). By John Horsley, M.A. and
F.R.S. The charge is a guinea and a half, to be paid in
such time and manner as the gentlemen themselves shall
think fit. Such as design to attend are desired to send
in their names any time before the course is to begin.
In December, 1729, Mr. Horsley wrote to Mr. Robert
Cay, of Newcastle, who had given him very material
assurance in the compilation of the work upon which his
fame rests, that he had in contemplation a History of
Northumberland, in which he thought to spend his leisure
time that winter. It is believed he had collected a good
deal of material for it, but the work was never fairly com-
menced. A map of Northumberland, which he had
begun, was completed and published, after his death, by
the surveyor he employed, a person named George Mark,
who had travelled about with him a good deal, and
assisted him in his investigations, while he was compiling
the "Britannia Romana." Mr. Horsley also published
a small work on experimental philosophy, in two sheets,
12mo, as a sort of pocket companion to his course of
lectures.
Mr. Horsley died, after a lingering illness, on the 12th
of January, 1732, at the age of 46. The preface to his
great work, though written by him some time before, was
first dated "January 2, 1732." In it he says: — "This
collection, which at first I intended only for my own
amusement and pleasure, now ventures to show itself in
October!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
447
public. It is now four years since I was prevailed with
to complete this work, from which time I have pursued
it with the greatest care and application. Several
thousand miles were travelled to visit ancient monuments
and re-examine them, where there was any doubt or
difficulty." He had visited very part of England and
Scotland, often accompanied by hia surveyor ; and in the
course of these journeys he made a collection of about
twenty Roman altars, which were in his possession when
he wrote his book.
The book has long been "scarce," and must, in the
nature of things, become "rare," because it is not likely
ever to be reprinted, partly owing to its size and partly
to the expense which the getting up of a new edition would
entail.
In Nichol's "Literary Anecdotes" we read: — "The
plates of Horsley's ' Britannia Romana' remained in the
hands of Mr. E. Randall, who married one of his daugh-
ters, and was clerk to a merchant in the Old South Sea
House. In 1763 they were offered to the Society of Anti-
quaries. About the year 1769, when they were at Mr.
Major's, late engraver, St. Martin's Lane, he asked Mr.
Cough £100 for them, who offered twenty guineas as their
utmost worth. They were offered to Dr. Gifford, of the
British Museum, for the latter sum, in 1780, at which
time he kept a school at London Wall. January 30, 1781,
Dr. Gower had an idea of purchasing them at twenty
guineas, the price asked " (so) " in 1769, ' if he could have
acquired the copyright of the book"; and 'would have
republiahed it with additions had he been sure of return.'
In December, 1786, the editor of these ' Anecdotes ' would
have given double that sum for them, but they were
unluckily melted down about two hours before he had an
opportunity of making the offer." There is an interleaved
copy of the work in the British Museum, with elaborate
notes, corrections, and additions, by Dr. John Ward, of
Gresham College, Basinghall Street, London. That
gentleman, according to Nichols, revised the whole in
manuscript, and communicated many important remarks
for its improvement. Mr. Gough copied all Dr.
Ward's notes, and augmented them with others from
different quarters, as well as his own, having had
thoughts of republishing the book ; but he did not carry
out his design, having turned his hand to other modes of
illustrating our national antiquities, which he thought
preferable.
Mr. Horsley's library is stated to have been sold for
sixteen guineas. His philosophical apparatus was pur-
chased by the Rev. Caleb Rotheram, D.D., of Krndal,
the father of Dr. John Rotheram, of Newcastle, and at
his death, in 1752, itpassed into the hands of a clergyman
near Liverpool, from whom it was purchased by the
trustees of the Warrington Academy. At the dissolution
of that seminary in 1786, the articles were transferred to
the New College, Hackney; and they were afterwards
deposited in the library belonging to the dissenters in
Red Cross Street, London, bequeathed to the public by
Dr. Daniel Williams. So says the Rev. William Turner
in the Jfcweastle Magazine for 1821.
Mr. Horsley married a daughter of Professor Hamilton,
of Edinburgh University, who was parish minister of
Cratnond, in Mid-Lothian, the site of an important
Roman station. By her he had a son and two daughters.
The son seems to have died young. One of the daughters
married, according to Nichols above quoted, a Mr.
Randall, in London ; the other married Samuel Halliday,
of Newcastle, a very eminent surgeon, actively concerned
in establishing the Infirmary. The issue of this latter
marriage was a son and a daughter. The son was bred
to his father's business, but died young; the daughter,
"an intelligent lady," married William Walker, of
Killingbeck House, near Leeds, and had a numerous
family. Mr. Horsley's widow, shortly after his death,
removed to Newcastle, where she continued during the
rest of her life.
About a year before he died, Mr. Horsley told his friend
Mr. Robert Cay that he was quite wearied out with his
attention to his "Britannia Romana." Mr. Hodgson
says : —
It had probably injured his health, and, when the
excitement of going on with it ceased, he lingered and
fell — died without seeing how his great work was received
by the tyranny of letters, and with the sad reflection that
his labours were not only profitless, but might never repay
his family the sums he had expended upon them. One
dying under such circumstances is little lamented and
soon forgotten. With himself, his family lost their
support, and poverty soon wrings affectionate remem-
brances for the dead out of the hearts of dearest relatives
and friends. The minister of religion performs the same
official rites over his remains that are saiil over all ; but
the obsequies of his funeral are not perfumed with the
incense of eulogy, or his memory consecrated and
cherished by any account of his life. No stone tells
which was Horsley's grave, nor any parish register that I
have seen where he was buried. What a lesson to the
mind that rests on the hope of posthumous fame !
It appears from the following extract from the parish
register at Morpeth that Horsley's remains were buried
there only thirteen days after the date (Jan. 2, 1732) of
the dedication of his Britannia: — "1731-2, Jan. 15, Mr.
John Horsley." Such is the brief record which the
parish clerk of Morpeth — the common chronicler of his
time — thought fit to make in his melancholy journal
respecting this eminent man. Even after he was <lead,
this important officer refused him hia proper and well-
earned title of reverend ; and that probably, as Mr.
Hodgson observes, " only because he was the minister of
a congregation which, though in practice, as far as
regarded discipline and government, it was Presbyterian,
yet professed the doctrinal articles of the Church of
England." "But Horsley's genius," the samo kindred
spirit adds, "had taken him high above the mists nnd
gloomy atmosphere of prejudice and traditionary lore."
It had liberated his mind from the thraldom of vulgar
maxims. "There is, "says he, "that beauty and agree-
ableness in truth, even supposing it to be merely specula-
tive, as always affords, in the discovery of it, real
448
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/October
1 1691.
pleasure to a well-turned mind ; and, I will add, that it
not only pleases, but enriches it too." He determined to
do something permanently useful, and, in doing it, to
think and reason for himself ; and certainly no man was
ever more successful in completing a great experiment.
TOtttfcunt
j]ANY pleasant and interesting communities
are to be found on our rocky North-East
Coast; but few, if any, surpass the peaceful
little village of Whitburn, situated between
South Shields and Sunderland.
Whitburn might be said to have o double claim on the
attention of ths wayfarer who may pay it a visit. Its
position on the coast renders it a desirable retreat for a
summer holiday, while the village itself has an air of
delightful rusticity about it which cannot fail to fascinate
and charm. As we approach the east end of the village,
the sobbing of the waves is heard as they beat against the
rocks, licking the sandy beach in their course, while the
marine prospect which greets the eye is of course of an
attractive nature. The west end of the village presents a
widely different aspect. No glimpse of the sea is to be
bad here, and its murmuring is inaudible to the ear. The
eye alights, instead, upon a scene of real rural beauty.
The whole neighbourhood is flooded with the melodies of
The meadow-lark and all the throng
That dwell in nests and have the gift of song.
It is this rather unusual combination of attractions — the
arcadian and the marine — that constitutes Whitburn's
greatest charm.
Our view of Whitburn shows the quaintest and most
interesting part of the village. The artist's coign of
'vantage is in close proximity to the end of the road
leading into Whitburn from South Shields and Cleadon,
Some of the dwellings are white-washed structures, with
an air of cleanliness about them which greatly adds to
their quaint and interesting appearance. .The fronts of
the larger houses are covered with ivy, and here and there
the view is made prettier by the presence of trees towering
in many cases far above the eaves of the dwellings. But
what makes this part of Whitburn specially fascinating to
lovers of the picturesque are the uncommonly large
strips of green on either side of the main road
through the village. Indeed, what with grass and
trees, the village in the leafy period presents quite
an arcadian appearance. As we walk towards the east
and more modern part of the village, the large residences
on the left, with their fronts of artistic wood-work, and
the trim, sloping lawn skirted with aline of stately trees,
form a very pretty picture indeed.
Having taken our fill of the many attractions which a
ramble through the village street affords, we proceed
down the shady lane leading to the church. Whitburn
Church is an old Gothic edifice, consisting of a nave
and two regular ai?les, each being formed by
four round pillars. The chancel is separated from
the nave by a wide pointed arch. The sacred
structure, embosomed as it is in trees and shrubs,
presents a truly neat appearance ; and, as has been said
respecting it, however the antiquary may deplore the
raftered roof and the dim mullioned windows, it must be
allowed that Whitburn is the exemplar nitidiss of a com-
fortable parish church. The churchyard, though not by
any means large, is as neat in appearance as the church
itself. The graves are well tended, many being covered
with flowers of every hue and description. Several of the
ancestors of Sir Hedworth Williamson, formerly member
of Parliament for North Durham, are buried in Whitburn
churchyard.
In 1675 Whitburn rectory was enlarged and new fronted
October!
1891. ;
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
449
by Dr. Musgrave ("with £140 dilapidations received from
his predecessor Speed"). The new rooms were added to
the east of the late rectory in 1770 by Dr. Pye at an ex-
pense of £400.- The same gentleman repaired the houses,
barns, and offices. He took no money from his pre-
decessor for dilapidation, however, excepting, as the his-
torian says, " £5 worth of fixtures." In 1816 the rectory
was demolished, and in its place was erected a new par-
sonage built of freestone.
One of the rectors of Whitburn parish was the Rev.
Thomas Triplet, M.A., who ministered from 1631
to 1662. During the Rebellion, he was ejected ;
but, after the Restoration, he was made prebendary
of Westminster and D.D. He bequeated £300 to the
parishes of Woodhorn, Washington, and Whitburn, the
interest of which sum he directed to be equally divided
every year for the purpose of binding poor children
apprentices.
Leaving the church, we make towards the little hamlet
on the beach, known as The Bents ; but not before
we have had a peep at Whitburn Hall, the seat of Sir
Hedworth Williamson. The Whitburn Cricket Club is
indebted to Sir Hedworth for their ground, which is in
juxtaposition to the hall. And splendid ground it is for
cricketing purposes. The large stretch of sward is well
rolled, and the trees and shrubs almost surrounding it
render the place pleasing to the eye. Though Whitburn
is known to be a fishing village, its palmy days are
apparently almost over. At one time, so a fisherman at
The Bents told us, the village possessed fourteen fishing
boats ; now, however, there are only about five ; and
whereas about forty-six persons earned their living by
fishing in former years, the number at present so em-
ployed may be estimated at little over twenty.
The fine stretch of sandy beach extending from The
Bents to Roker, is undoubtedly one of Whitburn's
principal attractions. Though the road leading to it is a
little removed from the village proper, it is, as a matter of
course, much frequented by visitors. Standing on the
sward, a little to the south of The Bents, where
the fishermen dry their nets, we note that the
marine prospect is especially fine. The line of rocks
away out to sea is known as Whitburn Steel — once the
scene of many shipwrecks. These were in some instances
supposed to be caused by false lights which put vessels
out of their course. Though strenuous efforts were made
to solve the mystery surrounding the allegation, it
remains a mystery to this day. But so numerous were
the disasters that happened at the Steel that it was
deemed absolutely necessary to replace the old light-
house at Whitburn by the greatly improved light-
house at Souter Point, which was accordingly erected in
1871. One of the present keepers of the lighthouse
—Mr. Robert Darling, formerly of the Coquet Island
lighthouse — is a nephew of the famous Grace Darling.
and has occupied the position for eighteen years.
In November, 1822, part of a submarine forest was
discovered about a mile to the south of Whitbnrn. On
the removal of the sand one hundred yards seaward from
high water mark, the stems of seven trees were brought
to light. The largest of them is described as having
been about six feet in diameter, and all were clearly in
the situation in which they had grown. There was also
a great quantity of vegetable matter— leaves, nuts, and
450
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
(•October
1 1891.
broken branches — around the trees, and immediately
below them a light blue clayey soil. From this dis-
covery it would appear as if at some remote period what
is now a sea beach was covered with vegetation.
Cfte Eattl* 0f
Qattbtd atrtr |lerj)l*ritf*&
I HERE is no getting away from the fact that
this is an age of unbelief. Not only do men
deny the existence of many popular heroes,
but they doubt the authenticity of many
thrilling tales of chivalry. As I stated in a previous
article, there are more than the average misgivings as to
the Battle of Otterburn — its date, its magnitude, its
enumeration of details, having all formed a theme for
censorious criticism. While some historians regard it as
a mere Border foray, others have expanded it into a
fight of huge dimensions. A few have ventured to dis-
miss the whole recital as either suspicious or unreliable.
In adopting this latter attitude, they are guided by
reasons that seem at least intelligible. The modern ver-
sions of the story — as the most casual reader must admit —
are largely based on ancient ballads, and yet the ballads
themselves are a perfect storehouse of contradictions. It
would be a thankless task— if not an endless one — to
attempt any elaborate analysis of the different versions
that have been handed down to us ; but a brief reference
to some of the discrepancies should constitute an attrac-
tive theme.
With respect to named authorities — as distinguished
from the Border minstrels — there are nine who lived
near the alleged time of conflict, and about thirty who
wrote at a much later period. " If reliance could be
placed upon the early authorities," says a well-known
critic, "we might at once conclude chat the battle was
fought on the morning or night of St. Oswald's Day,
the 5th of August." But as reliance cannot be placed
on the early authorities, it has been contended that the
night between the 19th and 20th of August is the most
likely date, because at that time, in 1388, "there was
a full moon " — without whose aid the modern accounts
of the struggle would be altogether ridiculous. On this
point, 23 persons — from Froissart to Sir Walter Scott
—have given no fewer than seven different dates. As for
the numbers engaged, the testimony is quite as inde-
finite—alternating from 2.000 to 10,000 men in each
of the contending forces. There are, however, four
phases of the battle as to which all recent writers
seem to agree. First, it was waged during an entire night
in the month of August ; second, it occurred in the
reign of Richard II. ; third, it ended in the death of Earl
Douglass ; and, fourth, the impulsive Percy was led
captive away. When ws remember that all these
assertions are made by men who acknowledge their
indebtedness to the old ballads — by men who do not scruple
to quote many of the most striking passages — there nred
be no surprise that sceptics should venture to question
the accuracy of their conclusions. The modern historians
may be right — as I think they are in the main — but
while admitting this, it is impossible to explain the
readiness with which they incorporate one part of the
poetical versions, and ignore the other with so much
contempt. A few instances will be sufficient to show the
difficulties that had to be surmounted, before the story
of the conflict, as we know it now, could be brought into
harmony with subsequent events.
If we take the death of Douglass, we at once realise
the varying character of the evidence. That he was
killed at Otterburn, all writers are agreed— the most
recent of them saying that the death blows were
administered by "three spearmen," who fell upon the
Scottish champion after he had penetrated far into the
English ranks. By what authority historians arrive at
this conclusion it is impossible to determine, as none of the
old ballads give it confirmation. In most of them, "it
is Percy who kills Douglass," though, in others, the
cause of death is left in doubt. If we accept " De
orygynale cronykil of Scotland, be Andrew of Wyntown,
Priowr of Sanct Serfis Ynche in Loch Levyn," it would
appear that though —
De Erie Jamys thare wes slane,
Dat na man wyst on qwhat manere.
If, on the other hand, we take the "Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border," we find tnat it was a foot page who gave
Douglass a "deadly wound" before the battle began.
The boy had given information as to the approach of an
English force, and, being regarded as an alarmist, was
told, in case the report proved untrue, that he should
hang " on the highest tree in Otterbourne." It was in
retaliation for this threat that the little penknife was
"ta'en out," and that Lord Douglass got " a deep wound
and asare." It was then, apparently — not in the midst
of the combat — that :
Earl Douglass to the Montgomery said,
"Take thou the vanguard of the three ;
And bury me by the bracken bush
That grows upon yon lilye lee."
If we accept this verse as it stands, it undoubtedly refers
to something that transpired before the battle began, and
to a moment when the Scottish fighting men were still in
separate contingents. There would be no "vanguard of
the three " after these fierce Borderers got to close
quarters. Indeed, we are distinctly told that the dis-
putants split into sections almost immediately after
Percy delivered his surprise attack, and afterwards
fought in groups about the field. But, notwithstanding
the variation of the story in this direction, the Scottish
poem goes on to say that Percy was compelled to
surrender to Sir Hugh Montgomery, after a personal
October!
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
451
encounter, in which the "twa swat," and the "blude"
ran dawn between them.
It is unfortunate, perhaps, that Professor Veitch should
have pledged himself to an assertion that the English
ballad "finely and naturally " describes the deeds of the
two leaders, because it contradicts the Scottish Min-
strelsy in many important particulars. There is a refer-
ence, for example, to the boy's note of warning, though
no treacherous wounding is mentioned aa the result of it.
But, in addition to this, the English story is extremely
clear as to the part played by Hotspur in his great
rival's undoing. For it is therein asserted that when —
The Percy and the Dowglas mette,
That ether of other was fayne ; -
They schapped together, whyll that they swette,
With swords of fyne Collayne,
Tyll the bloode from their bassonetts ranne,
As the brooke doth in the rayne.
It was at this moment that the Scottish chief— imagin-
ing he saw signs of fatigue on the part of his foe —
ventured to suggest a surrender ; but, being answered
with disdain, the swords began to flash again, and the
blows fell so swift and heavily on their respective
helmets, that they "cam in peyses down." Still con-
tinuing, the Percy smote his adversary at the sword's
length, and felled him to the ground.
Thys fraye bygan at Otterborne
Bytwene the nyghte and the day ;
Ther the Dowplas lost hys lyfe,
And the Percy was lede awaye.
The ballad, however, goes even further, as it adds that
Sir Hugh Montgomery was taken prisoner by the
English, and apparently exchanged afterwards, for he
it was who "borowed the Percy home agayne."
But if we turn once more to the " Minstrelsy of the
Scottish Border," we aro faced with an equally curious
variation. According to that ascount, it was quite im-
possible for a fight between Percy and the Douglass to
have taken place, seeing that the noble Scot had been
killed already by the little boy's penknife. In order, there-
fore, to make matters smooth, and preserve the more pic-
turesque aspects of the recital, we have a verse that looks
uncommonly like one already printed. It says when —
The Percy and Montgomery met,
<That either of other were fain,
They swapped swords, and they twa swat.
And aye the blude ran down between.
In this case, there was also a demand for Percy to
yield, and, recognising that he had no alternative, he is
said to have requested the name of his vanquisher. This
was given, and —
As soon as he knew it was Montgomery,
He stuck his sword's point in the gronde.
And the Montgomery was a courteous knignt,
And quickly took him by the'honde.
With regard to the narrative in the poetical works of
Sir Walter Scott, it resembles that of England in most of
its essential features. It admits, for example, that after
Douglass had been mortally wounded by Percy,
he sent for Sir Hugh Montgomery, gave him in-
structions for continuing the battle, and then asked to
be buried under the bracken bush in accordance with the
generally accepted idea. But, even Sir Walter felt that
the story did not hang well together, and, therefore,
we find — almost in identical lines — one verse describing
the fight between Percy and Douglass, and another
actually attributing the " swakking" and the "swatting"
and the " bluding" and the " rayning" to a tussle between
Percy and Montgomery.
If these contradictions stood alone, our latter-day his-
torians would experience some difficulty in making them
harmonise ; but their ttoubles increase enormously when
they go back to "Chevy Chase" — the most ancient ballad
of the series. That it refers to the Battle of Otterburn i?
beyond question, yet the locality of the fray, the cause of
its origin, and the results, are in many essential particu-
lars dissimilar. We are told, for instance, that Percy
had promised to hunt for three days in the Cheviots in
spite of all the Scots could do to prevent him. In the
midst of the sport, however, he was interrupted by the
Douglass, who challenged him to mortal combat. As this
proposal for a personal encounter was not allowed by the
other leaders, a struggle on a big scale began. The
Douglass divided his force into "three portions," and his
attack was met by a discharge of arrows which slew seven
score spearmen. It was then, on getting to close quarters,
that—
The Yngglyshe men let thear bowys be,
And pulde owt brandes that wer bright.
But while this poetic reference seems to have been copied
into most of the later accounts of the fighting, a good
many of the succeeding details are invariably ignored.
" Chevy Chase" describes the meeting of Percy and
Douglass in the thick of the fight ; it speaks of their
swords as " fyn Myllan," instead of fyn Collayne ; and it
alludes to Douglass's tempting offers to Percy if he would
only join the Scottish king. Hotspur refuses the bait,
and, just as the struggle is about to re-commence, his
antagonist is struck by an arrow that crashes through
the " breast bane." The. English " captyne" there-
upon leans upon his sword, and, taking the dead man
by the hand, sorrowfully exclaims : —
To have savyde thy lyffe I wold have pertyd with
My .landes for yeres thre.
For a better man of hart, nare of liande,
Was not in all the North Countre.
There was, however, an avenger coining. Sir Hugh
Montgomery, who was mounted, had witnessed the result
of the battle, and spurring his courser, dashed at the dis-
consolate Percy — "driving a miehty spear clean through
his body." Again there was speedy vengeance, for "an
archer off Northomborlonde," furious at the sudden deed,
sent an arrow through the liver and lungs of Percy's
undoer. Of the terrible havoc in other directions, 1
need say nothing ; neither is it necessary to speak of the
weeping widows who came to fetch their dead away.
What is of more consequence is to show how vastly the
452
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I October
I 1891.
ballad of "Chevy Chase" differs from the other?, and
ye,t, with what alacrity our modern historians have
utilised one-half its sanguinary details, while com-
pletely disregarding the remainder, It was impossible to
accept everything, no doubt, because Percy, as is well-
known, lived to fight another day. According to all
accounts, he was killed at Shrewsbury, in 1403 — or about
fifteen years after Otterbura is supposed to have been
fought.
I use the word "supposed," because the early poems
seem to justify the implied doubt. In his introduction to
the " Ballads of Chevy Chase," Mr. Robert White ex-
plains that the story could not be founded on the Battle
of Pepperden in 1436— as some have asserted— seeing that
it contains a prospective allusion to a struggle waged in
1402. But if this has to be accepted as a proof that
Chevy Chase occurred prior to " Hombyll-down " Hill,
the evidence of the poem ought to be received as to other
dates also. In that case, it would at once upset the gene-
rally accepted belief that Otterburn was fought during
the reign of Richard II. For we read :
Worde ys commyn to lovly Londone
Till the fourth Harry our Kyng,
That Lord Perse, leytf-tenant of the Merches,
He lay slayne Chyviat within.
" God have merci on his soil," said Kyng Harry,
"Good lord, yf thy will it be !
I have a hondritu captayns in Ynglonde," he sayd,
" As good as ever was hee ;
But Perse, and I brook my lyffe,
Thy deth well quyte shall be."
As our noble Kyng made his a-vowe,
liyke a noble prince of renowen,
For the deth of lord Perse.
He dyd the battel of Hombyll-down.
The poem adds that this was "the hontynge off the
Cheviat" that'men call the "battellof Otterburn." As
Henry did not begin his reign till 1399, it is impossible-
it the poem is to be accepted at all — to insist that the
fight took place in 13S8, as so many authorities assert.
There is also another reference to the period, for Sir Ric
Wytharynton — on hearing the proposal for a solitary
combat between Douglass and Percy— exclaimed that it
should never be told in the south, " to King Harry the
Fourth," that he had stood on a field to see his captain
struggle alone. This is the champion about whom it is
said : —
For Wetharrjrngton my harte was wo,
That ever he slayne shulde be ;
For when both his Jeegis wear hewyne in to,
Yet he knyled and fought on hys kne.
Judging from the first of these " Chevy Chase Ballads,"
. there would appear to have been a clean sweep of all the
worthies. Douelass, Percy, and Montgomery, at all
events, found graves in a fight which began " an ower
before the none," and not, as is generally imagined, just at
the close of daylight. In the second poem, the affair is
said to have lasted from " the break of day to the setting
of the sun," and when they "rung the evening bell the
battle scarce was done." There is nothing about the light
of the moon here. As for the casualties, Mr. Robert White
puts the English loss at 1,840 killed and 1,000 wounded ;
while the Scots had only 100 killed and 200 taken prisoners.
The proportions in "Chevy Chase" seem more probable,
for we are there told that of 1,500 archers of England
there went away only 53. As a set off to this carnage,
however, it is added that there were not more than five
and fifty survivors out of 2,000 Scottish spearmen. What
came of the sufferers nobody appears to know for certainty.
But it is probable, as Professor Veitch suggests, that the
skulls found at Elsdon a few years ago may represent the
dead of Otterburn. They were ail lying together— lads in
tl^ir teens, as well as men of middle age— and yet,
though the collection numbered quite a thousand, there
was not a trace of any female to be met with. This fact
alone would appear to indicate that the party had been
overtaken on the war path. It is possible, of course,
that all dis«r«paneies may be explained away without
serious tremble ; but, to an ordinary student of history,
they seem, as they stand, to form a remarkable
tangle. Of one thing, however, there can be no doubt.
The poetry, like the prose, has been subject to endless
revision, and, in the process, the original text may have
undergone some strange transformations. Bishop Percy
is known to have deleted one verse from the Scottish
ballad, because it was meaningless, and to have sub-
stituted four others with a clearer ring. It is the same
with the redoubtable Witherington. In the first ballad
we find the lines quoted above ; while in the second we
have a change that is worthy of Hood or IHbden. There
is a touch of humour in the pathos when it says —
For Witherington needs must I wayle,
As one in doleful dumpes ;
For when his leggs were smitten off,
Ha "fought upon his stumpes.
Thoug'h similar indications of "improvement" can be
found in other parts of the ballads, it would serve no
useful purpose to reproduce them. What I have already
said will be sufficient to show the methods by which the
quaint narratives of our ancestors are made presentable to
modern readers. There must always be a good deal of
analysing, a fair amount of cutting down, and a
determined effort to explain away obvious inconsistencies.
It may be doubted whether the corrected versions are
absolutely reliable, as the incidents of a Border foray —
even on the largest scale — must always be difficult to
verify after an interval that has to be counted by
centuries. But, details apart, there can be no denying
that an eventful battle was fought near Otterburn,
somewhere about 500 years ago, and that the memorj' of
its heroes will be kept green for as many years to come.
WILLIAM LONGSTAIT.
October \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNZRX LORE AND LEGEND.
453
iStrirs.
E three birds figured in the present article
are among the best known ot our game birds-
birds which are strictly preserved in all suit-
able parts of Great Britain for annual slaughter in the
autumn.
The pheasant (Pha&ianus Colctiicus), we are told, was
"brought into Europe by the Argonauts 1250 years before
the Christian era, and is at present found in a state of
nature in nearly the whole of the old continent." History
assigns to Jason the honour of having brought it to this
country from the banks of the Phasis, a river in Colchis,
Asia Minor.
The food of the pheasant consists of cereal grain of
various kinds, beans, beech-mast, chestnuts, acorns, black-
berries, sloes, hips and haws, and other small wild fruits;
also the shoots and leaves of various plants, turnip tops,
and grass ; the roots of th« golden buttercup, and of vari-
ous grasses and bulbous plants; worms, grasshoppers,
gnats, and other insects. The nest, a very slight fabrica-
tion of a few leaves, is made upon the ground, sometimes
in the open fields, but more commonly in woods and
plantations, among underwood, under fallen or felled
boughs and branches of trees, in long grass, and in hedge-
rows.
The male pheasant, which is polygamous, having from
six to nine females, has the head and neck metallic-
purple or green, according to the light; ear coverts,
brown ; naked skin round the eyes, scarlet, spotted with
black ; general tint of back feathers, copper-coloured,
tipped with black, or with dark brown centres, and
marked with pale yellow ; rump and upper tail coverts.
light brownish red ; wings, greyish-brown, mottled with
darker brown ; long tail-feathers, yellowish-brown, regu-
larly barred with black ; feathers on breast and abdomen,
orange-red, with purplish and golden reflections, tipped
and evenly margined with violet-black ; lower abdomen,
vent, and under-tail coverts, brownish-black ; bill, pale
horn-colour; legs, feet, and spurs, greyish-brown; {rides,
hazel. Length, about three feet. The adult female has
the prevailing plumage of a yellowish-brown tint, varie-
gated with grey and rufous ; tail, shorter than the male.
Several varieties of pheasants are often found ; some pure
white and others pied.
The red grouse (Layopui Scoticus) is by no means con-
fined to Scotland, as its scientific name might imply. To
sportsmen especially, the 12th of August is as popular as
that of "St. Partridge," the 1st of September, the dates
on which the slaughter of the birds commences. Grouse
are more or less plentiful, according to the season, over
all the high-lying and1 heathery mcors of Scotland and
the Northern Counties of England. They are recognis-
able by their powerful, compact bodies, moderate-sized
wings, and short, straight tails. The bill is strong, thick,
short, and much vaulted, and the foot low and powerful,
with more or less well feathered tarsus— hence its name,
Lagypus, from logos, a hare, by implication rough-footed.
In severe winter weather grouse frequent the lower
grounds in search of food. They are partial to corn, and
during harvest in the Highlands they occasionally invade
the corn fields, and may be seen perched on the stocks of
oats. Their chief food, however, and without which they
can scarcely exist, are the leaves and shoots of heather
and heath, the seeds of cotton grass and other moorland
plants, and the fruits of the bilberry (blaeberry), crow-
berry, and whortleberry. They also swallow small stones
to aid digestion. When not feeding, they rest among the
heather, and they may often be seen basking in the sun in
454
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/October
\ 1891.
open places. The ordinary note of the male bird is a
deep and swiftly-repeated "coo, coc," a note well known
to those who traverse moorlands where grouse abound.
Its note of defiance or alarm, often heard in spring and
autumn, sounds very like the *ords "Go, go, go-back,
go-back, " and this note also warns the hen and young of
coming danger.
The male bird, distinguished from the female by its
greater size, more brilliant plumage, and the bright red
membrane over the eyebrows, weighs about nineteen or
twenty ounces, and sometimes more. Length, from one
foot three inches and a quarter to a little over one foot
four and a half inches. The feathers on the head and
nape are light reddish-brown, spotted with black ; those
on the back and wing coverts are spotted in the centre
with black; the throat feathers are red, those on the back
and belly dark purplish-brown, with numerous markings;
the quills are dark brown, and the quill feathers, except
the four in the centre (which are striped red and black),
are entirely black; the plumage on the legs has a reddish
shade and dark markings ; the tarsi and toes are covered
with whitish feathers; the eye is nut-brown, and the
powerful claws of a whitish hue. The female is darker plu-
maged than her mate, has white spots on the breast and
belly, and some of the winged feathers tipped with white.
The black grouse (Tctrao tctrix), also known aa black
cock (and the female as the grey hen, on account of her
plumage), is a well-known bird in the Northern Counties.
The favourite haunts of the black cock are the low
slopes of hills, in which brushwood and coppice alternate
with heath and fern, and rocky, well-wooded glens. In
spring and summer its food consists of leaf-buds, heather
tops, berries of various plants growing amonc the heath,
insects, larvfe, and sometimes corn and seeds from the
neighbouring fields. In the winter this supply is
diminished to the tender tops of shoots of birch, fir, and
heath, and vaccinia and juniper berries.
"Unlike the capercailzie, which mostly roosts in trees,"
says Mr. Lloyd, "the black cock almost invariably passes
the night on the ground, and in the winter, more especially
if the cold be intense, it not seldom buries itself in the
snow." Nillson supposes that the bird only makes a
hollow in the snow and allows itself to be covered by the
falling flakes; but Mr. Lloyd assures us that the bird
makes a regular burrow for itself, the depth depending,
it is generally believed, on the mildness or severity of
the weather. "Scores of times," he says, " when crossing
glades and other openings in the forest, where the surface
of the snow, to the casual observer, appeared to be as
smooth as glass, one or more black cocks have suddenly
emerged from beneath the snow, almost at my feet ; and
when expecting every moment others to follow, I have
carefully looked about me, but I never could discover any-
thing beyond the slightest indentation in the snow where
the bird had burrowed, the hole itself being filled up by
the sides collapsing ; and yet perhaps within the next
minute half a score of black cncks would fly up all around
me. That their beads were above the surface previously
to their leav. ig the snow I hold to be impossible, nor can
I conceive that even the beaks protruded, as others will
have it. If air be needful to birds when thus embedded
in the snow, their beak, no doubt, forms an imperceptible
orifice, through which they are enabled to respire."
The birds fly in a heavy manner, in a direct line, and at
considerable speed. If alarmed, they fly off to a place of
security, or drop and remain motionless till the danger
has passed. The male birds are polygamous, and, after
leaving the females and the young, they gather in small
flocks, and live in amity together till the next breeding
season. In spring furious fights take place between the
males for the possession of the females. The victors in
these love-combats take possession of a certain place, from
whence they drive all intruding mates. In the morning
and evening the cock struts gallantly around his ''beat,'
trailing his wings on the ground, his handsome forked tail
outspread, his throat puffed out, and the brilliant wattle
swelled, inviting the admiration of the females, and
challenging rivals with his harsh note of defiance. Both
birds endeavour to draw off intruders from the brood,
and the hen, on whom the labour of incubation falls, will
boldly defend her nest and young brood, and will even
drive off dogs. Though ground birds, they can perch
nimbly on trees, walls, or fences.
The male bird weighs nearly four pounds. Its colours
are a little lighter or deeper according to the season.
The plumage is chiefly of a rich black, relieved upon the
October
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
455
head, throat, and lower back with a beautiful steel-Hue
sheen, not unlike the hue of the wing-coverts of the
magpie; the wings are variegated with bands of pure
white; the feathers on the lower tail coverts are also of
snowy whiteness; the eye is brown, the pupil bluish
black, and the beak black ; the toes are greyUh brown ;
the eyebrow and a patch around the eye bright red. The
wings, which are short, expand to a width of nearly three
feet; legs short, with hair-like feathers in front, and on
the sides speckled with white, and covered behind with
rounded scales. The female weighs about two pounds ;
length, one foot five or six inches. The prevailing
colour of her plumage is a mixture of ruscy yellow
and rusty brown, marked with transverse stripes and
spots of black.
JHcrfee.
JJHARLES SUMNER, the American States-
man, writing from Brougham Hall, West-
moreland, to his friend Mr. George S.
Hillard, on the 6th of September, 1838,
refers to anecdotes which he had heard exhibiting Lord
Brougham's unfriendly feeling towards Lord Durham.
" One of these (says he) is striking. Last winter it was
supposed for a while that an invention had been found out
which would supersede the use of coal, upon which Lord
Durham's immense income depends. Brougham is said
to have gone about telling of it, and rubbing his hands,
saying, ' Old Durham is a beggar ! old Durham is a
beggar ! ' "
Many have been the discoveries and inventions by
which "it was supposed, for a while," the "use of coal"
would be "superseded." But, hitherto, they have
flourished for a season, and vanished as the vapour of the
locomotive engine. There can be no difficulty in identify-
ing the particular "invention" of which Mr. Sumner
heard in the year of his visit to England — a discovery
that. ' in many imaginations, threatened to make an end
of the value of our own and other coal-fields. It was
doubtless "Joyce's Patent Stove." In the " Journal of
Henry Cockburn," published in 1871 as a continuation of
the " Memorials," there is a notice, under date February
8, 1838, of "Joyce's supposed discovery." This record
was made at the time when Sumner was on our side of
the Atlantic, although it saw not the light until a
generation afterwards.
" The first rumour " of the stove, says Lord Cockburn,
" reached Edinburgh a fortnight ago " (that is, in
January, 1838), "in a letter from Lord Brougham, in
which he assures us that it will soon beggar all coal-
masters, deprive poverty of its greatest suffering, send
steam easily over the world, and make the poles comfort-
able." Some people, however, were "certain it would
turn out nonsense." Coalowners "sneered" and made
merry, "but were not easy." The "Newcastle Coal
Trade" was to cease, and with it " the best nursery for
our fleets." The Government, which always has plenty
of advisers, was urged to buy the secret, at whatever cost,
to keep it from foreigners. But the purchase was not
made, and the discovery came to nothing.
Cockburn makes a second note, August 23, 1838 :—
" The new heat has entirely cooled. It is now ascertained
to be subject to three objections. First, it is dearer than
coal ; second, it gives much less heat, scarcely heat at all ;
third, the little heat that it gives suffocates. Brougham
was its great puffer : from what cause is not known."
The late Mr. Alderman Wilson, of Fell House, Gates-
head, author of "The Pitman's Pay," wrote a humorous
poem on "Joyce's Patent Stove." Referring to its
inventor, he said : —
He tuik his traps ower to France,
But Mounseer was far ower cunnin' ;
He saw through the cheat at a glance
Which gulled a' the noddles i'Lunnun.
Gay Lussac had made a report on the ' ' discovery " to
the Institute of France, one passage of which was adopted
by the poet as his motto, viz. :— " It is quite evident that
this charcoal must diffuse in the apartment as much
carbonic acid during its combustion as an equal weight
of any other charcoal ; that it must vitiate the air in
the same degree; and that the same accidents may
be produced by it as by other causes. It is equally
evident that it can produce no more heat than the same
quantity of common charcoal, as it contains no more
combustible matter."
The inventor is described in the poem as " the ehep
wi' the charcoal and byen " : —
He talked of a fine, healthy heat,
Myed out of a piece of burnt stob ;
But on'y lie doon wid at neet,
I' the morn ye'll be caud i' the gob.
His pipe was put out iv a whiff ;
He couldn't stand Parleyvou's shrug ;
But slunk away, moungin', as if
A louse had dropt intiv his lug.
Thus Coaly his foe fairly floored
(The blackest he ivyer had seen),
And his frinds to their quiet restored.
When they thowt deeth was closing his een.
King Coal survived the stove that was to lay him on
the shelf ; and his mines are more likely to be exhausted
than superseded. JAMES CLKPHAN (THE LATE).
456
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
October,
1891.
VV." if
October!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
457
j]T is hundreds of years since invalids firat went
to Rothbury (or benefit to their health and
strength, and there went through certain
prescribed courses which they imagined did
them good. Hither of old, as some do now, came many
consumptives and weaklings to drink the milk of the goats
that jumped from crag to crag on the moors and hills around
the town. So great was the demand for goats' milk that
large flocks of these shaggy creatures were kept by the
farmers in the valley to the west. The little Coquetdale
town is one of the healthiest of places, and the fresh
breezes that blow from the green slopes of the Cheviots
and the ozone that is wafted from the blue sea fill hollow,
worn cheeks, and put colour into the complexion of the
most wan and care-ridden. The hills all round the basin
in which Rothbury lies shut out the inclement winds that
sweep the bleak moors ; and the mountains in the vicinity
rise, in some cases, to the stupendous — for this part of the
country — height of over 2,000 feet. What stimulant can
equal in potency the exhilaration produced in the spirits
and nervous system by a few days spent in the unrivalled
air of Rothbury ?
The charms of the Coquet are tenfold multiplied if you
can wield with anything like dexterity the fascinating
rod and line. But, not being an expert, you need not
despair of learning to become one. I met while in Roth
bury a veteran angler, old Walter Mavin, well known
to all who are acquainted with Coquetside. This fine
old sportsman is seventy-six years old, and for over
sixty has been an adept disciple of old I/.aak Walton.
He is still vigorous as an angler, and can induce the
wary fish to hook themselves at the end of his line when
others whip the stream in vain. You can see his fishing-
tackle shop in the main street of Rothbury.
This main street of Rothbury is highly characteristic of a
Northumbrian village. The road from Weldon Bridge
rushes down precipitously from Cragside to the
bridge and the church, and then immediately begins
456
MVMTHLY CHRONICLE.
f October
\ 1891.
the main street, which broadens out into a
wide thoroughfare where merchants would exhibit their
wares and the farmers from the neighbouring sheep-walks
would expose their stock in the days before the railway
and the auction mart. It is peculiar to villages in the
hilly county of Northumberland to have one side of the
street higher than the
other. It is so at
Stamford ban:, so at
Hamburgh, so at Bel-
lingham, and so at
Rothbury. This main
street at Rothbury
contains all the prin-
cipal shops and ware-
houses and establish-
ments and public
buildings of which its
inhabitants are so
proud. It is a quaint
old street, and has not
yet lost its old-fangled
air. The thorough-
fare rises and widens
to the west end of the
town, where is a pleasant green-sward, with some trees,
and the imposing building ot the County Hotel. Around
here, under the trees, are seats on which the short-
winded valetudinarian can rest awhile in the shade and
watch the sunshine lighting up the warm colours on the
opposite hill, look on the trees which hide Whitton
Tower, and catch the varying hues of Simonside. It is
WALTER MAVIX.
a pleasant, airy street, and clean and neat, like the rest of
Rothbury.
" The town in the clearing," which is the term commonly
accepted as the interpretation of the name Rothbury, is a
phrase that has lost a great deal of its old meaning ; for it
is now not much more in a clearing than the hills that sur-
round it. Nearly all is a clearing, and the town lies in
the bottom of a great basin, protected by green and
heather-covered hills— a singularly beautiful situation,
which reminds one of, though it does not equal, in my
mind, the picturesque position of Blanchland.
The church of All Saints, with its early English chancel
and transepts, was mostly rebuilt (as to its nave and
tower) in 1850. It is the third built on the same site ; the
first was Saxon, the second was early English, and the
third was built, as stated, in 1850. In the porch are
fragments of sculpture and an incised cross in memory of a
child. The font, of red sandstone, is curious. The basin
is inscribed 1664, but the pedestal is of Saxon sculpture.
The lower part of the font, indeed, is composed of a por-
tion of a Saxon cross. During the re-building of the
church, in 1850, the limbs and a portion of the shaft of
the ancient cross were found beneath the floor. These
were claimed by the contractors as old materials, but
were at last safely housed in the museum of the Newcastle
Society of Antiquaries. The stem of the font was after-
wards discovered to be a portion of this same cross.
It was from the pulpit of this church that Bernard
Gilpin, the famous "Apostle of the North," courageously
interfered between two clans who were at deadly feud
with each other. The incident has been worthily per-
petuated by William Bell Scott in his fresco on the walls
of Wallington House, the home of
the Trevelyan*.
There is in the chancel a gor-
geously painted monument in red,
gilt, and black, erected to the
memory of the "truly vertuous
matron," Mary, the wife of John
Thornlinson, rector of Rothbury, and
her husband "on her right side."
Close to the church is the Co-
quet—
The crystal rivulet, that o'er
A stony channel rolls its rapid maze,
And swarms with silver fry.
The bridge which spans the stream
at Kothljury, shown in Mr. Hall's
sketch, is a noble structure, well
worthy of Rothbury town and
Coquet river, and its quaint, tri-
angular buttresses have propped ic
up against many a winter's flood.
The visitor to Rothbury never
dreams that the Coquet has come all
the way from the Borders of Scotland
October I
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
459
even a little to the north of the much more westerly stream
the Reed. But from its source to Rothbury it receives
many subsidiary streams in passing through the northern
hill*, and it is a stream of some dimensions when it rushes
noisily over its pebbly bed at Harbottle. From this last
place it meanders down to the foot of the Simonside hills,
and then, winding eastward, visits Rothbury. Thence
it descends in a rocky bed through a fine vale, and is not
long in reaching a famous place known as the Thrunj.
Here the river flowe through a gully in the freestone, and
the Coquet, hemmed in by the rock and surrounded by
leafy trees, with the old watermill in the background,
is, besides being a favourite scene with artists and lovers
of the beautiful, likewise a spot much beloved of anglers.
Through its contracted passage it glides silently and
rapidly. And it is deep besides, for its waters are a
couple of fathoms deep, even in the driest summer. For-
merly the distance between the rocks in the narrowest part
was only one yard, and was easily stepped over ; but an
unfortunate boy in an intrepid moment attempted to
jump across, and was drowned ; hence the chasm was con-
siderably widened, and since then the rush of the stream
has worn away the rock till now it is much honeycombed.
Mr. Hutchinson, in a bilious mood, wrote of this part of
the Coquet — " We were led to view a natural curiosity, as
it is termed, called the Thrum, which is almost a mile
from the town — a out formed by nature in the rocks of the
river's channel, where the stream, for about 160 yards, is
pent in such narrow bounds that a man may leap over —
not at all curious, or worthy our attention ; little prefer-
able to a mill-race. But here we had the misfortune to
meet with an impertinent drunken innkeeper, whose over-
otficiousness and loquacity led us out of the way." But such
language is blasphemy to the frequenter of the Coquet.
Near the Thrum is the old corn mill, where formerly
there was a great fall in the river, but this was lowered
long ago to facilitate the ascent of the salmon up stream.
The Pool, situated below the Thrum, is a favourite haunt
of the followers of the "silent sport." It is a lovely spot.
The house shown in Mr. Hall's sketch below is one of the
lodges to Lord Armstrong's estate at Cragside.
STftc <£ttrtdt
J1ASTORAL poems have been abundant in
every age and country ; but the best of
them, from the time of Theocritus, have
been written, not by untutored peasants on
mountain sides, but by cultured poets in crowded cities.
Hence the astonishment felt at the advent of a man
without education, who, after passing through a youth
of poverty and hardship, as he attained manhood sang in
rustic accents as few ever have sung or will sing. Although
the Ettrick Shepherd was never able to speak decent
^ffiwf^^
460
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
English, and remained heart and soul a shepherd to his
dying day, yet, by the mere force of his genius, he
achieved distinction in almost every department of our
literature.
•Tames Hogg was born in 1772, in a little cottage in
Ettrick Forest. The wood beloved by Merlin, and con-
secrated by centuries of tradition, was a fitting locality
for a minstrel's birthplace. But his romantic sur-
roundings were more than counterbalanced by his
very unattractive name, for who could ever imajrine
that a poet would rise from such a patronymic ?
The Hoggs of the Border, however, despite their appella-
tion, were of no ignoble race. They claimed for common
ancestor a gallant reiver named Haug of Norway, whose
descendants for generations held their lands in fee from
the Knights of Oakwood and Harden ; and it was not till
tranquillity prevailed throughout the two kingdoms that
these belligerent progenitors abandoned their warlike
habits, turned their spears into crooks, and adopted the
peaceful occupation of shepherds.
The father of the subject of our sketch appears to have
been a quiet, commonplace sort of man ; but his mother,
Margaret Laidlaw, was a person of a very different tem-
perament. Lively and active, her ready wit and remark-
able acquaintance with local ballads and traditions made
her popular in *he district, and rendered her cottage a
favourite resort of the shepherds of Yarrow and Ettrick.
Such legends and songs, recited or sung by his mother, were
from infancy the delight and amusement of James Hogg ;
and it was this maternal teaching, rather than schools or
books, which is apparent in all his poetical works,
and which laid the foundation of his subsequent
successes. In fact, very little education of any other
kind fell to his lot, for, owing to his father's misfortunes,
he was hired out before he was six years old by a neigh-
bouring farmer to look after a few ewes, his remuneration
for the half year being fixed at a lamb and a pair of new
shoes. At the end of his summer's service his parents
took him home for the winter quarter, and sent him to a
school near their cottage. While there he advanced so
rapidly that he soon commenced reading the easier parts
of the Bible, which was then the only text book, and
before the three months were over, began to learn to
write.
With this brief apprenticeship to learning his education
terminated. He went to herd cows that very spring, and
was never another day at school. Herding cows is con-
sidered the lowest of all pastoral occupations ; and in this
humble position our poor laddie continued under different
masters for several years. Sometimes he was kindly
treated ; at other times hardly used ; and his young life
would have been as dreary as it was solitary had it not
been brightened .by two episodes. One was the acqui-
sition of an old violin, on which he sawed out any tune
he heard whenever he had any time to devote to the in-
strument; the other was falling in love. The account
he gives in his autobiography of this his first attachment
is too beautiful to be related in any other words than his
own : — "When only eight years of age I was sent out to
a height called Broadheads with a rosy-cheeked maiden
to herd a flock of new-weaned lambs, and I had my
mischievous cows to herd besides. But as she had no dog,
and I had an excellent one, I was ordered to keep close
by her. Never was a master's order better obeyed. Day
after day I herded the cows and the lambs both, and
Betty had nothing to do but sit and sew. Then we
dined together every day at a well near to the Shiel Sike
Head, and after dinner I laid my head down on her lap,
covered her bare feet with my plaid, and pretended to
fall sound asleep. One day I heard her say to herself.
' Poor little laddie ! he's just tired to death,' and then I
wept till I was afraid she would feel the warm tears
trickling on her knee. I wished my master, who was a
handsome young man, would fall in love with her and
marry her, wondering how he could be so blind and stupid
as not to do it. But I thought if I were her I would
know well what to do."
As James grew older and stronger he passed from one
master to another, always with a good character ;
and at last, from looking after cows, he was pro-
moted to the more honourable post of herding
sheep, which he regarded as his legitimate birthright, for
his ancestors had been shepherds time out of mind. It
was with no small pride that he, a youth of eighteen,
assumed the toya virilis Df plaid and crook, for, in a
precarious, uncertain climate like Scotland, a man of skill,
activity, and endurance is needed to take care of a flock
of sheep, and guard his valuable charge against the daily
and hourly risks to which they are exposed. About this
time, Hogg, who had hitherto had access to no other book
than the Bible, somehow or other got hold of the "Life
and Adventures of Sir William Wallace," and Ramsay's
"Gentle Shepherd." With considerable difficulty he
tried to spell his way through them. The little reading
he had learned before he was seven was almost forgotten.
The poetry confused him, so that when he got to the end
of a line, he had quite lost tne rhyme and often the
meaning of the preceding one. When Mrs. Laidlaw,
the wife of his employer, kindly lent him an occasional
newspaper, though he began at the date, and read
straight on through the advertisements of land, houses,
balm of Gilead, &c., to the end, he was often no wiser
when he finished than when he began. However, be
persevered, and as he read he slowly began to grasp the
meaning of the words. Wishing at this period of his life
to write a letter to his brother, he found on putting pen
to paper that he did not know how to form the letters of
the alphabet, and had laboriously to print and patch up
the words as best he could.
Notwithstanding his educational deficiencies, the young
shepherd was a prime favourite with all his neighbours.
Rather above the middle height, with a ruddy complexion
October!
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
461
and keen blue eyes, his most striking peculiarity in
early youth was a profusion of light brown hair. This
mass of unshorn locks was ordinarily worn coiled under
his hat; but when he uncovered his head, a single shake
unloosed the long hair, which then rolled down his back
and fell below his waist. Blessed with exuberant animal
spirits, skilled in all athletic games, and the swiftest
runner on the Border, he was a welcome guest at all
merrymakings. No wonder the rustic belles of his
acquaintance lost their hearts to a youth who was both
handsome and popular. Nor was he insensible to feminine
attractions. He was generally in love with one or other ;
but, even under Cupid's potent spell, his imagination
was long in awakening. It was not till he was in his
twenty-sixth year, and had taught himself to read
so as to understand, that his poetic instinct began to
develop, and he commenced to write verses. At first his
compositions were simply intended for the lads and lasses
to sing in chorus; but no longtime elapsed before his songs
and ballads became popular, and their author was soon
known to all the inhabitants of the district as "Jamie the
Poeter." About a year after this he heard for the first
time of Robert Burns from a half-daft man, who recited
" Tarn o' Shanter," and told him how the sweetest poet
ever born had been a ploughman. From that very
moment the shepherd's ambition was fired. Hogg
pondered over the genius and fate of the Ayrshire
poet, contrasted their positions, and decided that, a? he
knew by heart more songs than any ploughman had ever
heard, and had more time as a shepherd than any plough-
man could have, there was nothing to prevent him follow-
ing in Burns's footsteps. He now devoted every spare
moment to composition. His great drawback was in not
being able to write. This difficulty he determined to
overcome, though at first the labour of committing his
lines to paper was so great that he always had to strip
himself of coat and vest before he began, and could hardly
manage more than five or six lines at, a sitting, on account
of cramp in his hand.
At.last the time arrived when the thought of giving his
poems to the world dawned upon him. He had gone to
Edinburgh market with some sheep, and, only having sold
a part of his flock, put the remainder into a park until
the next week's sale. To relieve the dulness of the
interval, he wrote out some of his verses from memory.
He then gave them to a printer and ordered them to be
published at his own expense. After this rash plunge,
he sold his sheep, returned to the forest, and thought no
more about the matter till he received the printer's bill
and the announcement that a thousand copies had
been thrown off. This, the first publication by the
Ettrick Shepherd, is a little unattractive-looking pam-
phlet of sixty-two pages. It was entitled "Scottish
Pastorals, Poems, and Songs," and, as might have been
expected, fell flat and did not sell. Indeed, the author
tells us that these early poems were sad stuff : but one of
them, "Will and Keatie," met with some admiration,
and was copied into several periodicals.
Walter Scott— at that time better known by his official
title of "Sheriff" — was then engaged in compiling his
" Minstrelsy of the Border." James Hogg had sent him
several ballads which he had taken down from his
mother's recitation. In search of further information,
Scott made a raid into Yarrow and presented himself at
the humble residence of Hogg and his mother. Mrs.
Hogg chanted the ballad of " Old Maitlan," with which
the " Shirra " was highly delighted. " That must be an
old story, Margaret," said he. "Ay, it is that ! It is
an auld story ! But, mair nor that, except George
Warton and James Stewart, there was never ane o' my
sangs prentit till ye prentit them yoursel, an' ye hae
spoilt them a' thegither. They were made for singing,
an' no for reading ; an' they're neither right spelled nor
right settin' down." Scott's answer was a hearty laugh.
A pleasant evening followed ; and Hogg thus found a
friend who had discernment to appreciate his genius,
and kindness and opportunity to aid its development.
Hogg now resolved to publish his "Forest Minstrel."
Dissatisfied with his first experience of the press, and
desirous of having Scott's opinion before he made a
second venture, he applied to him for advice on his next
visit to Edinburgh. Scott received him heartily, and
asked him to dinner to meet William Laidlaw and some
other friends.
The bard on Ettriek's mountain green
In nature's bosom nursed had been,
and knew nothing of city manners or customs. He
cheerfully accepted the invitation, and repaired to Castle
Street in the ordinary dress of a herdsman who had
driven his cattle to market, his hands and boots bearing
evident traces of his occupation. As dinner proceeded,
and the wine flowed, he lost his first shyness and became
familiar and confident. At first he addressed hia host as
"Mr. Scott"; then he proceeded to "Shirra," then to
"Scott," "Walter," and "Wattie," and finally crowned
his blunders by addressing Mrs. Scott as "Charlotte."
Such an evening was followed by a morning of repent-
ance. The untutored shepherd begged a thousand
pardons for his misconduct, his only consolation being
that Mrs. Scott remained in the room all the time, and
she certainly would not have done so had he been very
rude.
Having obtained £300 by the sale of his poems, Hogg,
. in the pride of his heart, determined to farm on a large
scale. He took a farm, but his small capital and desultory
habits made failure a foregone conclusion, and he was soon
up to the neck in difficulties. Finding it impossible for
an unsuccessful farmer to obtain a situation as shepherd,
he wrapped his plaid round his shoulders and marched off
to Edinburgh, in order that he might devote himself
absolutely to literary work. On his arrival in that city,
he found his poetical talent was at as great a
462
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I October
\ 1891.
discount there as his pastoral qualifications were
in Ettrick. Poetry was at the moment un-
marketable. However, anxious to make a living,
he adventured in another field, and, with some
assistance, commenced to edit a weekly paper called the
.b'py. After three or four numbers were issued, this
paper became so coarse and indecorous that most of the
subscribers withdrew their names. The literary ladies
who formed a powerful coterie in Edinburgh were much
shocked, and agreed in full conclave that the editor
would never write a line that deserved to be read — a
remark that caused him scornfully to exclaim, " Gaping
deevils ! Whae cares for what they say ? If I leeve ony
time, I'll let them see the contrary o' that. "
Hogg's career in Edinburgh was for some years far
from successful, but he had adopted literature as a pro-
fession, and felt that he must stick to it, and either sink
or swim. The struggle at last appeared to end, for, to the
joy of his friends and the discomfiture of his detractors,
he produced the "Queen's Wake," which is certainly the
greatest and most consecutive of all his works. Two
editions were quickly sold, another was in course of
preparation, and the author appeared at one bound to
have achieved fame and fortune, when, with the usual
financial ill-luck which attended his life, his publisher
became bankrupt, and Hogg, who had expected to pay
off all his old debts, and make a provision for the
future from the profits of this work, was once more disap-
pointed, and reduced to his former penniless condition.
Poor man. as he always was, there was something about
him which endeared him to his fellow-creatures ; and, if
he was rich in nothing else, he was always rich in friends
who were ever ready to help him out of difficulties. On
this occasion Mr. Blackwood came to his aid, and placed
him on the staff of his magazine, where the Shepherd's
strange accent and peculiarities marked him out to his
fellow-contributors as a safe target for their drolleries.
Witty and mischievous, they set to work, and Hogg was
soon astonished to find himself represented as the author
of songs he had never written, and credited with speeches
he had never imagined, which appeared monthly in the
new magazine, and were received by a delighted public
with shouts of laughter which pealed from Land's End to
John o' Groat's. Driven almost distracted by his in-
genious tormentors, he complained, remonstrated, and
threatened. The annoyances ceased for a time, only to be
renewed in the more pungent and popular form of the
"Noctes Ambrosianoe," when the victim himself was com-
pelled to admire these merry effusions, and, notwithstand-
ing his vexation, join in the universal mirth they evoked.
These delightful sketches represent a state of society so
entirely different to "the way we live now," that,
while reading them, one can hardly believe that grand-
children of the persons who were the principal characters
at these supposititious symposia are yet in existence.
After the publication of the "Queen's Wake," Hogg,
in the course of seven years, produced fifteen volumes
of works, tales and poems, besides shorter articles which
appeared in periodicals. Monetary success again roused
his wish to farm. He took a place called Mount Benjer,
and bought sheep, cows, &c. In a short time he as usual
found himself in difficulties, and was compelled to have
recourse to his friends to help him out of troubles which
his recklessness had induced.
Although a great admirer of women, gentle or simple,
the Shepherd did not think of marrying until he was well
advanced in life, when he took to wife Margaret Phillips,
the daughter of a well-to-do Dumfriesshire farmer.
Twenty years younger than her husband, Mrs. Hogg is
described as being not only pretty and kindhearted, but
singularly fitted by nature and education to be a
poet's wife. Exceedingly sympathetic, she had always
a word of comfort for her husband when his mone-
tary misfortunes troubled him, and was equally ready
to extend a hearty welcome to the friends he loved
to gather around him. He was fully conscious of her
goodness, and tells us in his Autobiography that so
uniformly happy was his wedded life that he could not
distinguish one part from another save by some remark-
ably good days of fishing, shooting, or curling on the ice.
On the whole, the poet can hardly be said to have been a
domestic man ; but his genial nature rendered him im-
mensely popular amongst the numerous men of letters
who at that time made Edinburgh the headquarters
of the intellectual world. The Lake poets were
among his most valued acquaintances, though he
felt greatly disappointed to find that his brother
bards were not of « the same convivial turn of
mind as himself. His first meeting with Southey was
at the Queen's Head Inn, Keswkk, and Hogg was
not only a grieved but an astonished man when he found
that his visitor refused to participate in his bowl of rum
punch. To quote his own words : "For a poet to refuse
his glass was a phenomenon, and I confess I doubted in
my own mind, and doubt to this day, if perfect sobriety
and transcendental poetical genius can exist together."
In his own case they certainly did not.
At a time when Hogg's fortunes were at their lowest
ebb, he was surprised and delighted at the intelligence
that the Duke of Buccleuch, in consonance with the wishes
of his late Duchess, had conferred on him a life interest in
the small farm of Altrive Lake. This unexpected and
unsolicited boon was truly welcome, for it gave an unfor-
tunate man a habitation amongst his native moors and
streams where every face was a friendly one, and every
house a home. In order to stock his little farm, a new
edition of the "Queen's Wake," sumptuously bound and
illustrated, was brought out, and, fortunately, furnished
the requisite funds. Thus, comfortably located in a dis-
trict endeared to him by early associations, with an occu-
pation suited to his tastes and habits, it was hoped that he
might settle down and quietly alternate the labours
October!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
463
of the farm with literary pursuits, choosing his own
subjects, and working out his ideas uninterrupted by the
distractions of town life, or the exigencies and exactions
of editors. But such a course could not be carried out.
He had charmed the world with his lays, and had to pay
the penalty of success. Scarcely was he settled at
Altrive than swarms of tourists repaired to his cottage
eager to make the acquaintance of one who was not only
a literary celebrity, but a literary marvel. The poor
poet, more hospitable than prudent, was always ready to
share his oaten cakes, rizzered trout, and moorland mutton,
ayp, and his drop of mountain dew as well, with any-
body and everybody who came to see him. " What is your
pen about now, Mr. Hogg?" inquired his friend Allan
Cunningham. "Pen! it might as well be in the goose's
wing ; I cannot get writing done for the visits of my
friends." Naturally these continued demands on his
time and resources prevented regular work, and forced
him, when he did write, to do so by fits and starts. In
consequence of these irregular habits, he, though still in
the prime of life, was unable to equal the production ot
his earlier days, when, unknown and unnoticed, he wrote
and studied while tending his sheep, with no company
but his beloved hills, and no society but his own thoughts.
Money, however, was wanted, and money had to be
earned ; so numerous works, all bearing marks of haste,
were rapidly produced. He also entered into negotiations
with a bookseller in Pall Mall to bring out a complete
series of his works in a cheap and handsome form. In
pursuance of this object he made a visit to London, where
the arrival of one around whose name centred all the
wit and frolic of the " Noctes Ambrosianae " caused no
small sensation. Though feted and feasted, Hogg had
little or no sympathy with his entertainers, and of all the
sights of the great metropolis the one that interested him
the most was the great provision market. He understood
the commodities there displayed, and the vastness of the
supply overwhelmed him. The sight of great cartloads of
dead laverocks nearly broke his heart. Where the
dealers got them, and hov> «hey caught such multitudes
of the
Bird of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,
he could not imagine. No wonder that he felt great
contempt for Londoners, who knew the lark as a gour-
mand's dainty. rather than as a sweet singer at the gates
of heaven.
Although of robust frame and active habits, it was im-
possible that any constitution could stand the incessant
wear and tear of literary effort, and the strain of continual
monetary losses and disappointments. Under such cir-
cumstances, life was not likely to be prolonged to a green
old age. Overwork began to tell a tale. A latent affec-
tion of the liver showed itself, and, after an illness of a
few weeks. Hogg expired on Novenrber 21, 1835, in the
64th year of his age. He was interred in the little
churchyard of Ettrick, and there, in a daisy-covered
grave, amid the calm green beauty of the pastoral hills
and vales which had inspired his dreams of fancy, lies all
that was mortal ot the gentle hearted Shepherd.
M. S. HARDCASTLE.
asrcrtoir,
FINE portrait in oils of the Right Hon. W.
E. Gladstone, M.P., painted and" presented by
Mr. J. W. Brown, of London, was unveiled
by the Countess of CairHsIe, at the Liberal Club, New-
castle, on Tuesday, August 18, 18,91. The ceremony
took place in the dining-room of the club, in the
presence of a large
gathering of ladies
and gentlemen. Mr.
R. O. Heslop ex-
plained how the pic-
ture came to be pre-
sented to the club,
and gave some in-
teresting particulars
of the career of the
artist. Mr. Brown,
he said, is a native of
Newcastle, but he has
been so long away
from " the North
Countree " that he is
now better known in
London than on the
banks of the Tyne.
He began his artistic
career under the pupilage of the late William Bell Scott,
when that eminent man was head-master of the Govern-
ment School of Art in Newcastle. When Mr. Scott
was succeeded by Mr. W. C. Way, Mr. Brown
became one of bis assistant masters. He then painted
portraits and landscapes, and his work was so much
esteemed by Mr. Scott that he induced Mr. Brown
to go up to London, where he introduced him to Mr.
William Morris. For some years thereafter Mr. Brown
worked in the atelier of the author of '• The Earthly
Paradise." While with Morris, Mr. Brown specially
identified himself with the design and painting of glass
windows, and it has been in this department of art that
his reputation has been made. After an engagement
with Messrs. Powell, the erninent art glassmakers
of the Strand, Mr. Brown began work on his own
account in his studio at Stoke Newington, where he
continued till ill-health a few months ago compelled
him to migrate to Australia. It was at Messrs.
Powell's that Mr. Browu met with a singular
MB. J. w. BBOWN.
464
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/October
1 189L
recognition of his ability. The circumstance was told
Mr. Heslop by a gentleman who chanced to hear of
it. John Kuskin, during a visit to Messrs. Powell's
works, was examining critically the designs in progress.
Coming to a cartoon which especially interested him, he
took off his hat, observing: "I must stand uncovered in
presence of work like this." That cartoon was a design
drawn by Mr. Brown. Mr. Brown has produced many
painted windows which rank high as works of art. One
notable example of his skill is a memorial window in St.
Margaret's, Westminster. He was entrusted with the
designs for the series of historical painted windows for
the chapel of Baliol College, and he assisted in
executing some of the designs of Burne Jones
for the painted windows of Brampton Church. America
and our colonies possess very important works which he
designed, and it is of local interest to add that Mr.
Charles Mitchell commissioned Mr. Brown to design the
great east and west windows for the church of St.
George's, Newcastle.
5T0U)tr atttt
j|NE of our illustrations shows Whitton Tower,
with the modern residence adjoining, now the
rectory house of Roth bury, and the home of ihe
Rev. A. 0. Medd. It is one of the few fortified rectories
in Northumberland, and, indeed, in the country. It was
built in the fifteenth century, and belonged to the Umfra-
villes, the famous family who owned Prudhoe and Elsdon.
and it bears the arms of this haughty race on its walls.
There are corner turrets on the tower, and below is a
dungeon, while the walls of the building are nine feet and
a half thick.
It is somewhat odd that the living of Rothbury, and
the rectory therewith, have been held by three sons of
Archbishops of York— Dr. Sharpe, Dr. Drummond, and
the Rev. G. V. Harcourt, a relative of Sir William
Vernon Harcourt.
Mentioning Dr. Sbarpe's name reminds one of the build-
ing near the tower, called Sharpe's Folly, which the
reverend doctor, who founded the charity of Bamburgh
Castle, and who was rector of Rothbnry from 1720 to
1757, ordered to be built to give employment to the poor
during a hard winter. This Folly is a circular observa-
tory which commands a most beautiful and extensive
prospect.
&nlt0lG in
REMARKABLE event distinguished the
Feast of St. Stephen, Friday, the 26th of
December, 1292, at Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
The event itself and the circumstances that
led to it may be briefly narrated.
On the demise of Alexander III., King of Scots, in
1285, without male issue, and the untimely death of bis
only surviving child, Margaret the Maid of Norway,
there were no fewer than twelve competitors for the
Crown of Scotland. As the majority of these bad more
or less powerful adherents in the country, disposed to
October 1
1891. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
465
settle the question of right by the sword, and as the
nobles found they were not likely ever to agree
amone themselves whom to choose, they referred the
matter to the arbitration of Edward I., King of England,
a monarch of consummate talent and boundless ambition,
who was only too glad to be called in to act as umpire in
the case, "having it in his mind," as an old English
historian candidly states, "to bring under his dominion
the kingdom of the realm of Scotland, in the same manner
as he had subdued the kingdom of Wales."
Edward, in the first place, required the Scottish barons,
spiritual and temporal, to acknowledge him as lord para-
mount of the kingdom, which, after considerable hesi-
tation, most of them did, in an assembly held on a
large plain on the north bank of the Tweed, opposite
Norham, at a place called Upsettlington.
Eight of the candidates for the crown, then and
there present, consented unhesitatingly and explicitly,
each with the view of currying the umpire's particular
favour, to resign the independence of Scotland, which
had been so long and so bravely defended by their
ancestors, and to acknowledge themselves Kdward's
liegemen. The names of these were:— John Baliol,
Lord of Galloway ; Robert Bruce, Lord of Annandale ;
Florence, Count of Holland ; John de Hastings ;
Patrick Dunbar, Earl of March ; William de
Ros ; William de Vescy ; Robert de Pynckney ;
and Nicholas de Soulis, Lord of Liddesdale, who,
according to tradition, was afterwards boiled
alive by the country people on the Nine-Stane-
Rigg. All these formally acknowledged the King
of England as lord paramount of Scotland, and
declared themselves willing to receive and hold
the Scottish Crown, as awarded by him in that
character.
Upon examining the several claims, the right
of succession was found to lie chiefly betwixt John
Baliol and Robert Bruce. Both were great and
powerful barons. Both were of Norman descent,
as were also the bulk of the others. Both had
great estates in England as well as in Scotland,
and Baliol had likewise extensive possessions in
France. Both were probably Englishmen born
and bred. Baliol at least was. and he was
therefore unquestionably a liege subject of the
King of England.
The ancestor of Baliol in the fifth degree, Guy
de Bailleul, came over to this country with
William the Conqueror, and had granted to him
by William Rufus the forests of Teesdale and
Marwood, together with the lordships of Middle-
ton-in-Teesdale and Gainford, with all their royal
franchises, liberties, and immunities. Barnard
Castle was built by his son Barnard, and the
third in descent from him, John de Baliol of
Barnard Castle, gained a high place among the
30
benefactors of literature by the foundation of Baliol
College, Oxford, which he commenced in 1293, and
which was completed by his widow Derngill or
Dervorguill [Cumbro-British : Derchffor-gwil]. That
" lady gay, " as an old ballad styles her, was
the eldest daughter and heiress of Allan of Gal-
loway, Constable of Scotland, by Margaret, eldest
daughter of David, Earl of Huntingdon, younger brother
of William the Lion, and grandson of David I., King of
Scots. By his union with Dervorguill, John de Baliol
acquired vast estates in Scotland, and a great consequent
accession of wealth and influence, on the strength of
which, together with his title founded on being the
nearest heir-male of the Earl of Huntingdon, his son
John laid claim to the Crown of Scotland.
Robert Bruce, who stood second on the list, was the
sixth in lineal succession from Robert de Brueys, or Brus,
also one of the companions-in-arms of William I., who
had bestowed upon him in marriage by the Conqueror,
"for his many great services," Lady Agnes Fulk de
Panell, the Saxon heiress of the lordships of Hart and
Hartness, Stranton, Yarm, and other rich manors and
largo territories in Durham and Yorkshire. It was
Robert, the competitor in this case, who "builded the
466
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/October
\ 1891.
haven and wall about the town of Hartlepool, with ten
towers on each side of the haven, and a chain to be drawn
between them near the haven, which would hold a hun-
dred ships." He was lord of Annandale, as well as earl
of Carrick and Garioch, in Scotland, these extensive and
valuable possessions having been bestowed upon his great-
great-grandfather by King David I., whose companion-
in-arms he had been when they were both youths at the
Court of Henry I. of England, and whom he accompanied
to North Britain when that enlightened, munificent, and
saintly prince, whom James VI. long afterwards stigma-
tised as "a sore saint for the crown," succeeded to the
throne of his fathers. Robert Bruce's mother was the
second daughter of the said David, Earl of Huntingdon,
so that he stood nearer by a generation than Baliol did to
their common ancestor — that is to say, he was a son,
while Baliol was only a grandson. It was on this fact
that he rested his claim as superior to his chief rival's.
He had probably spent his early days at the residence of
his mother, the Castle of Turnberry, in Ayrshire ; but he
afterwards passed a great deal of his time in England,
and was substantially an Englishman "of the North
Countree."
King Edward, upon due deliberation, which occupied
a long time, declared Baliol to be best entitled to
succeed to the royal dignity, as being the grandson of
the elder daughter. This was quite in accordance with
the rule of succession which has since prevailed, though
at that time there had been so settled principle laid
down.
Bruce's claim having been thus set aside, he declared
that he intended to present it in another form ; and
John de Hastings, who was descended from the third
daughter of Earl David, then rose and asserted that
the kingdom was divisible, and that it ought to be
divided equally among the descendants of the three
daughters of the Earl of Huntingdon. Bruce seconded
this application, and demanded for himself one-third
of Scotland, conceding to Baliol, as descended from the
eldest sister, the title of king over the whole. But the
commissioners to whom Edward referred this question
declared that in their opinion neither the kingdom of
Scotland nor its revenues were divisible. And all the
ether claimants but Bruce and Hastings having formally
withdrawn or given up their case through failing to
attend the court, the king finally, on the 17th of
November, declared his judgment, that the kingdom
of Scotland belonged to John de Baliol, with a reser-
vation of the rights of the King of England.
Edward then exhorted Baliol to govern his people in
such a manner that there should be no necessity for the
interference of the lord paramount. He ordered the five
regents who had been acting during the interregnum to
give their new king seisin of his kingdom and of its castles.
The great seal of Scotland was broken into four, and de-
posited in the Treasury of the King of England, as
evidence of his sovereignty over Scotland. Baliol swore
fealty to Edward next day in the castle of Norham ; and
he was crowned at Scone on St. Andrew's Day (November
30th), with the ancient ceremonies of investiture, having
been placed in his royal chair by the King of England'*
Lord High Commissioner, John St. John, who repre-
sented for the occasion Duncan, Earl of Fife, then a
minor, whose hereditary duty it was.
The newly-made sovereign was immediately afterwards
summoned to England to attend on Edward's will and
pleasure, as hia feudal dependent. And on the day after
Christmas, 1292— St. Stephen's Day — he had the mortifi-
cation of being obliged to do homage, for the second, or,
rather, the third time, to his proud lord-superior. This he
did, if we may credit Hector Beethius, much against the
will of his own nobles, though why that should have been
so we can scarcely conceive, seeing that most of them had
themselves done the same thing repeatedly, and that the
majority of their names were attached to the infamous
"Ragman's Roll," which has made the very name of the
poor innocent Berwickshire village of Birgham, where
it was signed, stink in patriotic Scotsmen's nostrils to this
day.
The degrading ceremony took place in the great hall of
the palace within the Castle of Newcastle, adjoining the
King's Chamber. It was concluded, we are told, with
much solemnity, and in the presence of a great number of
illustrious personages of both nations.
After this, Edward deliberately and systematically
heaped indignities on his vassal king, with a manifest in-
tention to rouse him to rebellion, so as to justify the
conquest of Scotland and its incorporation with England
and Wales. The plan succeeded, but not till after
Baliol had been sundry times constrained to plead his
own cause, against one or other of his nominal subjects,
in the English high courts. He determined on war at
last, and was encouraged to engage in it by Philip, King
of Franca. Edward, who was fully prepared for the
anticipated event, and eager to take advantage of it,
summoned the Scottish King to meet him in Newcastle
on the 1st of March, 1296. Here the ambitious monarch
waited in vain for obedience to his mandate, and then
marched northwards to chastise his rebellious vassal at
the head of 30,000 foot and of 4-.000 horse. This formid-
able army soon almost annihilated the Scottish irregular
troops, marched to Aberdeen and Elgin in triumph, and
then returned to England, carrying with them the timid
Baliol, and the inauguration stone of Scone. " the stone
of destiny," fabled to have been brought from Palestine
to Scotland by St. Andrew the Apostle, and considered
to be the palladium of the Scottish monarchy.
John Baliol was long detained in prison, but was at
length suffered to go to France, where he died in ob-
scurity.
Baliol's son Edward, seeing, as he thought, a favourable
opportunity after the death of the hero of Bannockburn,
October!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
467
the greatest king who ever wore the Scottish crown, and
the accession of his son, David II., a child only four years
old, resolved to renew the chiiins of his father to the
throne of Scotland. He came over from France to Eng-
land for this purpose, and although Edward III., remem-
bering the recent successes of the Scuts, did not think it
prudent to enter into a war, yet Baliol found a large
party of powerful English barons well disposed to aid his
enterprise. With their assistance, he landed two thou-
sand men at Kinghorn, from whence he marched north-
wards with such alacrity as to take the regent, Donald,
Earl of Marr, completely by surprise, and, after defeat-
ing him in the battle of Dupplin, managed to get himself
crowned at Scone, as his father had been. But,
being shortly afterwards expelled from the country,
he fled into England, and offered to do homage
to the English sovereign if he would reinstate
him in the possession of the kingdom. Edward
now readily accepted the conditions, and forth-
with declared war against his northern neighbours. The
battle of Halidon Hill, disastrous to the Scots, shortly
afterwards followed, and Baliol was again acknowledged
as King of Scots, while the nobles attached to the house
of Bruce sent off the young king and queen to France
for safety. Baliol then fulfilled his promise by coming to
Newcastle in the train of the King of England, and in
the church attached to the house of the Black Friars or
Dominicans in that town, on June 19th, 1534, he did
homage to the king as his superior and chief lord of the
realm of Scotland.
This transaction rendered Baliol the object of universal
hatred to the people over whom he was sent to rule,
and in the end he was forced to betake himself to
France, in despair of making good his pretensions to the
Scottish crown.
flartfctrn Circuit Jfiftg
tlje late
j]AST Lent Assizes (1874) it was just thirty-
four years since I had first carried a blue
bag to the Court steps at Durham. This
Summer Assizes. I had no business at Dur-
ham, but at Newcastle I looked around the ranks of the
Bar. I saw but one face which I had seen on my earliest
visit to the Northern Circuit in 1840. It was that of
Henry Udall, who was holding a brief in the great
"Thelate William WealandsRobson, of Sunderland, whose portrait
and biography appears in the Monthly Chronicle for 1837, p. 270,
contributed to the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle in the autumn of
1S74 a series of articles on the Judaea and Barristers who travelled
the Northern Circuit thirty or thirty-four years before. It is so
much of Mr. Hobson's recollections as have not lost interest by
lapse of time that is now reproduced.
Alnwick Road case, made a rema.net by Mr. Justice
Archibald. Mr. Udall was called to the Bar so far back
as 1833, and wrote a good little book on the New Rules of
Pleading in 1836, which work I am afraid I have had
oftener in my hands than in my head.
"First catch your hare before you cook it." Effort
speaking of the Assizes, I should have told how we got
to Durham from Sunderland. There was no railway in
those days except a unique rope affair curious in its way
and ruinous to its shareholders, most of whom lived in
Sunderland, which fat King Hudson afterwards, as a
bribe to the constituency, bought for " his company " at
prime cost, being twice its market price and ten times its
intrinsic worth. This Sunderland contrivance brought
you no nearer Durham than Shincliffe, and you were
never certain of getting that far in due time even if you
had worked your passage by helping to push the carriages
up an incline ! Afterwards, by taking the Brandling
Junction Railway as far as Brockley Whins, then the
Stanhope and Tyne as far as Washington, and then the
Durham Junction across the Victoria Bridge, you might
ride by rail to Rainton Meadows, within six miles of the
City of Durham. The transit from Rainton Meadows to
Durham was by omnibus. But, at Assize times, there
were by this route always more passengers than seats, and
if you could not scramble upon the roof or stand upon the
steps, you had to finish a tedious and circuitous journey
on foot. The stage coaches, whose horses stopped trot-
ting at the smallest rise of the road, and whose drivers
never passed a public-house, were, after all, preferable to
either of the railways, and, God willing, under favourable
circumstances, they did the distance in not much more
time than it need have taken a crack pedestrian. We
had Homer's coach, Thwaites's coach, and Miss Kgerton's
coach. The proper and most professional way of travel-
ling was the post-chaise, and most attorneys, having once
got to Durham, stayed there contentedly until their busi-
ness was done.
Those were golden days for the Durham innkeepers,
not chat they ever charged extortionate prices. The
number of guests was not measured by the number of
beds in the house. You were lucky, indeed, if you got
a bed in the house. The odds were that you had to be
escorted by the waiter to some place much humbler than
the inn in which you had hoped to take your ease. I
have often slept in places which were bedrooms only during
the Assizes, and corn-chambers, hay-lofts, or harness-
rooms for the rest of the year. At that time, etiquette
forbade the Bar to travel by stage-coaches or to stay in
inns. With all the sharing of post-chaises and private
lodgings, the cost of going the Circuit must have been
considerable. I sometimes suspected that the poorer
briefless barristers must have travelled packed up in
crates by the carrier's waggon in the fashion of resur-
rection men's subjects going by Howey's wain to be
dissected at Edinburgh.
468
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/October
i 1891.
By far and a long way the best counsel I ever saw was
Mr. Cresswell Creaswell. He had all the advantages of a
good figure, a handsome face, and a pleasing voice,
though I never thought he showed so much breeding as
Mr. Stuart Wortley, nor could it well be expected. The
manner of Cresswell was said to have been formed upon
and to closely resemble that of the even greater Sir
James Scarlett, whom I only knew as Lord Abinger.
Cresswell was wonderfully successful in gaining verdicts.
The secret of his success was obvious enough. He seemed
always studiously to put himself on a level with the jury
whom he was addressing, and to talk to them not so
much collectively as individually. He used to fix his
eyes upon, and, as it were, fascinate, one juryman after
another until the lot were fairly within his net. It
was all done by a sort of quiet and semi-confidential
conversation, and a kind of insensible flattery. Cress-
well invariably treated his jury as if they understood
the case just as well as he himself did, and he went
through his speech apparently on the assumption that his
hearers were concurring in every word that he said. It
was a species of delicious unconscious mental seduction.
Cresswell used his art to conceal his art. He did not try
to compel conviction ; he got it by taking it for granted.
Mere oratorical display Cresswell despised, not but
that Cresswell could, on occasion, speak as forcibly and
eloquently as anybody, even then professing only to
re-echo the thoughts he assumed to exist in the minds of
the jury. There was nothing of the Buzfuz about him.
Bully or bluster he had none, though his looks even more
than his words were often terribly cutting. He delighted in
leading a hostile witness into an absurdity or a perplexity.
Then there were all the glances at and the exquisite
by-play with the jury, to whom Cresswell seemed to say,
"Gentlemen, I am sure you all see through the fellow as
well as I do." Cresswell was especially great at sitting
down in disgust and dismissing a witness with contempt.
But he did not come regularly or indeed often to
Durham, though he would not miss York or Liverpool.
We rarely saw Cresswell at a Lent Assizes. I had not
known Durham long before Cresswell was made Solicitor-
General. Then he was lost to the circuit. No man who
has once been Attorney or Solicitor-General can ever
again go circuit. Cresswell, after he was appointed
Solicitor-General, soon accepted a puisne judgeship in the
Common Pleas.
As a Judge, Cresswell came the Northern Circuit much
oftener than was universally agreeable. Being gener-
ally the junior judge, he of course sat in the Nisi Prim
court at Durham, There he appeared to take a particularly
malicious pleasure in snubbing his old rivals and associates
at the Bar. Watson and Granger used to come in oftenest
for his spleen or spite. But he did not try it on long with
Watson, who was a high-spirited man, quite Cresswell's
equal if not his superior in knowledge of law and mental
calibre, and who- held a position at the Bar which no
Judge had it in his power to prejudice. Granger was
different, and seemed to wince under that lash which only
made Watson set up his back the more. I once heard Cress-
well ungenerously say to poor Granger, after gaming a
verdict for defendant by the skin of his teeth—" Mr.
Granger, I would have given you a non-suit if you had asked
me !" I firmly believe that if Justice (Jiesswell had taken
it into bis head to come the Northern Circuit as regularly
as old Sir John Bayley (who did it that he might not miss
appointing bis son as Clerk of Assize) he would have driven
Tom Granger out of practice. When Granger knew that
Cresswell was coming the Circuit, he is said to have been.
in the habit of privately suggesting to plaintiffs' attorneys
that they should wait until they had another Judge.
Both Watson and Granger were Whigs, while Cresswell
was a high-Tory. I am sorry to say that Cresswell
carried his politics with him to the Bench. He tried the
Thornhill footpath case from Bishopwearmouth with a
vase deal of partiality to the plaintiff and of prejudice
against the defendants. He regarded the praiseworthy
attempt of the Highway Board to re-open an ancient foot-
path as an uprising of the democracy, and as an invasion
of the rights of property. At Newcastle his conduct was
still worse. He was said to have chosen the Northern
Circuit one Assizes on purpose that he might try Mr.
Addison Potter (afterwards Mayor of Newcastle) for ad-
ministering a horse- whipping to a Tory journalist. The
severe or rather savage sentence shocked the people of
Newcastle ; their fellow townsman did not suffer one iota
in their estimation, and he has since attained the highest
distinction in their power to bestow.
But, putting aside personal animosities and political
prejudices, the ex-leader of the Northern Circuit was a
great Judge amongst great Judges. Like Campbell,
Crompton, and Alderson of his own day, and Blackburn
of a day later, he had been a law reporter, and the best
way to learn law is to write it. As the first Judge of the
new Divorce and Probate Court, for which Cresswell
quitted the Common Pleas, he will go down to posterity
with his judgments in his hand. Nothing could have
shown his vast n.ind more signally or more strikingly than
his quickly learning and completely mastering what to
him was an entirely new branch of law.
Cresswell had no equal on the Northern Circuit, and
the nearest or only approach to a rival was Robert Alex-
ander, who was a very good man. Alexander was
a fair lawyer, and far more of a talker than Cresswell.
Alexander also cross-examined an adverse witness in a
way much more taking with ignorant bystanders, and, I
am bound to say, sometimes very effectively. It took
good judges to properly appreciate Cresswell ; but the
merits of Alexander, and he had great and real merits,
were apparent to everybody. No client ever thought that
he had got enough wind for his money, and attorneys
were sure to please their clients by giving their briefs to
Alexander. I do not mean to insinuate for one moment
October!
1891. ;
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
469
that Robert Alexander was a mere sound and-fury
barrister, with nothing more in him than in a grace-and-
brimstone preacher, bat only that he had always £ar more
to say than Cresswell, who, like a first-rate jockey, would
never move in his seat without a necessity, and who some-
times did most by doing nothing. Alexander had brains
as well as a tongue in his head. He was the son of an
attorney at Halifax. It was said that his destination to
the Bar was quite accidental. He had been at the West
Ridinft Sessions with bis father, where they had been
forced wearily to listen to a Mr. M . On their way
home, young Alexander said to his father, "Father, I
could do better than old M myself." " Do you think
so, my boy? then, by G — , you shall try." And try he
did, and succeeded. Poor Alexander's career was cut
short by a cancer in the stomach. I heard him make his
last speech at Durham, then visibly suffering from some
painful internal complaint. He was always clever and
eloquent. On this occasion there was, I often afterwards
thought, a light before death. As he warmed to his work,
and few men could put more heart into their speeches, he
forgot all his ailments, and made such a speech that, after
a lapse of over thirty years, I could even now repeat its
most striking passage.
After, and a Rood way after these, came David Dundas,
who, being a scion of an aristocratic family, soon had a
silk gown. There was no lack of ability about Dundas,
but he was not at first thought exactly the sort of man for
common every-day cases. In consequence, his oppor-
tunities of distinguishing himself came but seldom. He
made an excellent defence of Archibald Bolam at New-
castle, and, if my memory serves me ripthtly, he was also
the leading counsel at Durham either for or against an
eminent Northumbrian farmer, afterwards more eminent
as an agricultural auctioneer, when made defendant in an
action for libel brought by the County Surveyor of North-
umberland, in which the venue was most judiciously laid
in Durham, where the first publication of the alleged
libel took place. The defendant's costs were paid by a
subscription amongst the farmers of Northumberland. I
remember the trial as well as I do some of the fine
writings of the defendant, as, for instance, when, in
describing the exodus of the poor Irish in 1845-6, he
spoke of the advanced guard of the immigrants going
forth to seek corn in Egypt, as the "wan cohorts of a
famine-stricken army," and when he wrote of "the
grey ruins of Dilston Hall looming in the distance,
disconsolate under the torn escutcheons of Derwent-
water." Dundas was just beginning to get into ordi-
nary practice when he left the circuit, on being ap-
pointed Solicitor-General. He did not aspire to a seat
on the Bench, but contentedly sunk into some sinecure,
or semi-sinecure, in the Court of Chancery. He was
not a Chaff-wax or a Petty Bag, but a Master, and,
although this sounds like doing something, all the real
work would be done by his clerk. Dundas might not
be ambitious, on account of his ill-health. I heard him
too, make his last speech at Durham, and it was one
worthy of his birth and breeding.
The Hon. Stuart Wortley rose also to a Queen's Counsel.
He was not near up to the mark of either Cresswell or
Alexander, and was about upon a level with Dundas.
Mr. Stuart Wortley was no more a black-letter man than
Dundas, hut he was regarded as a rather better lawyer.
The line of Stuart Wortley was second-string in a heavy
case. He filled this place exceedingly well in the great
Darlington will case in which Mr. Knowles was his
leader, and in his favour I ought to say that he was
regularly employed by a firm of highly respectable
attorneys in extensive practice, to whose judgment in
the selection of counsel I would be greatly disposed to
defer. Wortley was about the finest-looking man I ever
saw, with the high cheek-bones and the light blue eyes
of the far-descended Scotsman. He was appointed Judge-
Advocate-General and left the Circuit, but did not hold
that office long.
I cannot tell very much about Mr. Martin, eminent as
he deservedly was. The reason why is that Martin did
not come at all to Durham when I first went to the
Assizes, nor for some time after. Mr. Martin belonged
to the Northern Circuit, but, like many other men, con
tented himself with York and Liverpool, and did not
attend the smaller Assize Towns on the Circuit. He was
never at Durham until the great Darlington will case,
and for that famous case Sir Fitzroy Kelly was brought)
down specially, and Martin and Crompton were induced
to come to Durham on purpose, neither needing a special
retainer, because both belonged to the circuit. Crompton
never came again, and not long afterwards was made a
judge. Martin continued to come until he was made a
judge, but Martin never got so well known at Durham
as the counsel I have already noticed, which is the sole
reason why I have given them precedence in these re-
marks. But we saw quite enough of Martin to know
and to admire his ability. If an ungracious defence had
to be set up in the shape of an arbitrary rule of law, such
as the necessity for a writing, no man on earth was more
skilful in justifying the wisdom of the law and smoothing
over the prejudices of the jury. I never heard law
so well popularised, if I may so speak. Martin was
truly a grand hand, but he was always thought so near
the Bench that the attorneys were almost afraid to
employ him at Durham, lest they should lose him at
Westminster, if the case did not end at Durham. He
was not, however, made a judge until 1850, and very
frequently came the Northern Circuit, which was said
to be his favourite.
" Little Knowles " was a huge favourite at Durham,
and well he might be, though not perhaps quite so much
with the city attorneys as with those in other parts of
the county, and with attorneys who came from a
distance. As a junior, he was usually the junior of
470
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/October
i 1891.
Alexander, while Watson was generally put with
Cresswell. Knowles was a very good single-handed
man, and when he took silk made a capital leader. He
was by no means Watson's equal in having the law at
his finger-ends, and he lacked Watson's broad views and
decision of purpose. Neither could he change his line of
battle if a necessity arose, like Watson, and. except, in
talking, was much Watson's inferior. Knowles had an
infinite fund of wit and humour, and was unrivalled in
turning a shabby or shady case into ridicule, or con-
temptuously blowing it out of court. And Knowles
could speak with a world of pathos and true eloquence.
Who that heard it could ever forget his finest effort in
the memorable Darlington will case, which lasted three
whole days, and in which Knowles with Stuart Wortley
and " Pig " Addison were pitted against Sir Fitzroy
Kelly, Martin, and Crompton ? Nearly all the witnesses
for the plaintiff fixed an important date by a reference
to " the three hot days in the month of March," and
Knowles took care to get this out from witness after
witness until its repetition became ludicrous, of which
Knowles made terrible use in his speech. One sen-
tence will live in my memory until I die. "Domestic
servants," said Knowles, slowly and solemnly, and
gradually raising his voice, " first imagine, then think,
then combine, then conspire." I thought it as grand as
the " abiit, cxcessit, effugit, erupit " of Cicero, if my
Latin is correct.
SLOGAN is a war cry. The use of the
slogan, by whatever name it may have
been called, is probably as ancient as the
practice of war itself. Every country
had its national war cry, which was usually a brief
invocation addressed to its patron saint. Thus, the
national slogan of England, at least from the middle
ages downwards, was, "St. George, forward," or
"Upon them, St. George." In a similar way, the
Scottish soldier called upon St. Andrew, the Irish
warrior upon St. Patrick, and the Frenchman upon
St. Dennis. The familiar war cry stimulated the
soldier to put forth all his energy, and was also a
means of enabling him to recognise his comrades in
the darkness of a battle fought by night.
But, in the olden times, every clan had its own
peculiar slogan. In times of war every great overlord
was required to bring to the battle field all his
dependents and tenants who could bear arms. When
the forces were being gathered from the hamlets
and homesteads which in time of peace were their
abodes, the slogan was of signal use. It reminded
those who heard it of the duties of patriotism ; it
revived the memory of battles lost or won, in which
their sires and grandslres had fought; and it kindled
afresh that deep feeling of attachment to the superior
lord which, in England no less than in Scotland,
almost universally characterised the serf and tho
dependent.
At the battle of Otterburn, the followers of the
Percy standard heard and repeated the slogan,
"Percy, Percy." At the battle of Shrewsbury, tn
1413, when Hotspur and his confederates attempted
to dethrone Henry IV., the Percy slogan was,
" ISsperance, Percy !" Perhaps the cry raised
before the walls of Wressle Castle, in 1536, by the
followers of Robert Aske, "Thousands for a Percy !"
should scarcely be regarded as a slogan of the Percy
dependents, but it at all events deserves to be
recorded. How Thomas Percy of Wressle joined in
Aske's rebellion, the famed Pilgrimage of Grace, and
lost his life for so doing, is matter of history.
The Percies of olden time took rank with another
North-Country family, the Nevilles, and they also
had their martial mottoes. The only recorded
instance of the employment of one as a slogan in
actual warfare occurs In the account of the rebellion
against Edward IV. In 1469, when a number of the
rebels were led on to a victorious conflict by John
Clapham, a servant of the Lord Neville, Earl ol
Warwick, crying, "A Warwick, a Warwick !'' But
there can be no doubt that, as in so many other
instances, the name Neville itself would be used as
a slogan, and perhaps the same may be said for
the well-known Neville motto, "Moys droyt, Moys
droyt !"
An interesting instance of the use of a slogan
occurs in the history of a well-known Border feud.
About the middle of the sixteenth century a Liddes-
dale clan, the Crozicrs, had slain a member of the
great Northumbrian clan of Fenwlck. A quarter
of a century later the Fenwicks had their revenge,
and slew several of the Croziers in their beds.
Their leader was surrendered to the Deputy Keeper
of Liddesdale, and, in consequence of this, a meeting
was arranged between the English Warden of the
Middle Marches, Sir John Forster, and the Deputy
Keeper of Liddesdale, then Sir John Carmichael.
Tnis meeting took place at the Reidswire. The
gathering was, at first, a peaceful one, but presently
shots were tired, and an affray of serious character
resulted, when the Scots shouted, "A Jedworth, a
Jedworth," whilst the cry of the men of Tynedale
was, "A Tyndale, a Tyndale!" It can scarcely be
claimed that in this instance the slogan is allusive
to the lords of Tynedale, for then- race had been
extinct for fully two centuries. "A Tyndale" must
have meant one of the lawless denizens of that famed
October!
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
471
district, just as "A Jedburgh" meant a valiant Scot
from the district of that ancient town.
The Fenwicks were another warlike Northumbrian
clan. They were sometimes spoken of as the "fierce
Fenwicks," or as the "fearless Fen wicks," both
epithets having been won by their bravery and
prowess. Everyone is familiar with the stirring
"Gathering Ode of the Fenwick" which commences
with the lines: —
Pipe of Northumbria, sound;
War pipe of Alnwicke!
Wake the wild hills around,
Summon the Fenwicke ;
Percy at Panim war ;
Fenwicke stands foremost ;
Scots in array from far,
Swell wide their war-host.
The Fenwick slogan was the thrice repeated cry,
"A Fenwyke, a Fenwyke, a Fenwyke!" Akin to the
slogan just mentioned is one which is given in the
following verse from the well-known ballad of the
"Raid of the Reidswire":—
Then was there nought but bow and speir, .
And every man pull'd out a brand;
"A Shaftan and a Fenwick!" thare;
Gude Symington was slain frae hand.
This war cry calls to mind another ancient and
distinguished Border family, that of Shaftoe, whose
slogan is said .to have been the twice repeated cry,
"A Shaftoe, a Shaftoe !"
Similar to our last examples are others. The
Thirlwalls of Thirlwall Castle, close to the Roman
Wall, and overlooking the bonks of the river Tippalt,
were another northern warlike race, and their fol-
lowers were summoned to the battle field or the border
foray by the cry, "A Thirlwall, a Tliirlwall, a Thirl-
wall!" Other northern slogans of like character
were, "A Berwick, a Berwick!" and "A Bulmer, a
Buhner!" both of which are recorded to have been
used on the occasion of the expedition against the
Scots which was led by the Protector Somerset.
The slogan used by the followers of the family of
Bowes, although no doubt ancient, is of the same
type as the foregoing examples, but has some special
interest from the fact that it is believed to be the cry
which was employed on the last occasion on which
(at least In the North) the followers of a chieftain
were led on by the use of a slogan. The circum-
stances were these: — A dam had been built across
the Tees at Fishgarth, near Egsleseliffe, which,
hindering the passage of fish up the river, was very
obnoxious to those whose property adjoined the higher
banks of the Tees. In 1661, Matthew White of
Ovington, on behalf of William Bowes of Streatlam,
by the beating of a drum, gathered together about
twenty men at Piercebridge, whence they marched
to Egglesclifle. On their way about ten others
joined them, and at Neasham "Mr. Henry Ohaytor
of Croft and Mr. Killinghall called for ale, and drank
Ksquire Bowes's good health, and gave six shillings
to them to be spent in drink, which they did drink,
the drum beating, and they shouting and hoo;ing,
•A Bowes, a Bowes !"' The end of the riot was that
as much of the objectionable dam as could be reached,
on account of the quantity of water in the river,
was thrown down.
The cries of the followers of the fatally rival
families of Neville and Bowes have been mentioned,
and that of the retainers of a neighbouring stock,
although their ancestral home is on the Yorkshire
side of the Tees, must not be omitted. The Rokebys
of grey Mortham's Tower were a Yorkshire family of
great antiquity and of equally great renown. Sir
Thomas Rokeby, it must be remembered, worthily
distinguished himself at the Battle of Neville's Cross.
The occasion on which the Rokeby slogan was used,
probably for the last time, is of sufficient interest to be
related here. It is recorded in a manuscript quoted
in Whitaker's "History of Richmondshire. " We copy
the extract just as we find it, only modernising the
spelling: —
In the end of King Henry the Eighth, his reign
lung Edward the Sixth, and Queen Mary's reign
at Mortham, then lived Thomas Rokebyj Esquire,
eldest brother, and owner of Mortham, a plain man
as might be, whose words came always from his
heart, without feigning, a trusty friend, a forward
gentleman in the field, a great housekeeper; whereby
he lived so in the good wills and good hearts of his
countrymen, that his son and heir, Christopher
Kokeby, being assaulted at Gatherly horse race by
Christopher Neville, brother to the 'mighty Earl of
Westmorland, whom the said Earl had sent thither
with a hundred men to kill him, was both defended
and guarded from the violence of his adversaries,
and was able so to have rebounded the blows given
him by them, that they should have spilt the best
blood in their bodies if his party had been willing,
for then not a gentleman in the field but they cried
"A Rokeby." But the good old Thomas being in
commission for the peace, commanded and entreated
peace, as he said, "Give (I.e., although) it grieves
me to see him bleed that bleeds, yet peace the peace";
and, therefore, the king loved him that could so well
get the love of his country.
We go still further afield when we introduce the
slogan of the retainers of the ancient Lancashire
family of Stanley, but it must be remembered that
Lord Edward Stanley, with the "lively wights" of
Lancashire and the "chosen men" of Cheshire, fought
on the field of Flodden. When the Earl of Surrey was
sore pressed by the Scots, and victory seemed to be
falling to their share, Lord Edward came bravely and
most opportunely to bis assistance: —
And "Stanley" stout they all did cry;
Out went anon the grey goose whig.
And amongst the Scots did fluttering fly.
And though the Scots at Stanley's name
Were 'stonished sore, yet stout they stood.
Nevertheless, Stanley's brave charge turned the
fortunes of the conflict, and the best men of the Scots
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/October
\ 1891.
were left dead on the battle field. The incident is
well told in Scott's vigorous verse: —
The war. that for a space did fail,
Now trebly thundering swelled the gale.
And "Stanley!" was the cry; —
A light on Marmion's visage spread,
And fired his glazing eye;
With dying hand, above his head,
He shook the fragment of his blade.
And shouted "Victory !"
"Charge, Chester, charge ! on, Stanley, on !"
Were the last words of Marmion.
Drayton, the author of the quaint topographical
poem "The Polyolbion," records what he calls the
blazon of the Northern districts of England in the
following lines —
The lands that over Ouse to Berwick forth do bear.
Have for their blazon had, the SnafBe, Spur, and
Spear.
And Sir W. Scott, in "The Lay of the Last Minstrel,"
makes William of Deloraine, addressing the dead
body of Richard the Dark Musgrave, say: —
Yet, rest thee God, for well I know
I ne'er shall find a nobler foe
In all the Northern Counties here,
Whose word is Snaffle, Spur, and Spoar.
Another slogan, the use of which was not confined
to any particular clan, was the cry, "Forth to the
Held !" It "was used in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries by the feudal lords and gentry
of the North to rouse their tenantry, retainers, and
clansmen to join their standard on any sudden and
extreme emergency." It was also used at Flodden.
A cry more or less of the character of a slogan
was used by men of the North when seeking to
encourage each other on the field of battle, and
consisted simply of the words, Yet, Yet, Yet '."
Another North-Country slogan, a variation of
which is believed within very recent times to
have been the occasion of more than one broken
head, is the cry, "Tarsetburn and Tarretburn."
The Tarset is a tributary of the North Tyne, and
the Tarret is a branch of the Tarset. Amongst
the natives of the districts watered by these
smaller streams a very popular local Eureka
takes the form : —
Up wi' Tarset and Tarretbum,
And down wi' the Reed and Tyne!
To shout these words in the presence of a
denizen of the vales of the Tyne or the Reed
was a sure prelude to a free-handed fight.
Such are the North-Country slogans, which
have been preserved by the labours of the late
Michael Aislabie Denham and others. Many
such local war-cries are doubtless forgotten, and
lost for ever. Whilst they no doubt served to
stimulate the wavering warrior to renewed
exertions, they were unquestionably themselves
often the cause of serious broils, by reviving
the feuds and rivalries of neighbouring chieftains ;
and there was great wisdom in the action of
Henry VII., in procuring from his Parliament an
Act "forbidding such war-cries as tended to
promote discord amongst the nobiBty," and
enjoining soldiers to call only on St. George and
the King. The law was frequently disobeyed, and
every reader of the history of the Commonwealth is
familiar with the slogans of the soldiers of the
1'arliame'nt, "God with us '" and "The Lord of Ho»ts
is with us !" J. R. BOYLE, F.S.A.
Dinar
2JNE of the loneliest and wildest parts of the
English Lake District is Ennerdale, a valley
some dozen miles in length. At the head of
the dale, near the Black Sail Pass, leading to Wastdale,
is the Pillar, the steepest mountain in Cumberland. The
Pillar Rock, the subject of our engraving, stands out from
the ereat bulk of the Pillar, being some 500 feet below the
summit. It is a conspicuous object for miles around.
Wordsworth refers to it as follows : —
You see yon precipice — it wears the shape
Of a vast building made of many crags.
And in the midst is one particular rock
That rises like a column in the vale.
Whence by our shepherd it is called the pillar.
The Pillar Rock was long considered inaccessible, but
has often been scaled of late years. The first record of
the kind is dated 1826, when an Ennerdale shepherd,
named John Atkinson, reached the top without accident.
PILLAR KOCK.
October 1
MM. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
473
Amateur climbers have since emulated Atkinson's ad-
venturous spirit, among others Lieutenant J. Wilson,
R.N., in 1848, and subsequently Mr. C. A. O. Baumgart-
ner. In later years the Pillar Rock has been annually
climbed by many persons, including ladies, and little
honour or renown is to be gained from the successful per-
formance of the feat by the ordinary route to the summit.
Only recently, however, the rock was climbed by three
members of the Alpine Club from the front or Ennerdale
side direct from the river Liza.
into the torrent. The knight plunged after her, and
brought her out of the water. Mortally injured, she
opened her eyes, smiled once upon her adorer, and died.
Jfrrm,
J]IRA, Ara, or Airey Force, situated a few
miles from Patterdale, on the banks of
Ullswater, is without doubt the most
picturesque waterfall in the English Lake District.
There are others that have a greater volume of
water, and others, again, that are of greater
altitude ; none, however, excel Aira Force in
pictorial attractions.
The water tumbles about 80 feet perpendicularly
' into a chasm, and, as will be seen by reference to
our illustration, is dashed into foam. If the fall be
at all full, a cloud of spray rises, which, when
glinted by the rays of the sun, occasionally pro-
duces rainbow-tints of much brilliancy. The huge
boulders, the overhanging foliage, and the dark
pool below, combine with the rustic bridges and the
waterfall itself to form an effective composition,
well worthy of the painter's peucil.
Aira Force is the scene of Wordsworth's poem
"The Somnambulist." The legend is that a fair
maiden, named Emma, lived with her father in an
old castle, the site of which is now occupied by the
modern erection known as Lyulph's Tower, the
only castellated building on Ullswater. Her
beauty and talents attracted many admirers, but she
turned a deaf ear to all savj one. Sir Eglamore, a
knight of high renown, gained her heart, but wished
to prove his devotion by some heroic feat before he
wedded her. After a tender farewell beneath a
holly tree above the waterfall, he departed for a
foreign shore. For a while the fair Emma heard of
his brave deeds, but afterwards for months she had
no tidings of him. Then she began to doubt his
constancy, refused food, lost all repose, and acquired
the habit of sleep-walking. Sir Eglamore proved
faithful, and duly returned to his ladye love. The
night was far advanced, so he betook himself to the
holly tree rendered dear to him by the remem-
brance of parting, and there awaited the morn.
Seeing a figure in white that reminded him of
Emma coming towards him, he gently touched her.
Emma suddenly awoke, staggered, and fell headlong
JONATHAN CAY.
The following paragraph, cut from a recent number
of the Sparrowpoint News, an American paper, may
be of interest to Tyneside readers : — " Near the
rear walls of Christ Church building, at Prince Frede-
AIKA FORCE.
474
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/October
I 1891.
ricktown, Calvert county, Maryland, U.S., there is a
stone slab bearing this inscription: — 'Here lieth interred
the body of Reverend Jonathan Cay, native of Newcastle-
on-Tyne, England, who died October, 1737, for 22 years
rector of this church.' The stone is still in a good state of
preservation, except a crack across its upper left hand
corner, and the lettering is easily legible. "
HASHAWAY
A VENERABLE DAME.
There now resides at Boston Spa, in Yorkshire, a
centenarian who passed her 102nd year on July 24 last.
She was born at Chillingham New Town in the year 1789.
Her maiden name
was Isabella Ray.
At the age of 26
she married an
'Excise officer
named W. Mos-
crip at Cold-
stream. She is
still a wonderful
woman, having a
robust constitu-
tion, and can take
walking exercise
out of doors. Her
memory is not in
the least impaired
with age, but very
distinct through
all the years of her
varied life. Up
to a year ago she could knit, and did so continuously
during the day, but now her sight has become somewhat
dim, and she cannot clearly take up the loops. Her
hearing is rather bad, but, as she says, at her time of life,
she cannot expect it " to be as good as it was one hundred
years ago." B. R., Sunderland.
JANE AND ANNA MARIA PORTER.
The interesting sketch of these two .authoresses (see
Monthly Chronicle, 1891, 415) makes one regret that the
writer did not attempt to give a list of their writings, I
have several of their books, but have never seen a com-
plete collection. I send you herewith a list of works
written by them, but I am by no means certain it is a
complete one. Where North-Country worthies have
made contributions to literature it seems to me desirable
that some record should be preserved of what they have
done in this direction.
ANNA MABIA PORTER.
The Barony, 3 vols. ; Don Sebastian, 4 vols. ; The Fast
of St. Magdalen, 3 vols. ; Honor O'Hara, 3 vols. ; The
HunKrtrian Brothers, 3 vols. ; The Knight of St. John,
3 vola, ; The Lake of Killarney, 3 vols. ; Octavia, 3 vols. ;
The Recluse of Norway, 4 vols. ; The Village of Marien-
dorpt, 4 vols. ; Walsh Colville, 1 vol.
JANE PORTER.
Duke Christian of Luneberg, 3 vols. ; The Field of
Forty Footsteps, 2 vols. ; The Pastor's Fireside, 4 vols. ;
The Scottish Chiefs, 4 vols. ; Tales Round a Winter's
Hearth, 2 vols. ; Thaddeus of Warsaw, 3 vols.
The "Pastor's Fireside" was afterwards published in two
vols., and a little later in one vol. 8vo., with illustrations.
"The Scottish Chiefs" and "Thaddeus of Warsaw " were
also published with illustrations, and have been frequently
reprinted. Forty years ago, " The Scottish Chiefs " was
one of the most widely read novels in the North of Eng-
land. I cannot 6nd any indications of Anna Maria
Porter's books having been issued in either the one-volume
form or with illustrations.
Of Sir Robert Ker Porter, brother of Jane and Anna
Maria, I only know of two works of his, viz. : —
"The Campaign in Russia, 1812," 8vo.
"Travels in Georgia, Persia, &c.," 1817-1820, 2 vols.
4to.
This last work was published by Messrs. Longmans at
£9 9s. Od. ! JOHN W. CRAKE, Liverpool.
THE THREAT OF INVASION.
Great preparations were made by the French in the
earlier years of the century for the invasion of
England. Dunkirk and Boulogne were the general
rallying ports. The latter harbour was the principal
point of assemblage, and the efforts made there in
1803 were such as to excite the serious attention of the
British Government. Gunboats and flat-bottomed praams
were collected in great quantities, furnaces were heated
for red-hot shot, immense batteries constructed, and every
preparation made, not only for a vigorous defence, but
the most energetic offensive measures. Nothing was
talked of but the approaching invasion on either side of
the Channel. On the English side, fame so magnified
the extent of the public danger that every old woman
who heard a gun go off fancied it was the French
landing. In one of our North-Country towns, even
the running of a wheelbarrow down the High Street
by a midnight wag brought a nightcap to every window,
and scattered a rumour all round " that the French had
landed." Indeed, very little sufficed to set a whole town
in motion any time during the expected invasion. In
1794, whilst the Durham Militia lay at Whitby, a part of
the old abbey, with the great window, fell at night with
a crash like thunder, starting the people from their beds.
In a few seconds the whole town was in the streets in
their night clothes. The militia beat to arms, and turned
out for a set to, but a brief inquiry revealed the cause of
the general consternation, and the people's fears "went
to bed with the sun."
It was Bonaparte who threatened that he would equip
a flotilla of flat-bottom boats to invade this country, and
swore in the presence of our ambassador that he would
put himself at the head of the invading army. That put
October \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
475
England on her guard. Through his spies and agents
he sounded our harbours and landing-places. But the
Government not only took active steps to destroy or
cripple the French flotilla at Boulogne, but strengthened
the coast and harbour defences from the Firth of Forth
to Land's End.
In anticipation of an attempt to burn the shipping in
the Tyne, a strong iron chain, manufactured for the pur-
pose by Messrs. Crowley and Co., Swalwell, was laid
down, so as to be drawn across the mouth of the river,
should occasion require, in order to obstruct the passage
of fireships at night. (Brockie informs us that the first
chain manufactured for this purpose fell into the river
when it was being put aboard a keel at Swalwell, and
that it was never got out again.) A crab, or upright
shaft, having several holes at the top for levers to
be thrust through to be worked like a capstan, was
put up at each side, and the chain was loosely
attached to them by strong ropes intended to be
wound round them to draw it tight. By a part of
the contrivance fireships were to be grappled with as
they came up the river and hauled upon the Mussel Scarp.
The apparatus was used on the occasion of the Poppel-
well's Pink taking fire at the entrance to the harbour, to
the imminent risk of the vessels lying there. She was
cleverly seized hold of before she could do any mischief,
and hauled upon the Scarp, blazing fore and aft in an
awful manner, and there she burned down to the water's
edge. W. S., South Shields.
CARLYLE'S ESTIMATE OF THE FOLKS
O1 SHIELDS.
The following extract from a letter by Thomas Car-
lyle, dated Ecclefechan, 19th July, 1841, may be found
in the recently published Life of Lord Houghton : —
" I spent about a week in coming hither by Newcastle,
&c. At Tynemouth I had a swim in the beautiful blue
sea ; saw Harriet Martineau ; saw the North Shields
election ; admired the rugged energy of that population
and how completely Annandale Scotch they are from
the Humber to the Forth. Still more from the Tyne to
the Forth I find no real distinction at all, except what
John Knox introduced : it is all Scotch — Scotch in
features and face, in character, in dialect, and speech.
You, too, if you behave yourself, shall be accounted
Scotch ! They are all Danes, these people, stalwart
Normans ; terrible sea kings ; are now terrible drainers
of morasses, terrible spinners of yarn, coal borers,
removers of mountains ; a people terrible from the
beginning." EDITOR.
A CUMBRIAN BIDDEN WEDDING.
The "Bidden Marriages," once so common in Cumber-
land and Westmoreland, are fast dying out, and their
remembrance will ere long have faded into the past.
Among some old historical papers which have fallen into
my possession I find the followine :—
BIDDER WBDDIHO.
No GKETNA-SMITH shall force our Fetters,
We leave such Customs t« our Betters.
JOHN STAMPER, of Little Clifton, in the County of
Cumberland, and CATHERINE YEOWARD. of Harring-
ton, hereby respectfully solicit the Company of their
Friends and Acquaintance, to their MARRIAGE, which
will be on TUESDAY next, the llth of July, 1797, at Little
Clifton aforesaid.
Then come one and all,— to the wedding repair ;—
The neighbouring; Youth bid the Bridea-room declare.
That with Running, ind Wrestling, and Leaping they'll strive
To create and keep Mirth and Good Humour alive.
Here's a Galloping Match for Two Bridles,— and then
A heat for Sii DORS,— and a Foot Race for Hen ;
One Bridle to trot for, — a race run in Sacks,
And a Heat for Six Lasses with Lads on their Backs ;
For a Belt some will Wrestle, and some leap for Gloves,
Whilst innocence each rural gambol approves.
Then come one and all ; — to the Wedding repair : —
Your Cheer will be good,— and the Sports be most rare.
J. W. FAWCETT, The Grange, Satley.
THE BRITISH FLEET.
James : " Did ye gan doon an see the Fleet at Tin-
rauth ?" Joseph : "No, aa didn't ?an ; but aa seed yen o
the man-o'-war cheps in Graingor Street. He wad likely
be here wi' the Fleet on furlong !"
THE BIG DRUM.
An old story is worth retelling. Scene : Central
Station, Newcastle. Railway official to inebriated bands-
man who is without an instrument : " Noo, then, let's
hev yor ticket." "Man, aa've lost hor." "Nonsense!
ye cannet hev lost it!" "Wey, man, aa've lest the big
drum !"
ST. SVVITHIN.
One very wet day lately, a party of pitmen were assem-
bled in a public-house not far from Bedlington. From the
weather the conversation naturally turned to St. Swithin.
None of the company seemed to know anything about his
saintship, though many conjectures were made as to what
he had been. At length a person not connected with
mining entered, and as he seemed to be a likely man to
know, the query was put to him. "Wey, lads," he
replied, "aa divvent knaa varry much aboot him; but
from what aa've hard, aa think he must ha' been a wet
hand !"
MUCH IN LITTLE.
" Multum in parm : whaat dis that mean ?" asked one
Tynesider of another. "Bother if aa knaa," was the
reply ; " they hev sic new-fangled nyems for things noo-
a-days ; but if thoo axes Dick Stavers, he's sure te tell,
for he's a grand scholar ; aa've hard him spell scissors
backwards monny a time." Dick, being fond of a joke, ex-
plained that it was a Latin term, and meant to carry a loco-
motive in a wheel-barrow. "Ma sarties, but that's a
queer job te de," exclaimed the querist. "Aa divvent
476
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I October
\ 1891.
wonder that it tyeks a clivvor fellow te manage Latin,
when they de sic things as that 1"
THB PHOTOGRAPHIC GROUP.
As several persons were inspecting the large photo-
graphic group of Contributors to the Newcastle Weekly
Chronicle, which was on view in the window of Messrs.
John Hay and Co.'s shop in Northumberland Street,
Newcastle, a man and his wife, who had probably just
arrived by train, approached. The better half drew the
attention of her lord and master to the group. He, how-
ever, did not deign to notice it, but putting on a super-
cilious air, remarked :— "The crooned heeds o' Europe,
aa suppose !"
PROFICIENCY IN LANGUAGE.
It is Dr. John Collingwood Bruce who tells the
following story: — "A Newcastle alderman, who was
very well known in Newcastle when I was a boy, went
to London, and took up his quarters in Wood's Hotel,
Furnivall's Inn. There he picked up the acquaintance of
a young foreigner — we will say a Dane. One day the
foreigner said to the alderman, ' And how long have you
been in dis contry, sor ? ' He, thinking he meant ' How
long have you been in town?' replied, 'Three weeks.'
'Dearee me,' said the Dane, 'and you do speak the
langage nearly as well as I do who have been here tree
months !' "
GEORDY ON GUARD.
Scene : Military camp, Shoeburyness. A Seaham
Colliery pitman was on guard about eleven p.m., and, not
being accustomed to such duty, he rested his carbine against
the rails and leaned over them. The officer on duty came
sharply up behind Geordy, and shouted: — "What are
you doing there ? That's no position to be in when on
guard. I might have knocked you on the head beiore you
could have seen me." Pitman :—" Aye, aye, ye beggor.
It might just tyek thee all the water on te knock me on the
heed. Aa's a bonny teuff un. Thoo might find thysel in
the wrang box. Just tyek ma advice an' gan te bed. or
ye'll be sleepin the caller i" the morning ! " The officer
(a Londoner) strode away without remark, for he had not
understood one word that was addressed to him !
THE RULING PASSION.
A person having occasion, some years ago, to visit an old
couple at Durham, of extremely penurious habits, found
them holding counsel together upon a matter which appa-
rently weighed heavily on the minds of both of them.
Thinking it was the probable dissolution of the wife, who
was at the time lying dangerously ill, he proceeded to offer
therr> all the consolation in his power. He was quickly
cut short, however, by being informed that that was not
exactly the subject they were discussing, but one which
affected them still more deeply, viz., the cost of her
funeral ; and, to the stranger's astonishment, they con-
tinued their ghastly calculations until every item in the
catalogue, from coffin to cap, had been gone through, with
much grumbling at the rapacity of undertakers. Sud-
denly a bripht thought occurred to the husband, who
exclaimed, " Wey, Janey, hinny, thoo may not dee efter
aall, thoo knaas." "Aa's shoor aa hope not, Robert,"
replied his helpmeet, in a low, feeble voice, "for aa's
sartin we cannot afford it ! "
Mr. Andrew Hope, a well-known draper in South
Shields, who took an active part in public affairs, died
suddenly on the llth of August. He was 44 years of age.
On the llth August, also, Mr. Johnson Harle, at one
time a prominent merchant in Monkwearmouth, died in
London at the age of 60 years.
Mr. John Bell, caretaker of Newcastle Cattle Market
for 29 years, died on the 14th of August, his age being
72 years.
On the same day, Mr. John Graham, farmer, of
Wyliesyke, Gilsland, one of the oldest tenants on the
Nuworth estate ot the Earls of Carlisle, died at the age of
72 years. The deceased was noted as a successful breeder
of Cheviot and blackfaced sheep.
Intelligence was received on the 14th of August of the
death, at Sydney, New South Wales, of Mr. Henry E.
Dickinson, engineer, who had served his apprenticeship
at Messrs. R. and W. Hawthorn's, Forth Banks, New-
castle. The deceased became a member of the 1st New-
castle Volunteers at the time when Sir Johu Fife was in
command. He was 42 years of age,
At the age of 83 years, Mr. Henry Sidney, a justice of
the peace for the petty sessional courts of BIyth and
Bedlinejton, died at Cowpen Hall, Cowpen, on the 15th of
August.
On the same day, at the age of 75, the death took place,
at Prudhoe, of Mr. Siddle Dixon, late huntsman of the
Northumberland and Durham Harriers.
Mr. Richard Witten, keeper of the Station Hotel,
Seaham Harbour, and formerly a ship captain, died on
the 18th of August, at the age of 52 years.
Also, on the 18th, died Mr. Andrew Watson, head
engineer at the Marquis of Londonderry's New Seaham
Collieries, aged 44 years.
Another death took place on the 18th of August — that
of Mr. Roger Errington, a well-known manufacturer of
cattle spice at Sunderland. The deceased was a
member of the Sunderland Town Council, and took an
active interest in all matters affecting the welfare of the
borough. He was a prominent member of the Primitive
Methodist body, and was president of the Sunderland
Sunday School Union. Mr. Errington was about 42
years of age.
Mr. George Bartram, who all his lifetime had been
identified with the shipbuilding industry on the Wear,
died at Sunderland, on the 19th of August, at the
ad vanced age of 91 years.
On the 2]st of August, in his eighty -ninth year, the
Duke of Cleveland (Harry George Powlett) died at his
residence in London. His other titles were Earl of Dar-
October!
II. /
1891.
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
477
lington, Viscount and Baron Barnard of Barnard Castle,
and Baron Raby of Raby Castle. Before his succession
to the peerage, his Grace,
as Lord Harry Vane— a
name subsequently ex-
changed for Powlett — had
a seat in the House of
Commons, as one of the
members for South Dur-
ham, from 1847 to 1859,
becoming in the latter
year member for Hastings.
He was married in 1854 to
Catherine Lucy Wilhel-
mina, widow of Lord Dal-
: meny, and mother of the
j Earl of Rosebery. With
the death of his Grace,
THE DCKE OF CLEVELAND. the title of Duke of Cleve-
f From a Photograph by land became extinct, but
Messrs. W, and D. Downey.) that of Baron Barnard of
Barnard Castle survives in
the person of Mr. Henry de Vere Vane, member of a col-
lateral branch of the family. The body of the deceased
was conveyed from London by special train to Winston
Station, and thence by road to Raby Castle, where it lay
in state till the 28th. With solemn ceremony, and amid
general manifestations of sorrow, the remains were then
interred in the family mausoleum in Staindrop Church-
yard. The personalty of the late duke was estimated at
one-and-a-half millions sterling.
The Rev. Father Sharpies, of New Tunstall, near Sun-
derland, a Roman Catholic priest who had been in
charge of various missions in the diocese of Hexham and
Newcastle, died on the 22nd' of August.
On the 22nd of August, Mr. Frederick Robertson
Goddard, of the firm of Messrs. Monkhouse, Goddard,
and Co., accountants, Newcastle, died at his residence,
Victoria Square, in that ciiy. His father, who belonged
to Ipswich, came to Newcastle as sub-agent of the Bank of
England's branch in Grey Street. Mr. Goddard was
official auditor of the Corporation. Possessed of con-
siderable literary capacity, he wrote a series of admirable
articles on Lapland in the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle.
The deceased gentleman was 44 years of age.
Dr. Edward Anthony Hedley, who had laboured for
thirty years as a medical practitioner at Felton, died
there on the 22nd of August, in the 50th year of his age.
He was married to Eliza, only daughter of the late Mr.
Samuel Donkin, of Bywell Felton,
Mr. Lancelot Bell, a dealer in flour and meal, and who
had for many years been a member of the School Board
in Allendale Town, died suddenly on the road leading to
Keenley on the 24th of August, the horse and cart which
he had in charge returning home without him.
Mr. Henry Irwin Jenkinson, a well-known writer of
guide-books to the Cumberland Lake District, died at
Brentwood on the 28th of August.
On the 2nd of September, the death was announced of
Mr. William T. Bell, at High Green, coalowner, Sunder-
land, at the age of 80 years. The deceased was for many
years a member of the River Wear Commission, and was a
magistrate for the county of Northumberland,
Mr. Alderman P. Matthews, Lord Mayor of York,
died at his official residence in that city on the 6th of
September.
at
©ctarrentcs.
AUGUST.
10. — The colours presented to the 2nd Battalion York
and Lancaster Regiment (the old 84th) in 1861, and
carried by it through the Egyptian campaign in 1882,
were placed in the south aisle of York Minster.
11. — A seal, three feet in length, was caught in Shields
Harbour.
— The August Fair was proclaimed at the entrance to
St. Nicholas" Cathedral, and in Newgate Street, New-
castle.
12. — At Shoeburyness Artillery Volunteer Meeting, the
1st prize in the 10-inch gun competition was won by the
first and second detachments of the 4th Durham.
14.— As the guest of Sir Charles Mark Palmer, M.P.,
his Royal Highness the Prince of Naples, Crown Prince
of Italy, arrived in Newcastle, from Edinburgh, on a two
days' visit to Tyneside. He was received at the Central
Station by a distinguished party, including his Excellencv
Count Tornielli, Italian Ambassador at the English
Court. The Mayor (Mr. J. Baxter Ellis), in the name of
the Corporation and citizens of Newcastle, extended to
his Royal Highness a warm and hearty welcome to the
ancient town. A pro-
cession having been
formed, the Prince pro-
ceeded in the Mayor's
carriage to the residence
of Sir C. M. Palmer in
Jesmond High Terrace,
where a banquet was
given in his honour in
the evening. On the
following morning the
Royal visitor, accom-
panied by the Italian
Ambassador and his
suite, was treated to a
trip down the river,
the various works and
the nature of the in-
dustries carried out in
connexion with them
being explained in the
course of the passage.
On arrival at Jarrowthe
Prince was welcomed
by the Mayor (Mr. Matthew Dent), and was pre-
sented with an address on behalf of the Mayor
and Corporation. His Royal Highness was then
conducted over the works of the Palmer Iron and Ship-
building Company, luncheon being served in the. drawing
office. Returning to Newcastle by rail, the Prince paid a
short visit to the works of Sir W. G. Armstrong and Co.,
at Elswick ; and in the evening he set sail from the
Albert Edward Dock, Tynemouth, on board the passenger
steamer Britannia for Norway.
15.— New rolling mills, enclosed in an area of upwards
of 46 acres of ground, were opened by Messrs. John
Spencer and Sons at Newburn Stanners.
17. — In pursuance of the bequest of the late Mr. Lewis
Thompson, the ceremony of placing a memorial garland
PRINCE OP NAPLES.
478
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I October
1 1891.
on the tombstone of the late Mr. Thomas Thompson, of
Byker, was performed by the Guardians of that township
in Jesmond Cemetery, Newcastle.
— At a meeting of the Newcastle School Board, it was
unanimously resolved that the Government fee grant of
10s. per head on the average attendance be accepted. At
a subsequent meeting, it was resolved to free all the
schools of the Board, with the exception of the Westmor-
land Road and Heatoa Park Road mixed departments,
where a uniform charge of 4d. will, be made, the new
arrangement commencing with the 1st of September.
The majority of the other local School Boards and the
managers of several voluntary schools also availed them-
selves of the provisions of the Free Education Act.
18. — Dr. Brown tendered his resignation to the Gates-
head Board of Guardians as medical officer for Winlaton,
which he had held for 35 years.
— Probate was granted of the will of Mr. Edward
Hedley, of the Borough Road, North Shields, who died on
the 27th of March, 1891, the personalty being sworn at
£9,428 4s. 2d.
— It was announced that Mr. Joseph Skipsey, the pit-
man poet of Northumberland, had tendered his resigna-
tion as custodian of Shakspeare'a birthplace at Stratford-
upon-Avon.
19. — The annual meeting and excursion of the English
Arboricultural Society were held in Hexhuni and district.
— A commercial, scientific, and model exhibition, pro-
moted by Mr. J. D. Lawson, manager for Mr. F, M.
Laing, was opened in the Royal Assembly Hall, Stan-
hope Street, South Shields.
20. — About this time, a handsome new Wesleyan
Chapel, the gift of Mr. Emerson Muschamp Bainbridge,
of Eshott Hall and Newcastle, was opened at Eastgate,
in Weardale.
21.— The Rev. Malcolm Smith, of the Tron United
Presbyterian Church, Hawick, was drowned while bath-
ing at Spittal, Berwick-on-Tweed.
22. — A woman named Cavanagh, wife of Michael
Cavanagh, died under suspicious circumstances at
Walker, and her husband was arrested on suspicion of
having caused her death.
— Ann White, a woman living in John Street, off
Bishopton Lane, Stockton, was found to have been
muidered in her house; and William Wood, a blacksmith,
who cohabited with her, subsequently gave himself into
custody on the charge of having committed the deed,
jealousy being assigned as the motive. The victim of the
tragedy was 43, and the prisoner 39 years of age. The
coroner's jury returned a verdict of wilful murder against
Wood.
— At the meeting of the British Association at Cardiff,
great uimiration was expressed by eminent naturalists of
the bird sketches drawn by Mr. John Duncan, naturalist
and artist, which appear in the Weekly and Monthly
Chronicle.
— During a heavy gale, a herring boat was capsized
while making for North Sunderland harbour, and two men,
one being the captain, Adam Durham, were drowned.
— The twenty-first annual prize meeting of the New-
castle Rifle Association was held at the Harton Moor
rifle range, near Tyne Dock.
24. — John Thomas Elliott, 36 years of age, an engine
fitter, who had drunk himself out of his senses, committed
suicide by throwing himself from the High Level Bridge
into a yard in Pipewellgate, Gateshead, a height of 86 feet.
25. — Owing to an unusually heavy rainfall on the pre-
vious evening, great floods prevailed in the upper reaches
of the Tyne ; and a farm horse, in harness, was drowned
in the river opposite Newburn.
— The annual Brewster Sessions for Newcastle were
held in the Police Court. There were twenty new appli-
cations for licenses, a number of which were eventually
refused. The other local licensing meetings took place
about the same time.
26. — During the early hours of this moraine, a violent
gale of wind raged in Newcastle. The tents in the
Leazes Park, in which the annual exhibition ot the
Durham, Northumberland, and Newcastle Botanical and
Horticultural Society was to have been held, were, un-
fortunately, blown to the ground. Many valuable plants
which had been ranged under the canvas were damaged
through the fall of the poles, Mr. W. J. Watson, of the
Fenham Nurseries, being the greatest sufferer in this
respect. Such, indeed, was the vast and general amount
ofjdestruction wrought by the storm that, at an early
meeting of the committee, under the presidency of the
Mayor (Mr. J. Baxter Ellis), it was decided to abandon
the autumn show for the present year. At a subsequent
meeting of the same body, it was reported that, so far as
could be estimated, the liabilities of the society amounted
to £560, against which there was available a sum of
£226 15s. The Mayor issued an appeal soliciting
public support for the unfortunate society. The result of
the mayoral manifesto, in conjunction with other efforts,
was such, that the whole of the liabilities were ultimately
met, and there remained a substantial surplus in favour
of the society.
27. — The inquest on the bodies of the seven men who
were killed by the fall of hydrochloric acid condensers at
the Friar's Goose Chemical Works, Felling, on the 26th
of July, was brought to a close. The jury found that a
crack in the furnace was the cause of the disaster. The
hot air was drawn into the centre condenser and ignited
the coke ; the fire, acting upon the stone sides of the con-
denser, split them, and the condenser collapsed. In
falling it damaged the other three condensers, which also
fell soon afterwards. The occurrence was accidental.
(See page 431.)
— Steps were taken for the promotion of a Canine
Society in connection with Newcastle and district, to
encourage the breeding of dogs, and to increase the
number of fanciers. Colonel J. A. Cowen, J.P., of
Blaydon Burn, was appointed president.
— In the Guildhall, Newcastle, the Mayor presented
bronze medals and certificates of the Royal Humane
Society to William James Carr and William Woods, two
boys belongi ng to the Wellesley Training Ship, who, on the
15th of June, rescued from drowning a companion named
George Mill Pattison.
— At a meeting of the governors of the Newcastle
Royal Infirmary — Alderman W. D. Stephens in the
chair — Dr. Page offered, on behalf of one of his patients,
a sum of £1,000 towards the projected new building.
Mr. Ralph Atkinson followed this up by stating that,
when it came to subscriptions of £100, he would be one
subscriber to that amount. On the strength of these
promises, and as the outcome of several suggestions, it
was agreed that the opinion of an architect should be
obtained as to the eligibility of the present site for the
building of a new Infirmary.
29. — On the occasion of temporarily severing his con-
Octoherl
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
479
nection with the literary staff of the Newcastle Chronicle,
to proceed on a business mission to India, Mr Archibald
Erskine Macdonald was presented with a handsome silver
cigar case by his colleagues. Mr. Macdonald had pre-
viously been made the recipient of a testimonial from the
members of the composing department.
— A cycling contest for a fifty guinea silver challenge
"WEEKLY CHRONICLE" CYCLING CUP.
cup, offered by the proprietor of the Newcastle Weekly
Chronicle, through the contributor "Vagabond," and
to be called the Weekly Chronicle 100 Miles Road
Record Cup, with medals
added to the value of £20,
took place to-day. The
course selected was from
Ponteland to Jedburgh and
back, the starting point being
at Prestwick Lane End,
about a mile on the New-
castle side of Ponteland, the
turning point near Jedburgh
Abbey, and the finish a
couple of hundred yards on
the Newcastle side of Prest-
wick Lane End. Eighty
cyclists entered the lists, re-
presenting the four Northern
Countiesof Northumberland,
Durham, Westmorland, and Yorkshire. The number
who came to the scratch was 49, the times of starting
extending from 5.20 a,m. to 6.18 a.m. The result of
the race was as follows : —
w. HOWITT.
jr. s.
18 42
28 10
33 23
55 0
*6. John' Stanners ...7.' "'. ... 8 19 42
1. W. Howitt, Jubilee Rovers A team 7
2. J. R, Chalmers, Newcastle C.C 7
3. J. Tait, Brunswick C team 7
4. C. Rule, Jubilee Rovers A team 7
5. Joseph Armstrong, Arthur's Hill 8
7. George Potts 8 29 35
8. Arthur Norton ... 8 31 15
9. J. Hall 8 39 5
10. W. A. Armstrong 9 15 34.
11. Win. Cummings 9 41 34.
The cup thus became the possession, for one year, of the
Jubilee Rovers. The cup and medals were formally pre-
sented at a dinner, also given by the proprietor of the
Weekly Chronicle, at the Crown Hotel, on the 5th of
September, Mr. W. C. B. Cowen ("Vagabond") occupy-
ing the chair, and Mr. C. X. Sykes (assistant editor of
the Weekly Chronicle) the vice-chair.
31.— It was ascertained that, as the result of a poll of
the ratepayers, it had been decided that the elections of
the Sunderland Board of Guardians should henceforth
take place triennially instead of annually.
SEPTEMBER.
1. — During the prevalence of another severe pale, the
tents in Saltwell Park, Gateshead, in which it had been
arranged to hold the autumn show of the Floral
and Horticultural Society connected with that borough,
were blown to the ground. Owing to the unfortunate
disaster, it was found necessary to abandon the
exhibition of plants in bloom, ferns, &c., but the cut
flowers and several other products were displayed in a
pavilion speedily erected in a less exposed part of the
grounds. The force of the storm uprooted several large
trees in the park and neighbourhood, and the massive
drinking fountain, bearing the name "Salte Well," erected
many years ago for the benefit of the public by the late
Mr Wailes, when proprietor and occupier of Saltwell
mansion and grounds, was much damaged.
2.— At a meeting of the Newcastle City Council, it was
resolved to increase the salary of the City Treasurer (Mr
J. J. Pace) from £650 to £850 per annum.
— The annual meeting of delegates in connection with
the Northern Union of Mechanics' Institutes was held at
Blaydon-on-Tyne. The chair was occupied by Dr. Philip
Brown, the president for the year, who delivered an ad-
mirable address ; and a very able paper on the question
"Has the Education Act realised the Expectations of its
Promoters?" was read by Mr. Aid. John Lucas, of
Gateshead.
—Mr. Duncan McLaren, of Lee Mount, Broomie-
knowe, lost, by death, a famous St. Bernard dog, "Albert
Edward Prince of Wales," for which he had recently
been offered £300.
— As the result of boring operations conducted by Mr.
W. Laws, of Ponteland, a seam of coal was discovered to
the north-west of Chiton, near the Newcastle turnpike,
on the road to Morpeth.
— Mr. Feuwick Ironsides, of Ravensworth, grandson of
Mr. Thomas Ironsides, the centenarian of Kibblesworth,
was married to Elizabeth Jameson Chapman, eldest
daughter of Mr. John W. Chapman, West Rainton. (See
pp. 90, 284.)
— The sale by auction, extending over two days, com-
menced at the rooms of Messrs. R. and W. Mack, Pilgrim
Street, Newcastle, of the books, manuscripts, autographs,
portraits, and other literary curiosities belonging to the
late Mr. William Dodd, successor to Mr. Emerson Charn-
ley, the famous bookseller. The large and miscellaneous
collection included many cuttings from the Weekly
Chronicle, to which Mr. Dodd was an occasional contribu-
tor.
4. — On this and the following day the annual meeting
480
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/October
\ 189L
of the National Association of Colliery Managers was
held in the Wood Memorial Hall, Newcastle.
— A man about 30 years of age, but of unknown name,
was killed, the body being shockingly mutilated, by fall-
ing down a pit shaft at Houghton-le-Spring.
— It was decided by the employers to give a month's
notice for a reduction in the wages of the men connected
with the shipbuilding industry of the Wear, Tyne, and
Tees.
5. — The house of Mr. Cuthbert Richardson, butcher, at
Walbottle, was entered by burglars, and about £400 in
gold and cheques stolen from a safe, which was blown up
by gunpowder.
— Mr. John Burnett, corresponding secretary to the
Board of Trade, and formerly of the literary staff of the
Newcastle Chronicle, presented the £100 benefit to a dis-
abled member of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers
in Newcastle.
— Several events took place as preliminaries to the
meeting of the Trades Union Congress, appointed to be
held in Newcastle. A new banner, the property of the
Tyneside branch of the National Coopers' Society, was
unfurled in the Church Institute, Felling, by Mr. T.
Burt, M.P., the chair being occupied by the Mayor of
Newcastle. In the Leazes Park, Newcastle, Mr. Coun-
cillor Laird unfurled a new banner for the use of the
members of the United Machine Workers' Association.
On the following day, at an open-air meeting in the Milk
Market, Newcastle, a new banner belonging to No. 25
branch of the National Labour Union waa unfurled by
Mr. John Burns, of London. The People's Open Plat-
form was inaugurated for the winter in Rye Hill Baptist
Church, Newcastle, by a discussion on "How Trades
Unionism raises the Social as well as the Industrial posi-
tion of Women."
7. — The actual business in connection with the twenty-
fourth meeting of the Trades Union Congress commenced
n the Town Hall, Newcastle. The chair, at the out-
set of the proceedings, was occupied by Mr. E. Har-
ford, secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Rail-
way Servants, and there were present 620 delegates,
representing two million workmen. The Mayor (Mr. J.
Baxter Ellis), who was accompanied by the Sheriff, the
Town Clerk, and several members of the Corporation,
extended to the members a cordial welcome to the city :
and Mr. T. Burt, M.P., of the Northumberland Miners,
who was unanimously elected President of the Congress,
afterwards took the chair in that capacity. The sittings
of the Congress, beginning on the Monday, extended over
the entire week, the business being relieved by several
entertainments, including a breakfast by the Mayor and
Corporation in St. George's Hall on the 8th, and a
Garden Party in ttie Leazes Park on the 10th. The pro-
ceedings of the Congress concluded with a great labour
demonstration on the Town Moor on the 12th, about
40,000 workmen belonging to Newcastle and district,
accompanied by bands, banners, and models, taking part
in the procession.
— A man, apparently between 30 and 40 years of age,
committed suicide by throwing himself from the parapet
of the High Level Bridge, Newcastle, falling close to the
woodwork connected with the Swing Bridge.
10. — A serious fire occurred in the shipbuilding yard
of Messrs. Priestman and Co., Sanderland. The outbreak
resulted in the partial destruction of a fine steamer which
was almost ready for launching.
(general ©tcnrrencejs.
AUGUST.
12.— The result of a Parliamentary election at Walsall
was declared as follows : — Mr. Edward Holden (Glad-
stonian Liberal), 4,899 ; Mr. Frank James (Conservative),
4,360.
— Mr. James Russell Lowell, author of the " Biglow
Papers," &c, died in America in his seventy-third year.
15. — The Senaputty and the Tongal were executed at
Manipur in accordance with the sentences passed upon
them for the massacre of Mr. Quintan's expedition.
18. — Walter Lewis Turner was executed at Leeds for
the brutal murder of Barbara Waterhouse, at Horsforth,
near Leeds, 'on the 6th of June.
19. — The annual meeting of the British Association was
commenced at Cardiff under the Presidency of Professor
Huggins, who chose for his opening address the subject
of Astronomy.
— The French fleet, under command of Admiral Gervais,
arrived at Spithead on a visit to this country.
20. — At the execution of John Conway, at Kirkdale
Gaol, Liverpool, for the horrible murder of a little boy,
Nicholas Martin, the murderer's head was almost torn
from his body by the force of the drop.
21. — A girl named Catherine Dennis was found with
her throat cut at a public house near Huddersfield.
Subsequently, a man named James Stockwell was arrested
and confessed to the murder.
22. — Severe fighting began near Valparaiso between
the rival factions in Chili. After three days' fighting, the
Government troops were forced to retire. Subsequently a
decisive battle was fought, and President Balmaceda'-i
forces were completely routed.
24.— Mr. Raikes, Postmaster-General, died at his
residence in Cheshire in his fifty-third year.
26. — The result of a Parliamentary election at Lewisham
resulted as follows : — Mr. John Penn (Conservative) 4,585 ;
Mr. Warmington (Gladstonian Liberal), 2,892.
2?. — The death was announced of Marie Taglioni, the
famous operatic dancer.
30. — Serious disturbances took place at Eastbourne in
connection with the parading of the Salvation Army.
SEPTEMBER.
1. — The Education Act .providing free education for
children between 3 and 15 years of age, came into
operation.
3. — Edward Arthur Maurice Calendar Newton,
described as a journalist, was committed for trial at Bow
Street Police Court on a charge of having abducted
Edith Pearson, aged fifteen, the daughter cf a Strand
tobacconist.
6. — Alderman P. Matthews, the Lord Mayor of York,
died in his fifty-third year.
9. — M. Grevy, ex-President of the French Republic,
died at Montsous-Vaudrey, his country seat in the Jura.
He was seventy-eight years of age.
Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling-on-Tyne,
tlbe
Chronicle
OF
NORTH-COUNTRY*LORE*AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 57.
NOVEMBER, 1891.
PRICE GD.
atttr Cft0ln*a in tftt north.
HE towns of the Tyne and Wear have had
several visitations of pestilence which left
behind a great blank, a sad memory, and a
host of practical lessons. Turning over the
scanty records of bygone times, we come every now and
again upon pages that tell only of plague, famine, and
raging death.
The annals of pestilence in Newcastle carry us back to
the days of Henry III., who built the Black Gate of the
Castle. On the eve of the battle of Bannockburu, New-
castle was a place of rendezvous for Edward II. aud his
army. War and want, the sword and sickness, 'are close
cousins (as our ancestors often found to their cost).
Grievous was the famine and mortality. "The quick
could hardly bury the dead."
Glimpses of the epidemics of the reign of Elizabeth may
be given by a few extracts from the Chamberlain's ac-
counts in Newcastle. These will enable the reader to
realize to some extent the sufferings of citizens and
strangers, and the burdens brought upon the public
purse : —
1563. Paid to Sanders Forster and Ralf Henrysone, for
watching the bridg yaitt for comyng of the sek men that
com from Newhaven, for four dayes a pece, 6s. 8d.
1576. Paid for vittelles for the relefe of the seke folk a
feilde this weeke (December), 49s. Paid for vittelles for
the relefe of the seke folke about the towne, having theare
doors sparred upp, 19s. 2d.
1596. Paid to John Butlande (bellman), for goinpe 1
timeabutte towne to warne all men to kepe in their doggs
and their swine for the plaug, 2d. Paid to George Hind-
uicrs, boocher, and 1 other with him, for their killing 5
swine, 24 rtogees, and 16 dukes, which founde in the strete
after warniuge was given ; 4d. a peice, swine ; 2d. a peice,
doge1; ; and pence a peice, dukes ; 7g.
1596. Paide for the charge of burying 7 poore folke
E
which died in the streete, for winding theme, grave-mak-
ing, and carrying to the church, 7s. 4d.
Archdeacon Magnus, statesman and diplomatist,
writing from Sheriff Hutton in North ifork. in October,
1528, told Cardinal Wolsey that "the pestiferous and
ragious swete " was reigning round about. In 1545, the
Earl of Hertford was in Newcastle, and sent word to
Henry VIII. that the plague was lingering there, and
prevailed from Berwick to Darlington. The Governor
of Berwick, Lurd Hunsdon, cousin of Queen Elizabeth,
informed Sir William Cecil, in 1570, that the plague was
very sore in Newcastle, "and sum of ytt had come to
Anwyke." "God kepe it hens,'' he exclaims i "for yf yt
come hether yt wyll skowre six or seven thousand pepell
yn ytt, wherof 2,600 chylder, as I thynke." In 1596,
there was pestilence in all parts of the North of England.
The Bishop of Carlisle died of it. The Bishop of Durham
retired from his castle on the Wear to his safer manor-
house on the Tees. The city of Durham was so plague-
stricken that numbers of the inhabitants were camped out
on the moors. The Vicar of Stranton, near Hartlepool,
fell a victim ; and the parish-register subsequently coming
to a stand, Mr. G. B. Richardson infers that the parish
clerk had followed the incumbent to the grave. "9 poore
folkes died for wante in the streetes " of Newcastle in
September, and " 16 poore folke " in October ; and on
Michaelmas Monday, when the new Mayor was to be
chosen in the chapel of St. Mary's Hospital, the air was
heavily laden with the perfume of herbs, and the floor
thickly strewn with rushes.
In the year 1636, what is usually designated the Great
Plague burst upon Newcastle and Gateshead with unex-
31
482
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{November
or
1891.
ampled fury. In the former town— the population of
which could not have been more than 30,000, if so much —
the deaths rose from 58 in the week ending May 14th to
422 in the week ending Aug. 14th, and to 520 in that
ending Sept. 4th. The plague ceased with the year, and
during the eight months of its continuance there died of
it 5,037 persons. In Gateshead, with a population of
only three or four thousand, there were 550 deaths. It is
on record that the good citizens of Berwick, by their
Corporation, sent a present of 40 marks to the Mayor of
Newcastle as aid for the pest-smitten town. In quaint
but most touching phrase, the Mayor, Aldermen, and
Vicar of Newcastle acknowledged this liberal gift in the
following letter : —
RIGHT WOBTHIE GENT.
Wee haue receaved from yow by a servant of Sir
J dhn Clavering the some of 40 marks a verie ample ex-
pression of your pittie to us in this our great calamitie
by reason of the sore pestilence so long contynueing in
this place. Your charitie with the helpe of God shall be
by us continually had in remembrance, and as occasion
shall require shall be requited with thankfullness accord-
ing to our powers. God in his mercye for Christ Jesus
his sake cease the sickness and preserve yuw and all others
from the same. The nomber of the dead is not so manye
this last weeke as formerly, being but one hundred twentie
two. The great death of people that hath beene, which dotli
amount to verie near 6000 persons since the beginning, wee
feare there is the cause that there dye fewer now ; there
being not so many people left in the towne as there was.
Thus with all due respect of thankfullness we rest,
Your truly loving friends
PETE RIDUELL, maior.
WM. WARMOUTH, ROB. ANDERSON,
Octob 1636. RALPH COLE, LEONARD CABR, v\c.
Ten years later, that is to say the year after the town
had surrendered to the Scotch (1646), the plague once
more broke out. In the life of Ambrose Barnes we
read : —
That desolating judgment, the pestilence, had made for
some months, an horrible devastation in Newcastle.
Heaps of dead bodies were every night carried in carts,
to be buried without the walls, and the town was very
much become a solitude. One of the maidservants in the
family where Mr. Barnes liv'd was lying below stairs,
sick in bed, the other was to appearance in health, wait-
ing at table upon her master. Mr. Barnes informed him
of some dangerous symptoms which the maid who was
sick began to have upon her body. The master, perceiv-
ing the contagion had reacht his house, arose imme-
diately from dinner, leaving the shop, counting-house,
"scritoire, debt-books, keyes, and all his effects," to the
care of Mr. Barnes, and the same day took ship at
Shields for Hamburgh. That night dy'd the maid, who
at dinner time was waiting at table in perfect health, the
next day dy'd the other maid, who had fell sick before.
Mr. Barnes was quickly after infected, ana shut up in an
empty large house near the Exchange, without any
living creature besides himself, but they rapt at his door,
when the'y brought him meat, and he himself came and
took it in. In this hideous lonely manner he spent
several dayes and nights. A huge great tumour rose
upon his neck behind, the suppuration whereof, physitions
were of opinion, saved his life.
Since that day'there have been occasional outbreaks of
malignant fever, but nothing at all to compare with this
old desolation and horror until the outbreak of cholera in
1831-1832.
Cholera morbus first became an epidemic in 1817. In
that year it suddenly broke forth from its nest in the
marshes and jungles of India. It smote many parts of
India, Persia, Turkey, Russia, and Germany in the
course of its gloomy flight, and reached England in the
late summer or early autumn of 1831.
The generally received report places the outbreak of
Asiatic cholera in the port of Sunderland, and dates
it October 26, 1831. It spread rapidly, and in a short
time Government sent down Dr. Dsun, a medical man
who had been much among cholera in the East, and
Dr. Barry, who had been specially deputed to investi-
gate the mysterious distemper in the hospitals of
Russia. These gentlemen concurred in pronouncing
the disease malignant cholera of the most dangerous
and truly epidemic type. Immediately the most strin-
gent quarantine was put in force against Sunderland,
and stoppage of trade was added to the bitterness of
death all over the town. The town officials became
exceedingly alarmed and energetic. The streets and
alleys were cleansed by fire-engines. The dreadful
poverty of the people was relieved by munificent con-
tributions from all classes above the range of actual
want. In all about 538 cases occurred, of which about
half were fatal.
Newcastle escaped for many weeks. None of the town
authorities, however, counted on any long exemption ;
on the contrary, every preparation was made for the
advent of the dreaded stranger. Owners of wretched
property in and about Sandgate, the Close, Pandon,
Baihffgate, and the like places were stirred up by no
gentle admonition, and the narrow entries near the Quay
were washed out with hot lime. Hospitals were extem-
porized at convenient points. The Castle was appropriated
as a Cholera Home for the parish of St. Nicholas. St.
John's and St. Andrew's had the St. John Poor House,
Bath Lane, while the paupers resident there were removed
to other premises. All Saints had a large home fitted up
on the North Shore, just behind Sandgate. Mr. Archibald
Reed, the Mayor, specially empowered by the Privy
Council, distinguished himself by his great activity ; but
the whole Corporation behaved with prompt generosity and
vigour. The regulations for interment were strict, and
strictly carried out. Twelve hours was the limit within
which all who died from the pest were to be buried. In
six weeks there were thirty-one interments in St. Nicholas'
Churchyard — to the east of the north transept ; in All
Saints', in ten weeks, there were eighty-seven burials of
cholera patients. After this, it was decided that the
churchyards were too full, and the bodies of all who died
from cholera were thenceforth disposed of at the Ballast
Hills, Westgate Cemetery, or St. Ann's. The highest
number of deaths in one day was 12. The total number
from 9th December to 13th March was 306, out of 971
attacked. As in the case of Sunderland, the wealth of
Newcastle was freely consecrated to the relief of the poor.
The frequent tolling of the bells, and passing of small
November 1
1891 j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
483
funeral companies, caused a deep sadness to fall upon
the town. The plague had ceased about ten days, when,
in obedience to an Order in Council, Wednesday, 21st
March, was observed as a general fast on account of the
grievous visitation.
The little village of JS'ewburn suffered to an extent that
happily was without parallel. Out of the 550 inhabitants
424- were attacked, and 57 died. Amongst those who died
was Mr. Edmondson, the vicar ; and so great was the
panic that not even over his grave was the usual burial
rite performed.
Gateshead also suffered very severely. The earliest
clearly recognised cholera burial occurred on the 16th
of October. "One of the first three wises," says Mr.
James Clephan, in his useful pamphlet on the subject,
"was that of Mary Hymers, or Hind marsh, a rag-
gatherer of depraved habits, living in the Hawk Entry,
Bottle Bank, on the Pipewellgate slope, to whom Mr.
Henry Brady was called on the 15th. In the other case,
the patient, James Morgan, a blacksmith, lived at Spring-
well, and was brought into Gateshead parish after death.
There was then a pause until Christmas Eve, when (on
the 24th) a second Gateshead case occurred in Pipewell-
gate,' in the person of Elizabeth Thompson, alias Hales.
The date of her burial is Christmas Day ; and this case is
rapidly succeeded by others, until the abatement of the
epidemic in the spring of 1832. In July, the 'red cross'
reappears on the register, and it does not vanish until the
month of November. The total number of cholera
burials in St. Mary's parish was 225. Deducting 3 (two
from Newcastle and one from Hebburn), 222 remain — the
number inscribed on the pillar in St. Edmund's Cemetery.
There were also 12 cholera burials in St. John's, making
the total number of the Gateshead burials 237." The
highest number of interments in one day was on the 28th
December, 1831, when it was 20. One joiner in the town
made fifty coffins in one week, and as many as 102
between Christinas Day and January 13.
Scrfttt &fQmrn*, "
j|T is doubtful if justice can ever be done to
thousands of historical personage* — of men
who, either in spirit, or energy, or intelli-
gence, or prowess, or character lived before
their time, or made better times for other people to live
in by their pluck, skill, heroism, or wisdom. It is the
passive and enduring people who float quietly down the
stream of an era ; but the men who stick in the stream,
who make the times froth around them, or who dam it
up for a future flood and rush— these are the history-
makers. The timos they live in cannot understand them :
hence they are written down as disturbers, rioters, mad-
men, or rogues. A host of such men lived two or three
hundred years ago— men who were then hated as fire-
brands, but who, in our days, are justly esteemed as noble
and worthy fellows. John Lilburne was a man of
indomitable spirit, incapable of fear — a man made for
yeasty times. A pretty character he got from some
people, and just a contrary one from other people,
which proves it to be proper to estimate him wisely.
It appears that Wood has made a nosegay of the wild
flowers stuck about him in his day : — " From his youth
he was much addicted to contention, opposition of govern-
ment, and to violent and bitter expressions. He was the
idol of the factious people ; he was naturally a great
trouble-world in all the variety of governments ; a hodge-
podge of religion, the chief ringleader of the Levellers, a
great proposal-maker, a modeller of State, a publisher of
several seditious pamphlets, and of so quarrelsome a
disposition that it was appositely said of him, by Judge
Jenkins, that if there was none living but he, John
would be against Lilburne, and Lilburne against John."
This is a part of the historic label stuck on to Leveller
John. A good deil of it would fit any great man who
puts easy people about in his time. Peter and Paul had
a little of this sort of reputation ; still they are respected.
And how much of it Luther got all men know. Clarendon
gives a more rational account of this loud battle man who
died a Quaker. He says that Lilburne was " an evidence
of the temper of the nation, and how far the spirits of
that time (1653) were from paying a submission to power,
when nobody had the courage to lift up their hands
against it." Hume took him to have been "the most
turbulent, but the most upright and courageous of human
kind."
John Lilburne was a North-Country man ; he came of
a thrifty old Durham family ; his father was Richard,
who owned an estate at Thickney-Purcharden, and John
was born in 1618. Two other sons came to be men of
note, as we shall see at the end of this article — E.obert,
who was a Major-General in the Commonwealth Army,
and George, who became Mayor of Sunderland. Poor
John was a younger child, and, according to the law of
entail, he had to be trained to shift for himself, and he
did it. At twelve years old he was apprenticed to a
clothier in London. Both Richard, the father of John,
and the clothier whom John had to serve, were dis-
affected towards the hierarchy of the day. So were a
vast lot of other people. King James, and King Charles,
and Queen Mary, and other powers that then were, had
done much to vex souls and make Puritans. The re-
ligious revolution was fermenting in all places, abroad and
at home — in Germany, Spain, Rome, Scotland, and
England ; and John Lilburnp took the fever and with it
infected other young men. If John was eager and
earnest, so were Cromwell, Milton, and all other people
on all sides. Church and Dissent, if they had any heart
at all.
Young John, they say, had a genius in advance of his
484
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{November
1891.
years. There is no doubt of that; but he had the defect
of being too honest and outspoken. John would not be
imposed upon : so when his master, the clothier, was
hard upon him, he got better terms by complaining to
the City Chamberlain. Having more time for himself
after his complaint, and having some money, he bought
books, and read them, and drank in the elixir, and
showed signs that he did " inwardly digest" his reading.
Beading lads in our day are properly applauded. Being
a reader and so on, he talked to hi? companions of the
shallow and deep things he read of politics, of religion,
and of other matters interesting and stirring; thus he
soon became an authority in the midst of his sympathis-
ing circle of friends ; and they, admiring his genius, be-
came his auditors and banded helpers. This, of course,
was, in those times, seditious, because then the cobbler
had to stick to his lapstone, or be counted a foe to the
State. The fact is that John inherited Richard's blood
and pluck. There was one Ralph Auxton who owed
Richard Lilburne £200 on account of some land ; the
ancient custom of trial by battle was unfashionable ; but
Richard and Ralph were prepared to fight it out. They
were armed and went to the skirmishing place for the
fray ; but the judges and king put their veto on it, and
they did not fight.
John left his master and his trade for more congenial
pursuits. He was a member of a congregation in which
he was flattered on account of his attainments and
fervour. A teacher of this congregation introduced him
to Dr. Bastwick, an English physician. This doctor
physicked the Church as well as other of bis sick patients,
and he got his fees in coin that vexed him greatly.
Bastwick wrote and published pamphlets under learned
Latin titles, "Flagellum Pontifices," &c., and he entered
into the discussion in which Atterbury and the Convoca-
tion fought, viz., whether the King was lord of the
Church or not, and whether he gave authority to bishops
or not : so Bastwick fell under the bishops, got into the
Star Chamber, was fined £1,000, excommunicated, dis-
allowed to practise physic, had his book burnt, called to
pay costs, and sent to gaol till he recanted. He was
lodged in the Gate House, where he wrote more wicked
books, and John Lilburne was introduced to him in the
prison, and John pitied him and got his writing printed
for him on the Continent. John came home from
Holland loaded with the "Merry Liturgy" of Dr. Bast-
wick and some Latin-headed pieces, which he circulated,
and get betrayed and into limbo, like the doctor.
Bastwick was sentenced to pay another £5,000 for this
little affair, to exhibit his face in the pillory, to lose
his ears, and to live all his life in prison. However,
Bastwick was liberated after a time by the Parliament,
his incarceration pronounced illegal, and thousands of
people hailed his liberation and chimed his praises ; but
the ungrateful fellow wrote a tract called the "Defence of
Himself against Lilburne." So keen were the conten-
tions in those days that friends could not think and write
and be ever friendly.
There was another man who scribbled paper with a pen
that was not approved — a Mr. Prynne, whose "News
from Ipswich " young Lilburne circulated. You see the
clothier had turned bookseller, an awkward trade in
times when the mind of England was breaking into
independent thought. Therefore, Master John was led
to his trial, and he was condemned, for what else could
the authorities do with him ': In February, 1637, he was
ordered to be whipped at the cart's tail from the Fleet
Prison to the Old Palace Yard, there to be set up in the
pillory ; then he was to go back to the gaol of the Fleet
to abide till he conformed to the rules of the court, to
pay £500 to the King, who was in want of money, and to
find security that be would behave himself for the future.
Thus, John Lilburne was being schooled in adversity,
which lessons would not improve his temper ; but he took
his sufferings without relenting ; be made mighty speeches
against his persecutors ; be Hung away pamphlets from
the very pillory, like seeds of dandelions; so the Star
Chamber said, "Gag him," and he was gagged ; but he
stamped with his feet to show his pluck, and the people
so thoroughly admired him that they gave him new
names- — "Freeborn John" and the "Little Saint." In
gaol they dressed him in double irons, and left him in a
close ward. Then thers was an alarm. "Fire, fire," was
the cry ; smoke and flame appeared near his ward ! John
was suspected of having got it lighted, and the au-
thorities took it as a hint that if they did not look out
the prison and the inmates would be roasted. So John
was better provided for, for the prisoners and the
neighbours interceded for him. He bad been made a
hero by the Star Chamber. Then John, when his irons
were off, wrote "The Christian Man's Trial," and the
" Nine Arguments against Episcopacy," with "Epistles
to the Warden of the Fleet." This man was not to be
daunted. It was the Long Parliament that mitigated his
prison miseries in November, 1640.
The year following John was topsawyer in a street
assembly which demanded justice to be executed on the
Earl of Strafford. The day after this hubbub, he stood at
the bar of the House of Lords, for an alleged assault upon
Colonel Lunsford, the Governor of the Tower. But the
temper of the people was up in favour of John, for he had
been in the irons : so the noble lords let him off. More-
over, the Parliament, on the very day that the Lords
dismissed the assault case, voted that John's previous
incarceration was illegal, and that he ought to have
compensation for his sufferings and losses. And, what is
more, this reparation was actually made to him in the
year 1646. After various obstructions and long delays,
by a vote of the Lords, then a petition to the Commons,
and lastly by the intervention of Cromwell, John received
compensation to about the value of £3,000; but it took
some five years to get it ; and some said that this delay
November!
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
485
was his own fault. Poor fellow \ he could not please
everybody, nor did he try. This money was voted to
him out of the estates of persons who would not like to
part with it. James Ingram, Warden of the Fleet, was
one of them.
The King, meanwhile, had been playing fearful pranks
with the liberties of the nation ; he believed in the divine
right of kings to do as they liked, that they were not
responsible to either Lords or Commons, only to God.
The Parliament voted an army to oppose the king, and
then John Lilburne volunteered to be a soldier. He
was a captain at the battle at Edge Hill, taken pri-
soner, marched to Oxford, and escaped execution on a
charge of high treason against the king only on the
threat of Parliament to retaliate such sharp practices
on some of bis Majesty's people. He was, therefore,
exchanged, and, through the Earl of Essex, was re-
warded with £300. But he opposed the earl's imposi-
tion of the Scotch Covenant on the soldiers. Owing to
Cromwell's interest, he became a major in the division
under the Earl of Manchester, and in raising the siege
of Newark he nearly lost his life. And then Colonel
King and he disagreed. King tried to damage his
reputation with the earl; but the latter prized the
valour of his major, and as his answer to King made
him lieutenant-colonel of his own dragoons, in which
post he signalised himself greatly by his bravery at
Marston Moor. He had a most determined spirit, and
his sense of honour at times was terribly hard. This
was seen in his giving evidence against his friend Lord
Essex when Cromwell complained to the Commons
against him. He had not forgiven the earl for not
bringing Colonel King to trial by court-martial on
account of the charges he made against him. This
was the spirit of the age, and we must forgive
Lilburn for not forgiving King, though he followed up
the matter till he was impeached for high crimes before
the Commons. The House of Commons was disinclined
to punish Colonel King. The Earl of Manchester, under
whom Lilburne had served, was then Speaker in the
Lords, and held John responsible for the neglect of the
Commons : so John set to work and lashed the earl with
a pamphlet. John was hailed before the Lords, but he
would not answer the questions put to him there ; the
Lords, of course, could not put up with contempt, so
John was sent to Newgate and thence to the Tower.
He appeals to the Commons : they do not deliver him ;
he thunders from prison in another stormy tractate,
in which he picked out, as we do now-a-days, the bad
laws they had passed, and called them unjust and
oppressive. This was the "Oppressed Man's Oppres-
sion." The Commons seized the pamphlet; but John
wrote another in its stead, for he was prolific and
ready, "The Resolved Man's Resolution." This was
bold, for he was bold, and he knew he had the ear
of thousands. Still he could not get released : so he
stirred up his friends in the army, which had the
effect of providing for him a splendid testimonial \tt
his honour, for a committee was appointed to report
on his case, and he, a prisoner, was allowed to attend
that committee every day without a keeper, returning
every night to his place in the Tower. Then he was
charged with seditious practices. Whether he was
guilty or the charge was got up, he was again com-
mitted to prison in the said Tower, and his trial was
ordered. But there is a hubbub in town at the moment.
King Charles appears in the Downs with a fleet. The
Cavaliers are not perfectly trusted; Lilburne's instinct
is just and keen ; he sends a petition to Parliament,
signed by 7,000 persons and upwards ; so the Commons
discharge him from prison and make arrangements for
his compensation.
It was in the year when Cromwell returned from
Ireland, where he had done what no lieutenant or
king could do, that he aided Lilburne in securing the
compensation receipts that had been so long coming, and
John was grateful to the mighty Commonwealth hero.
Still, there were clouds and storms for him, our John, to
penetrate and to hush, if he could. He fell into a law
suit, in which his uncle George was implicated. In this
case he petitioned the Commons ; they got again offended
with him, fined him £7,000, and voted to banish him
from the realm. But John had wings, and before they
could catch him he was off to Amsterdam, and there he
tired off his quill guu again. This he called an apology.
He sent a copy of it to the great Oliver, with a letter in
which he blamed him as the cause of this new trouble.
The tiff gave the Royalists a chance ; they bothered him ;
in a bad temper revenge is sweet ; they took John when
he was out of tune ; they struck a bargain with John the
soldier ; they would give him £10,000 if he would restore
Charles to the throne. It came to nothing. John re-
mained in exile. But when the Long Parliament was
broken up, he came back home. This was in 1653. He
could not get a pass, so he did without it, as he knew he
cjuM da But his enemies were on the watch. They
took him and laid him aside as lumber in the Old Bailey.
And a jury acquitted him again. Cromwell did not like
this jury job ; he had John walked off to Portsmouth to
give him another ride in a ship. But it is believed that
his brother Robert, Oliver's major-general, interceded
and stood bail for him ; so John was free again.
Now John is calm ; he reads, he studies, he prays, he
looks up to Heaven, he joins the Quakers, and for them
he preached at Eltham, where he lived ; and then he died
on August 29, 1657. He was buried at Moorfields. Four
thousand people marched behind his corpse and wept at
his grave. He had lived 49 years. He was a true Eng-
lishman ; his modes may be questionable, but his motives
were high, strong, and quenchless.
Douglass's " History of the Northern Baptists, "under
date of 1651, contains a petition which Mr. George Lil-
486
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{November
1891.
liurne. Mayor of Sunderland, sent to Parliament anent
certain disturbances that had occurred at Muggleswick.
(See Monthly Chronicle, 1889, page 370.) Douglass adds
that George Lilburne, as Mayor, and in other respects,
was a man of great influence iu Sunderland — a knight of
the shire in the Parliament of Cromwell, 1654.
Robert Lilburne was governor of Newcastle-on-Tyne in
1647. It was he who sat as one of the judges in the trial
of King Charles. Robert, along with his brother George,
was elected in 1654 to represent the county of Durham.
Five years later, in the last year of the Commonwealth,
1659. Robert was the representative for Malton. During
the Restoration, he was, of course, tried as a regicide :
and he so well knew his fate that he made no defence.
Banished to the island of St. Nichola, near Plymouth,
he died peacefully there in the 52nd year of his age.
According to Surtees, the Lilburne family were at one
time, in effect, lords paramount of the borough and port
of Sunderland. The door case of the Lilburne mansion
in that town, of which we give a drawing by the late
tT. G. Brown, was demolished a few years ago. The
mansion was situated in High Street East, nearly
opposite the Custom House. Mr. Brown's sketch of
the figure seen in the doorway was copied from a
drawing of Oliver Cromwell's porter.
j]E\V of the villages in the county of Durham
can vie with Whickham for picturesqueness
and quaintness. Pleasantly situated on
rising ground about a mile south of the
river Tyne and about four miles from Newcastle, the
village commands extensive views of the valley of the
Tyne, not the least interesting beine that which includes
the Redheugh Bridge, the High Level Bridge, and all
the important edifices in the city of Newcastle.
The Church of St. Mary is of great antiquity. Indeed,
the tirst rector of the parish was appointed in 1287. As
regards the church itself, it is a quaint and interesting
structure. On the 5th November, 1841, well-nigh a
hundred of the old-fashioned pews were destroyed by
tire. From a lettered brass-plate in the interior of the
fabric, we learn that the edifice was restored externally
and internally in 1861-2, as well as considerably en-
November 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
487
larged, at a cost of £2,875, which sum was raised by
private contributions.
The register of the parish of Whickham commenced
with 1575, but has, unfortunately, to a great extent been
mutilated, lost, or destroyed. It is represented to
have been formerly kept with great care, and in addi-
tion to the registration of births, baptisms, marriages,
and deaths, contained chronicles of local events, historical
allusions, and other incidents of great value. For
example, there were notices of the visitation of the plague
in 1597, 1610, 1626, 1645, and 1647, as well as descriptive
references to the depredations committed by the Scotch
armies in 1640, 1644, and 1648.
Charitable bequests to Whickham have been numerous
and varied. The first parochial school was founded in
1714 by Dr. Thomlinson, vicar of the parish and founder
of the Thomlinson Library, who applied to this purpose a
legacy of £100, left by Jane Blakiston for teaching the
children of the poor reading, writing, the Church
Catechism, and putting them to various trades. By his
will, in 1745, Dr. Thomlinson bequeathed £100 for the
support of the day schools, with receipts from certain
pew rents in the church, amounting to £12 annually.
In 1825, the school was enlarged by Archdeacon Bowyer,
and a house erected for the schoolmistress. The Hon.
and Rev. E. Grey was a benefactor to the school, and
enabled that institution to extend the means of education
to 160 children. Many other bequests have been left to
the poor of the parish from time to time by neighbouring
gentle folks.
Whickham Churchyard commands a sweeping view of
the Tyne. One striking feature about it is the numerous
trees which shade the path running through it. Many of
the graves, too, give evidence of being well tended by the
friends of the departed ones. Wreaths, crosses, and
bunches of flowers adorn graves whose occupants have
been buried over a period of forty and fifty years. In
some cases rose-trees may be seen clambering over the
tombstones, almost concealing the inscriptions, while in
others the stones are completely hidden by weeping
willows. Directly facing the church there are two graves
literally covered with moss. The one nearest the edifice
is ornamented by a rose-bush planted at the head, and a
line of daisies running to the foot.
On the north side of the church there is a very hand-
some stone to the memory of Oswald Gardner, who was
killed near Stocksfield Station, on the North-Eastern
Railway, owing to the breaking of the connecting-rod of
his engine, on August 15, 1840, at the age of 27. The
lines upon the slab are as follows : —
My engine now is cold and still,
No water does my boiler fill ;
My coke affords its flame no more,
My days of usefulness are o'er ;
My wheels deny their noted speed,
No more my guiding hand they heed.
My whistle, too, has lost its tone,
Its shrill and thrilling sounds are gone ;
My valves are now thrown open wide.
My flanges all refuse to guide.
My clacks, also, though unce so strong,
Refuse to aid the busy throng.
No more I feel each urging breath —
My steam is now condensed in death.
Life's railway's o'er, each station's past,
In Death I'm stopp'd and rest at last.
Farewell, dear friends ! and cease to weep.
In Christ I'm safe — in Him I sleep.
The above descriptive sketch is said to have been "penned
by an unknown friend, to commemorate Gardner's worth,
and was left at Blaydon Station." Inasmuch as the very
same epitaph was placed in Bromsgrove and Newton-le-
Willows churchyards before the death of Gardner, the
mysterious friend had no claim to be the author. There
is, however, this addition in the one at Newton-le-
Willows — "He sleeps among the sleepers, and thousands
shall follow in his train."
488
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{November
1691.
It is in Whickham Churchyard where rest the remains
of several members of the Clasper family, including the
famous oarsman and boatbuilder himself. The latter's
resting place is indicated by a handsome monument which
strikes the eye of the stranger as soon as he passes the
church and proceeds to walk down the churchyard. It
bears the following inscription : — " Beneath this stone,
reared to his memory by the ardent affection of friends
which may not be without interest. We allude to the
tombstone of Cuthbert Howstan, who was a frequent
contributor to the Newcastle Weekly ChronKlt, chiefly on
subjects of Natural History. Cutbbert Howstan, Jun.,
who died at Swalwell, Feb. 15. 1877, at the age of 19, WM
a helpless and afflicted cripple; but this fact was not
generally known until he was beyond the reach of human
sympathy. After his death, it transpired that, though he
and admirers from every class and from all parts of the
kingdom, and in this sacred spot commanding a full
view of that noble river, the well-loved scene of former
triumphs, rest the mortal remains of Henry (Harry)
Clasper, the accomplished oarsman and boatbuilder, of
Derwenthaugh, who died July 12th, 1870, aged 58
years."
There is another tombstone in Whickham Churchyard
was unable to lift his hand, and so had to dip his pen in
the inkstand with his teeth, he nevertheless struggled
against pain and difficulty, not only to obtain knowledge
for himself, but to impart that knowledge to others.
This affecting story so touched the hearts of the
contributors and readers of the Weekly Chronicle that
they opened a subscription for the purpose of erecting a
memorial over Cuthbert's grave. While the subscriptions
November \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
489
were being collected, the elder Howstan also died ; hence
the names of father and son appear on the memorial.
The stone bears the following inscription :— " To the
memory of Cuthbert Howstan, Jun., who died at Swal-
well, Feb. 15, 1877, aged 19 years. This stone is erected
by subscribers and contributors to the Newcastle Weekly
tracted from the Diary of John Wesley, the founder of
Methodism :— " 1742, Friday, Dec. 26. Between 12 and
1 1 preached in a convenient ground at Whickliam, four
miles from Newcastle. I spoke strong, rough words ; but I
did not perceive that any regarded what was spoken. The
people, indeed, were exceeding quiet, and the cold kept
Chronicle, who had read in that paper the story of his
pursuit of literature in circumstances of great pain and
difficulty. Here lie also the remains of Cuthbert
Howstan, father of the above, who died June 24, 1877,
aged 54 years." (See next page.)
The following passages relating to Whickham are ex-
them from going to sleep ; till (before 2) I left them,
very well satisfied with the preacher and with them-
selves." "1746, Wednesday, March 5, I preached at
Whickham at noon ; in the evening at Spen," &c.
" 1752, Tuesday, May 19, I preached at Whickham,
before Mrs. Armstrong's door. I was a little sur-
490
MONTHLY CHRONJCLE.
/November
1 1891.
prised at the account she gave of God's late deal-
ings with her. When her ancient husband, with
whom she had lived from her youth, was, on
account of a debt contracted by his son, hurried away
and thrown into Durham Gaol, which soon put an end
to his life ; when she was likely to lose all she had,
and to be turned out of doors, at fourscore years of
age ; still the oracles of God, which she had loved
from a child, were her delight and counsellors. But
one day, when she put on her spectacles to read, she
could not see a word. She was startled at first, but
soon said, ' It is the Lord ; let Him do what seemetft
TO THE MEMORY
OF
CurHBERTHCWSTArUuM.
WHO
DwOATSkMOvtO. FtB 15, iB77
AGED 19 YEARS.
WnSffRM 0 ^ mjorrijtie
3 a 13 rw> a
Fatnarorc.isafioxie.kvho aiea'
Jwi9tv"7, ajjsrf rf/» V3a,Tff.
~)
Him good.' She thon luid her spectacles down, and,
casting her eye on the corner of the Bible, thought
she could discern some of the letters. Taking up the
sacred book, she read as well as her daughter could ;
and from that hour she could not only read without
spectacles, but sew or thread the finest needle with the
same ease as when she was thirty years of age "
A memorial chapel is erected at Wbickham in honour
of a remarkable man — the Rev. Joseph Spoor, for nearly
forty years the prince of revivalist preachers among the
Primitive Methodists. Ot this singular character many
strange anecdotes are related.*
* Some of the stories told of Mr. Spoor are told also of another
eccentric preacher who was once well-known in the Northern
Counties— Hodgson Casson.
When Primitive Methodism was at a low ebb at Cock-
field, near Raby Castle, Mr. Spoor resolved to impart a
new spirit into the lagging residents. Presently coming
to a corner near a brewery, where many persons were col-
lected together in listless idleness, he knelt and prayed
in their midst, as they had never heard man pray before.
When he rose from his knees, he cried aloud, "There's
going to be a grand sale to-night at the Primitive Metho-
dist Chapel. We are going to sell the devil up, and leave
him neither stick nor stool ; and I am the auctioneer.
The sale will commence at six o'clock. You are all invi-
ted ; come away !" He then sang his way to the chapel,
followed by a mass of people, so that the building was
crowded.
The dramatic turn giVen by Mr. Spoor to many of his
pulpit efforts would have been ridiculous in any other
minister of the Gospel ; but people knew him as the
"keelman's preacher." For example, when lecturing
upon the parable of the Sower, he described himself as a
sower spreading the seed of the kingdom of heaven, and,
becoming excited and absorbed in his text, he opened the
pulpit door and walked down the steps, striding along
the aisle in measured steps, throwing out his arms as if
sowing in a field. When accompanied with the forcible
exclamations of an enthusiast, the effect is said to have
been electric. On another occasion Mr. Spoor was
dwelling upon his favourite theme, the Prodigal
Son. Having dramatised the imagery of the parable
representing the youth revisiting "a far country"
with his substance, he rapidly stripped off his coat
and waistcoat, rolled them up in a bundle, ran down
the pulpit stairs and along the aisle, in imitation of
tlie prodigal on a long journey. Imagining the penitent's
return homewards, he exclaimed, " He's coming ; I see
him coming !" He then ran to the chapel doer, seized
a ploughman who was loitering outside, and dragged
him up the aisle, shouting all the while — "This my son
was dead, and is alive again ; he was lost and is
found." Again, when preaching upon the solemnities
of the day of judgment, as predicted in Revelations,
representing an angel standing with one foot on land
and the other on the sea, Mr. Spoor personified the
angel by a sudden leap, placing one foot on the shelf
for the Bible and the other on the back edge of the
pulpit. Seizing a roll of papers close at hand, and
placing them to his 'mouth to form a speaking trumpet,
he shouted at the top of his voice, " Time shall be no
longer. "
When preaching at Darlington in 1869, "a great power
rested upon him and the congregation." Towards the end
of his discourse, he straddled his legs from the Bible-
board to the back of the pulpit, then gradually descended
the pulpit rail, as an illustration of how easy it was to go
to perdition. When the danger of this freak was named
to him next morning, he expressed surprise, and replied.
"Well, the Lord must have had hold of me, or I should
November!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNIRY LORE AND LEGEND.
491
have fallen." It was asserted that he attempted to
return to the rostrum by re-climbing the handrail,
by way of showing the difficulty of reaching heaven ;
but this statement is not verified in Mr. Ebenezer Hall's
memoirs of Mr. Spoor, from which these facts are
taken.
Whilst stationed at Appleton Wiske, Mr. Spoor was so
intensely affected by religious frenzy that he could neither
eat nor sleep ; passion overmastered his will ; he often
became unconscious and fell with great violence to the
earth, falling upon chairs, forms, or tables, and once even
into the fire. "But in no case, however violent the fall,
was it ever known that he sustained any bodily damage or
hurt." Remarkable success followed these manifestations.
Thus :— A young lady, solicitous for the conversion of
her parents and brother, invited Mr. Spoor to break-
fast ; a family gathering was held ; he wrestled with the
devil until the mother fell at his feet ; next the father ;
then a son, then the second son, "shouting aloud under
poignant convictions of sin." Neighbours were attracted
by the noise ; they rushed in upon the scene ; some ran
through the village proclaiming the extraordinary tidings;
the population nocked to the spot; many were awe-
stricken ; there was " weeping and wailing and gnashing
of teeth." By dinner time Mr. Spoor became exhausted ;
he required help to clinch the victory, and a man who was
hedging and ditching cast aside his gloves, spade, and
shears, and came to bis aid. Towards evening hostilities
were suspended through sheer exhaustion, but Mr. Spoor
rejoiced greatly in this great feat as one of the most
glorious in his experience.
A strange incident is recorded to have happened at Carr-
ville, near Durham, at some anniversary services. Mr.
Spoor became exceedingly animated. In giving additional
weight to his theme, he struck the Bible with great force,
shattered the shelf upon which it rested, and sent Bible,
shelf, and part of the pulpit upon the heads of several
friends underneath. By sheer luck he recovered his own
equilibrium. Clutching the sides of his pedestal, and,
looking below, with a smile, he observed, "Reach the
Bible up again. We can do without the board and the
pulpit too, but we catrt do without the Bible."
Mr. Spoor once encountered Billy Purvis at Morpeth.
When about to commence his exhibition, Billy was
attracted by a number of voices singing, and, thinking
they were rhals, he resolved to overpower them with
bis "band," the said band consisting of a single horn
and drum. Full power was given to the instruments, but
the musicians were soon exhausted. Taking up his
speaking trumpet, Billy shouted, " Aa warn thoo thinks
thysel' a clivvor fellow, noo \ " and then left the field to
Spoor, " who preached with divine power to a large crowd
of persons."
The last sermon delivered by Mr. Spoor was at North
Ormesby, near Middlesbrough, on August 29, 1869. He
died at Stockton on September 9 following, and was
buried in the cemetery at Middlesbrough, deeply re-
gretted as an earnest, but eccentric man.
Eft* jiJurtftn-it Circuit
liars'
$B tl)e late
ir.
|F all the Bar on the Northern Circuit, I
knew Watson the best. I carried many a
brief to his lodgings when a lad, and, when
1 came to man's estate, Watson was always
my counsel. Nor was it without reason, for to me he
never failed to show far more familiar kindness than 1
had any title to expect. Watson had been a cavalry
officer at Waterloo, and the soldier was visible in his
manner. He afterwards became a special pleader in the
Temple, and laid the foundation of future success by
years of hard and patient ploddine toil. He wrote two
excellent books, which have never been superseded, and
then came ihe Northern Circuit, getting into practice
almost immediately on the strength of his reputation as
a pleader and writer. Excepting Cresswell, I never
saw a better leader, and I knew him as a junior, in which
capacity I did not know Cresswell. Even as a junior.
Watson was no bad match for Cresswell, and I have seen
Watson in stuff and aJone successfully defend a case
against Cresswell, Alexander, and somebody else all put
together. There was no man so good single-handed with
a lot of witnesses to call. He wanted no help, nor any-
body to keep him right, either in his law or his facts.
He was always a leader in mind. He had scarcely quite
the tact, the dexterity, the neatness, or the adroitness in
turning a corner, of Cresswell, but he was wonderfully
clear-headed and far-sighted, and was never caught
napping- His nerve, presence of mind, and promptness
of decision were most marvellous. Instructions forsooth !
Give Watson the pleadings and the proofs, and he would
instruct himself. The idea of being tied down to any line
taken or suggested in the brief never seemed to enter into
his head. I have known Watsou shape a case to the utter
and entire surprise of the attorney. He was a host in
himself, and with Watson it was no matter what other
counsel you had. If it came to a question of law, you •
might sleep on roses if General Watson said you were
all right. I cannot readily forget a consultation, in which
nothing was consulted, I had many years ago with Watson
at Newcastle. It was a ship collision case, in which, to
say the honest truth, any consultation would have been a
farce, and was only a decent way of giving and getting
fees. Watson had just been arguing for me in the Ex.
chequer, with Willes and Seymour for his juniors, a
492
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f November
I 189L
rather troublesome case. In Pilgrim Street he would
talk of nothing but the rule at Westminster a
few days before. When he had about exhausted
himself, Digby Seymour timidly suggested "the case
to-morrow." "Oh, the case to-morrow," iaid Watson.
He took a shilling out of his pocket, tossed it up,
and caught it as it fell with a cleverness of
" hoy " and " kep " which a pitman might have envied,
and bowed us to the door ! This piece of pantomime
was my consultation. Next morning, after Watson had
opened his case for my clients the defendants, down
came a scrap of paper from Mr. Justice Cresswell :
"Watson, this looks like a toss up. What say you to a
draw? C. 0." This was passed over to Knowles, and a
juror was withdrawn, which sent my clients and myself
home happy. I once had an opinion from Watson in
which every line cost a guinea and was cheap at the
money. With a good case, Watson was like Tom Aid-
croft on a good horse — he got every ounce out in a close
finish. Watson was not a fluent speaker, but he bad an
exceedingly vigorous if homely style. It might have
been told in two words — varied repetition. His
speeches were like a Scottish tune — you never lost
one note all through. Watson always instinctively
apprehended and foresaw the true turning point,
and this he used fairly to "in-sense" into the
jury. His replies were a summing-up. He used to
put the whole case broadly, candidly, and fearlessly
to the jury, when he felt certain ot success, and
then My Lord could do nothing more than repeat
and re-echo Mr. Watson. Latterly, I thought he evi-
dently felt not being made a Judge, and he seemed to
work with a determination to make his merits acknow-
ledged. The real Judge at Nisi Prius did not sit upon,
but below the Bench. At length, Watson was made a
Baron of the Exchequer, but the country did not long
enjoy his services. On the last day of a Durham Assizes,
being also the Commission Day at Newcastle, I once
heard Watson address a jury without his wig, and
dressed in an olive-green Newmarket coat with metal
buttons, close-cut, tight-strapped trousers, and military
spurs ! Even this disguise looked less unprofessional
than the beastly beards and wild whiskers we see
now-a-days.* No brief of mine ever did or should go
into the hands of a barrister with the hairy face of a
hermit. Watson generally rode the Summer Circuit on
horseback, and was said sometimes to play the fiddle,
neque semper arcum tcndit Apollo. One day, at Durham,
he had gained a verdict for a defendant. Next day,
the unlucky plaintiff came under his clutches as a
witness. "Ah, Mr. ." said Watson, "you were
the unfortunate plaintiff yesterday. .From my heart I
* The Beard Movement, which began when our veterans, bronzed
-ind unshorn, returned from the Crimea, had well-nisrh reached its
full development, except among a few old-fashioned people like
Mr. Robson himself, at the time this passage was written.
am sorry for you." "Yes, sir," gravely replied the
witness, " you may be sorry, but the grief is all my
own ! "
Decidedly the most popular and by much the most
frequently employed man at Durham was Mr. T. C.
Granger, who became member for the city, and a Queen's
Counsel. "Tom Granger," as he was familiarly called,
was, in his day, even a greater favourite than "John
Davison " at a later period. Granger never seemed to
be in the least over-matched. He always knew his own
case thoroughly. He was a very good lawyer, and was
never unprepared for any legal difficulty which might
be started. There was no springing a mine under the
feet of Granger. Added to a sound, not a superficial,
knowledge of law, he had an untiring industry, a zeal,
and a pertinacity, which made him unrivalled as a
"poor man's Counsellor." He threw himself heart and
soul into his cases ; and, win or lose, and twice out of
thrice it was a win, he always satisfied his clients.
Granger had a world of shrewdness and sagacity, and
knew human nature far better than most folks. He
cross-examined a witness well, and, despite a slight
physical impediment or peculiarity, spoke fluently,
though not glibly, and, on occasion, eloquently.
Nobody was his equal in anything which might
be termed local: he knew the dialect and the
habits and customs of the people intimately. With
a Durham common jury, it was always far more
than old Michael Brunton the Richmond drug-
gist's favourite odds of five to four on Tom Granger.
But JVm Prius was but a part of what Granger did
do and could do. He was a fairly good conveyancer ;
he did Equity in the Durham Court of Chancery ; he
did Insolvent Court ; he did Sessions appeals, and
criminal business, almost exclusively defensive, both at
Sessions and Assizes. His defences of prisoners were
really masterpieces of ingenuity and invention. His
great forte was to show that the innocence of the
prisoner was quite consistent with the evidence for the
prosecution. Not only did he know what to say, but
where to stop, and when to be silent, and how to
leave a witness alrne. Vulgarly, he was what is called
"hard-bitten," but there was nothing vulgar about
Tom Granger, without it was his whiskers, which were
then only tolerated, and not approved. No man was
more constantly before the public, and I never knew
any man at the Bar who did so many things so well.
His labour must have bsen enormous, and his only
relief variety. All was thrown upon his shoulders.
He hardly ever had a junior, and few of the attorneys
who habitually employed him were men likely to assist
him with a reference or a suggestion. In my opinion,
Granger did not live long enough to be rightly appre-
ciated. That he would at last have been a judge I
entertain no manner of doubt. Atherton, in my
opinion, was by no means the equal of Granger ; yet,
November 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
493
when Atherton got Granger's seat at Durham, Atherton
was soon made Attorney-General.
On the Northern Circuit we had Serjeant Murphy,
who was a most eloquent and highly humorous Irishman,
and in education and in manners a gentleman all over.
We had also Serjeant Wilkins, who was widely renowned
for his defence of prisoners. In my humble judgment,
he was vastly over-rated. He had none of Granger's
ingenuity and dexterity in dealing with facts or with wit-
nesses, and just as little of Granger's astuteness, subtlety,
and vigilance, in picking a hole in an indictment. You
could tell in a moment that Wilkins was neither a scholar,
a lawyer, nor a gentleman, and that he was a mere half-
bred and half-schooled adventurer in the profession,
which was the fact. If Dundas and Stuart Wortley were
literally blood to the heels, there was not as much gentle
blood in Wilkins's whole body as would supper a hungry
flea. No man is the worse for being purely plebeian, but
I confess to a reverence for birth, and in my opinion
an ounce of blood is worth a pound of flesh. Wilkins's
frowns and tones used to remind me of the leading
tragedian in Billy Purvis's show, and his language was
seldom either chaste or classic, and not by any means the
English of Swift, Bolingbroke, Chatham, or Burke. He
always made me think of a Methodist preacher, not that
he spoke with either whine or nasal twang. Cases for
bullying, brow-beating or badgering witnesses, or for
powerful and earnest appeals to the jury, come but
seldom ; and when you have this sort of thing over and
over again, you are no more affected by it than by the sad
face of an undertaker at a funeral. Still, there was no
denying that Wilkins had a vast deal of inborn ability
and natural oratory. Lay aside prejudiced or fastidious
criticism, and you could not fail to be impressed and to
admire. Some of Wilkins's apostrophes or exclamations,
in my opinion, far exceeded his set speeches — such for
instance as, " O witness, forget for one moment that you
are a policeman, and let the truth escape !" It was no
wonder that Wilkins was well employed. But though his
gains, even on the scale of criminal courts, must have
been considerable, he is said to have died very poor. I
have heard that Baron Martin, who was a kind friend to
him during life, had to subscribe either to bury him,
or towards making some temporary provision for bis
widow.
Mr. Hugh Hill was one of that almost extinct class
whom we were wont to call great juniors. Where was
there ever a neater pleader or a safer adviser than Hugh
Hill ? He was very nearly the equal of Watson in these
respects, but, unlike Watson, he had not in him the
making of a leader. Bramwell, Willes, and Blackburn,
three very great judges, never were Queen's Counsel, and
Hugh Hill was not one long. He was speedily raised to
the Bench which was his proper place, but, like Watson,
be died almost too soon for judicial fame.
Mr. Stapylton, the late Judge of the Durham County
Courts, was a junior between the beginning of 184-0 and
the end of 1846. How much earlier he was a junior is
more than I can say, but as he was a steward along with
Granger at a Bachelors' Ball in Durham before the passing
of the first Reform Bill, I presume that his professional
career at the Assizes would begin before my going to
Durham. Mr. Stapylton was principally employed as a
conveyancer, and as such was held in high repute. But
he also did a good deal of ordinary pleading in the Court
of Pleas at Durham, and this occasionally led to a brief at
the Assizes. I cannot take upon mysef to say that Mr.
Stapylton would have been fully equal to the mystery of
giving colour, or the abstruse nicety of the replication
absque hoc, but he was a safe and judicious pleader for the
common run of actions. He used also to sit as Assessor
for the Sheriff on tho execution of writs of trial under
£20, and writs of inquiry to assess damages, a practice
which was found to be erroneous. All this was excellent
training for his long and useful career as a County Court
Judge, which began in 184-7 and ended in 1872.
Mr. Robert Ingham is another man with a local name
and habitation. Mr. Ingham, who, called to the Bar in
1820, still lives* at Westoe, in excellent health and
universal esteem, is, I believe, the son of an eminent
surgeon in Newcastle. He was a fellow-pupil with the
late Baron Watson of Mr. Patteson, afterwards Sir
John Patteson, a Justice of the Queen's Bench, whose
fame will be enduring, and hardly more as a Judge
than as one of the joint-editors or anuotators of
Saunders's Reports. Mr. Inghain was Recorder of
Berwick, and became a Queen's Counsel and Attorney-
General of the County Palatine. Mr. Ingham often
did junior practice at the Assizes, and got a very
great many references. His great place before being
made a Queen's Counsel was the Quarter Sessions.
Mr. Ingham was not a man to prosecute or defend
prisoners, but there was a fund of lucrative employ-
ment in those days in the way of rating and settle-
ment appeals which, not infrequently, went to the
Queen's Bench.
It used to be profanely said that faitti might remove a
mountain, but not a pauper. I have known mora money
spent in vainly trying to remove a pauper from Sunder-
land to Alnmouth than would have purchased the pauper
an annuity on which he might have lived in clover. The
technical objections to the order and the examinations
were sure to prove insuperable, and they were all masked
under a general ground of appeal that the order and
examinations were "in-formal, irregular, insufficient, bad,
and defective on the face thereof." Granger was a
dreaded assailant, but even Granger at Durham was
nothing to Robert Pashley, who was a West Riding
Sessions man. Pashley used to come to Durham Assizes.
* Mr. Instham, who sat in Parliament for some time as member
for South Shields, died at Weatoe on October 21st, 1975. (See Mr.
Welford's " Men of Mark," in Weekly Chronicle.— Ingham.)
494
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/November
1891.
He had the finest head I ever saw on human shoulders.
Baron Alderson is said to have owed his introduction to
practice to his big bead. This attracted the notice of
a Yorkshire attorney, who thought that there was plenty
of room to hold a deal, if it was only full ! When an
Act was passed to get rid of merely formal objections
wholly beside the merits, it was humorously termed, " An
Act for the better suppression of Paahley."
Bliss was another Yorkshire Sessions man who came to
Durham. So was Price and so was Uverend. All three
were good men, and all three took silk. When York was
taken from the Northern Circuit and added to the Mid-
land in 1863, all the barristers then belonging to the
Northern Circuit were set free either to join the Midland
Circuit or to continue on the Northern Circuit as altered,
and retain York in addition. The Northern Circuit then
lost nearly all the men whose main connection lay in
Yorkshire. Mr. Digby Seymour, whose chief Sessions
place had been Hull, also changed his circuit. Mr.
Seymour is not, of course, a barrister of bygone days,
and therefore of him I cannot speak any more than of
Mr. Manisty, Mr. J. C. Heath, and some others.*
Out of regard to space and to the patience of my
readers, I must group together the remaining barristers of
bygone days. There was the astute and learned Cowling,
whom nature bred for the Bench upon which he did not
live to sit There was Stephen Temple, a fair average
man, whether single-handed, or as a junior, or as a leader.
I saw Temple get one of the only two verdicts I myself,
with my own ears, ever heard given for a railway company
when sued by a passenger. Temple's plaintiff was a dirty,
low, roguish Jew, who was about put out of court by the
candour and honesty of his own Gentile surgeon. I well
recollect Stephen Temple ridiculing the idea of "a shock
to the nervous system" of a Jew whose pocket had not been
touched. There was "Pig" Addison, who always did the
work of the Darlington attorneys. I ought to explain that
the learned and painstaking Joseph Addison was not
called "Pig" Addison from any uncleanliness of person or
habits, like the Manchester barrister of bygone days who
was nicknamed "Vambeest Brown," but that the prefix
of " Pig" was put figuratively and complimentarily on
account of his patient grubbing and getting at the bottom
of everything. There was Hindmarch, great in the law
of patents and good at a vast deal of other law besides,
and whom I have seen force Mr. Justice Cresswell to listen.
and to end by changing his opinion. There was Samuel
Warren, of abundantly-earned literary fame. There was
Robert Matthews, who was no bad hand at defending a
prisoner. There was John Unthank and Frederic Robin-
son, who equalled Thomas Chitty, below the bar, in the
science and the art, or, to speak more correctly, the artful
science of drawing pleadings in the days of special
demurrers. There was Sir Gregory Levvin, who, on the
strength of his having once been in the navy, sometime*)
got a brief in a running-down case at sea. Sir Gregory
was a good man on the Crown side, though but moderate
at Nisi Prius. He was the writer of "Lewin's Crown
Cases Reserved," and was judicially described the other
day as "a notoriously inaccurate reporter." There was
Ramshay, afterwards the eccentric Judge of the Liver-
pool County Court, whose face always suggested soap as
his wig did powder. And there were many other bar-
risters of bygone days, doubtless equally deserving of a
passing notice, whose names I cannot at this moment call
to mind. In 184-4, the Hon. Adolphus F. O. Liddell
joined the circuit. He might owe his early introduction
to practice to his family influence and connections, but he
indisputably owed his success to his own intrinsic merit
alone. After patiently working bis way up to a silk
gown, with the leadership of the Northern Circuit almost
within his grasp, he suddenly surprised the profession by
accepting the office of Permanent Under-Secretary of
State, and became a barrister of bygone days.
* Mr. Seymour is, of course, his Honour Judire W. Dijrby
Seymour, now in charge of the Newcastle County Court District
Silatson.
The following communication, from the late Mr. John
Theodore Hovle, then Coroner for Newcastle, who had
the high honour and great advantage of being himself a
pupil of the late Baron Watson, was sent to Mr. Robson
at the time his articles originally appeared : —
William Henry Watson was the son of an officer in His
Majesty's army, I believe in the Enniskillen Dragoons.
He had a small patrimonial estate in the Parish of Barn-
borough in Northumberland, which the late Baron parted
with only a few years before his death.
After the peace of 1815, Mr. Watson became the pupil
of Mr. Patteson, then a special pleader, afterwards Sir
John Patteson the Judge, and, after the usual course of
study in his Chambers, Mr. Watson soon got into con-
siderable practice as a special pleader. His first Cham-
bers were, I think, in Lamb's Buildings in the Temple,
and, in 1830, he removed from thence to King's Bench
Walk, where he continued until called to the Bar in that
year.
Here, I believe, he had eleven pupils, including
amongst them the present Mr. Serjeant Ballantine, Mr.
Dickenson, who afterwards became a Judge in New
South Wales, and Mr. Edward Rushton, afterwards
Stipendiary Magistrate at Liverpool.
Mr. Watson was wont often to discourse with his pupils
with the view of inciting them to industry in the pursuit
of their profession. He used to say that he inherited
nothing but his father's sword, and had no education
except the little reading, writing, and arithmetic which
he got at Tommy Redman's school at Kirkharle, in
Northumberland. It is not quite clear whether he was in
action at Waterloo, but he had the medal, and he used
frequently to advert to the fact that he was under fire in
the Peninsula, and had cooked his food on his sword
when at Passage.
He married twice — first, the sister of the present Sir
William Armstrong (now Lord Armstrong), and after her
death, Miss Capron, the daughter of the Rector of Mid-
hurst, in Sussex. There was a son by each marriage.
The first is a Barrister, and the second, who is in the
Royal Engineers, was in the advanced parallel at
Sebastopol, and, after that, when his father became a
judge, he was once or twice on the Northern Circuit as
judge's marshal.
November 1
1891. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
495
Soft IT jf0stn-, tfte
tit
JlMONG the most eminent literary men who
flourished in the early part cf the century
was John Foster, the son of a small farmer
who resided near Halifax, Yorkshire, where
Foster was born on Sept. 17, 1770. Known far and wide as
Foster the Essayist, the Yorkshireman's son is famous for
his essays "On Decision of Character," " On the Evils of
Popular Ignorance," "On the Application of the Epithet
Romantic," and on other kindred and thoughtful
subjects,
The youth was first placed to learn the trade of a
weaver. When he was seventeen years old, however, he
attracted the notice of a Baptist minister at Hebden
Bridge, who procured for him the means of entering as a
student the Baptist College at Bristol. The first pulpit
' which he seems to have occupied after leaving college was
that of the old Baptist Chapel (still in existence, but in a
ruinous condition) on Tuthill Stairs, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Here, however, he did not remain long. Afterwards ho
held appointments at Chichester in Sussex, at Frome in
Somersetshire, and at Downend, near Bristol.
At intervals between these different appointments he
devoted himself to literature, contributing regularly to
the Eclectic Review, for which magazine he wrote
altogether 185 articles. The Essays were first published
in 1805; nearly forty years later fifty of the papers he
had contributed to the Review were selected and issued
in a separate form ; while two volumes of lectures,
delivered at Broadmead in 1822, were edited from his
notes by his friend Mr. J. E. Ryland, and published
subsequent to the author's death, which took place at
Stapleton, near Bristol, on Oct. 15, 1843.
Mr. Ryland published also a most interesting volume
entitled " The Life and Correspondence of John Foster."
It is from this volume that we take the following account
of Foster's experiences in Newcastle : —
After leaving Bristol, the first place in which Mr.
Foster regularly engaged as a preacher was Newcastle-on-
Tyne. An ancient room in this town, situated at the top
of a flight of steps called Tuthill Stairs, had been occupied
by a Baptist congregation ever since the year 1725. It
was capable of holding scarcely more than a hundred
persons, and both before and during Foster's stay the
average attendance was much below this number. Yet,
in so small an auditory, there were a few individuals
capable of appreciating the merits of the preacher, and
who took a very gratifying interest in his discourses.
"I have involuntarily caught a habit, " he tells his friend
Mr. Horsfall, " of looking too much on the right hand
side of the meeting. :Tis on account of about half-a-
dozen sensible fellows who sit together there. I cannot
keep myself from looking at them. I sometimes almost
forget that I have any other auditors. They have so
many significant looks, pay such u particular and minute
attention, and so instantaneously catch anything curious,
that they become a kind of mirror in which the preacher
may see himself. Sometimes, whether you will believe it
or not, I say humorous things. Some of these men
instantly perceive it, and smile ; I, observing, am almost
betrayed into a smile myself ! "
Mr. Forster remained at Newcastle little more than
three months ; he arrived August 5, 1792, and left to-
wards the close of November. According to his own
account,' his mode of life during this period was
almost that of a recluse ; his mental habits were undis-
ciplined, his application to study fitful and desultory,
and his purpose as to the specific employment of his
future life unfixed.
"I am thinking," he writes to his friend, who was
then a student at Brearley, " how difterent is the state of
the family in which you reside from that where my lot is
fixed for the present. Your family seems a kind of
ludicro-moral museum, comprising specimens of all the
odd productions found in the world of men. Now
observe the contrast. Mrs. F. is, with one of
the servants, gone some time since to London,
and the whole mansion is now left to Mr. F.,
one maid, and myself. Mr. F. was bit by the
mastiff that guards the factory, so severely that he has
been confined to the house, and at present does not even
quit his bedchamber. Now, then, I absolutely breakfast,
dine, drink tea, and sup alone; except that beside my
table places himself Pero, a large and very generous dog,
my most devoted friend, and the willing companion of all
my adventures. Having, you know, neither spouse nor
children, I frequently amuse myself with Pero. I am
mistaken, or the name of Pero shall live when your cox-
combs, your consequential blockheads, and your . . .
images of fattened clay, are heard of no more. Though
the town is only about two or three hundred
yards from the house, I never take any notice
of it, and very rarely enter it, but on the Sunday.
I often walk into the fHds, where I contemplate horses
and cows, and birds and grass ; or along the river, where
I observe the motions of the tide, the effect of the wind,
or, if 'tis evening, the moon and stars reflected in the
water. When inclined to read, I am amply furnished
with books. When I am in the habit of musing, I can
shut myself in my solitary chamber, and walk over the
floor, throw myself on a chair, or recline on my table ;
or, if I would dream, I can extend myself on the bed.
When the day is fled, I lie down in the bosom of night,
and sleep soundly till another arrives ; then I awake,
solitary still ; I either rise to look at my watch, and then
lay myself awhile on the bed looking at the morning
skies, or .... in a magic reverie behold the varied
scenes of life, and poise myself on the wings of visionary
contemplation over the shaded regions of futurity. ....
Such, my friend, are the situation and the train in which
I pass life away."
That Foster did not like Newcastle is perhaps still
more conclusively shown in another letter to Mr.
Horsfall, dated October 2, 1792 :—
A correspondent of genius and observation might
give you an amusing account of Newcastle ; but
such qualifications are but in a su:all degree mine. The
town is an immense, irregular mass of houses. There are
a few fine uniform streets : but the greater number exhibit
an awkward succession of handsome and wretched build-
ings. The lower part of the town, as being in the
bottom of the valley, is dirty in an odious degree. It
contains thousands of wretched beings, not one of
whom can be beheld without pity or disgust. . . .
The general characteristic of the inhabitants seems
to be a certain roughness, expressive _ at once
of ignorance and insensibility I know
little of the dissenters in general. I was one evening
lately a good deal amused at the Presbyterian or Scotch
meeting, by the stupidity of their psalms— the grimace of
the clerk— the perfect insignificance of the parson— and
the silly, unmeaning attention of a numerous auditory.
. . . But our meeting for amplitude and elegance ! I
believe you never saw its equal. It is, to be sure, con-
siderably larger than your lower school ; but then so black
and so dark ! It looks just like a conjuring-room, and accord-
ingly the ceiling is all covered with curious antique figures
to aid the magic. That thing which they call the pulpit
496
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f November
189L
is as black as a chimney ; and, indeed, there is a chim-
ney-piece and a very large old tire-case behind it.
There is nothing by which the door of this same
pulpit can be fastened, so that it remains partly open, as
if to invite some good person or other to assist you when
you are in straits. My friend Pero, whom 1 have
mentioned before, did me the honour one Sunday to
attempt to enter ; but, from some prudential notion, I
suppose, I signified my will to the contrary by pulling-to
the door, and he very modestly retired. Yet I like this
priestly consequence
When I order a new coat, I believe it will not be black.
In such a place as this it would be unnatural to speak
loud, and consequently there cannot be a great degree of
exterior animation. I believe my manner is always cool ;
this is not so happy, I confess ; but it is nature, and all
nature's opponents will be vanquished.
JT was in 1539 that the keelmen announced them-
selves as a fraternity in Newcastle. In 1556'
mention is made of them as an independent
society, though nearly a century later (1649)
we find them depending upon the Hoastmen, which body
they solicited to furnish them with a chapel and minister.
In 1697, the keelmen had established a charitable fund, to
which, two years later, each of them contributed the sum
of fourpence a tide. But it was not till 1700 that they
petitioned the authorities of the town for a site on which
to build a hospital, to the maintenance of which the afore,
said contributions were to be devoted. The request was
granted, and a lease was accordingly executed on the 4th
of October of the same year, in the name of the governor,
wardens, and fraternity of Hoastmen, for the use and
benefit of the keelmen during a period of ninety-nine
years.
The hospital thus founded is situated on a piece of
rising ground in the New Road above Sandgate, and was
built in 1701, at a cost of £2,000. It is a fine old square
brick building, "done, "as Mackenzie, the historian of
Newcastle, says, "in the form of colleges and monasteries,
having its low walk round in imitation of cloysters." The
area in the middle of the hospital is about eighty-three
feet broad, and about ninety-seven feet long. The
institution contains sixty dwelling-rooms, which are
occupied by the widows of decayed keelmen. The
inmates are supported by a fund connected with the
hospital. A stone bearing the following inscription
records the gift of an early benefactor: — "In the Year
1786, the Interest of £100, at 5 per Cent, for ever, to be
annually distributed, on the twenty-third Day of
December, among the ten oldest Keelmen resident in the
Hospital, was left by John Simpson, Esq., of Bradley,
Alderman of this Town, and forty Years Governor of the
Hoastmen's Company. The grateful objects of his
Remembrance have caused this Stone to be erected, that
Posterity may know the Donor's Worth, and be stimulated
to follow an Example so benevolent."
It was in 1786 also that an Act of Parliament was
passed for the better regulation of the Keelmen's Benefit
Society. The measure was entitled "an Act for estab-
lishing a permanent fund for the relief and support of the
skippers and keelmen employed on the River Tyne, who
by sickness or other accidental misfortune, or by old age,
shall not be able to maintain themselves and families,
and for the relief of the widows and children of such
KEELMEN'S HOSPITAL, NEWCASTLE-ON-TVNE.
1891
.}
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
497
skippers and keelmen." The stewards and clerk meet, or
did meet, to collect and distribute the funds of the society
every six weeks. At the general annual meeting, or
"head meeting day," as it was called, the keelmen in
other days used to form themselves into procession, and,
accompanied with bands of music, march through the
town, and then dine together in state. Speaking of the
Keelmen's Hospital, Dr. Moor, a former Bishop of Ely,
remarked "that he had heard of and seen many hospitals,
the works of rich men, but that was the first he ever saw
or heard of which had been built by the poor."
The institution was the scene of a dreadful tragedy on
January 2, 1829, when a woman named Jane Jamieson
murdered her mother, who was an inmate of the place.
For this she was afterwards (on the 7th of March)
executed on the Town Moor.
JJBOUT a couple of miles south-east of Barnard
Castle the ruins of the once stately Eggle-
stone Abbey occupies a picturesque position
on the Yorkshire bank of the Tees. The abbey is said
to have been founded by Ralph d« Multon near the year
1189 for Premonstratensian canons. It was dedicated to
St. Mary and St. John the Baptist. Between the years
1195 and 1208, Philip of Poictou, Bishop of Durham,
granted to the inmates the manor of Eggrlestone, in the
county of Durham, seven miles further up the Tees.
History otherwise is almost silent as to the place until
the Dissolution of the Monasteries, when, like other
religious houses in the kingdom, it was seized on behalf
of the Crown.
The venerable remains are but a mere shell, and no
conception can be formed by the ordinary observer of
the architectural beauties of the original building. The
abbey church, a cruciform structure, has best sustained
the ravages of time and the destroying hand of man.
Turner, the great landscape painter, made a drawing
of Egelestone for Dr. Whittaker's "Richmondshire,"
and it is probable that, long after Whittaker's bulky
tomes are forgotten, copies of the artist's composition will
be in demand. Turner, it may be remembered, made
many sketches for the same work, and proofs thereof are
treasured by collectors for the light they throw upon the
development of the genius of one of the most gifted
painters of all time. As showing the interest attached to
the engravings in Whittaker's book, it may be stated
that they were recently published as a volume quite
independent of the historian's description.
Leland tells us that a bed of grey limestone in the Tees
was in his time wrought as a marble quarry, and Whit-
taker was of opinion that most of the tombs in some of
the churches in Richmondshire were made of the material
thus quarried. According to Leland, there were once
EGGLESTONE ABBEY, NEAR BARNARD CASTLE.
32
498
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/November
\ 1891.
to be found in Egglestone Abbey "two fair tumbes of
gray marble. " "In the greater," he says, "was buried,
as I learned, one Syre Rafe Bowes ; and in the lesser one
of the Rokebys." But the tomb of Sir Ralph Bowes has
since been removed to Rokeby, where it stands in the
grounds near Mortham Tower.
Sir Walter Scott, in his poem of "Rokeby," places
the tragic death of Oswald Wycliffe and Bertram of
Risingham in Egglestone Abbey.
^Harfe
antr
JUcrjarl> SeRelforb.
SCHOOLMASTER AND MUSICIAN.
j]N the year that Louis XVI. was beheaded,
and about the date that England declared
war against his executioners, a Shields
seaman, named George Haswell, married,
enjoyed a brief honeymoon of twenty-four hours, and
then signed articles for a voyage to Rign. The vessel to
which he engaged himself proceeded to sea, completed
her passage, discharged her coals, took in her homeward
cargo, and, when all was ready, sailed for the Tyne.
To the Tyne, in due course, she came, but George Hits-
well did not arrive with her. The good ship had been
overhauled in the North Sea by the frigate Lezard, and
he, with others of the crew, had been "pressed " into the
navy. There was something unusual about this particular
impressment— so unusual indeed that an inquiry was
held, which ended in the captain of the Lezard being
superseded by the gallant, and afterwards heroic, Rodney.
Punishment ot the captain did not, however, procure the
liberation of the impressed seamen. George Haswell
served his Majesty for three years before he saw his bride
again. At the end of that time, a free man once more,
he obtained one of the sham protections commonly used
among seamen in those days, and, contriving to escape
the attentions of the "pressgang" during the remainder
of the war, settled down in the harbour town of his birth
:is a foy-boatman.
Thomas Haswell, one of a numerous family born to the
industrious seafarer, first saw the light in 1807. At the
age of eight he was sent to learn the little that was
taught in North Shields Royal Jubilee School — one of a
series of similar institutions that in various parts of the
kingdom had been opened, four years before, to celebrate
the 50th anniversary of the reign of George III. After
only three years' schooling he was taken from school
and set to work — first as helper to his father on the
river, then to grind glasses with a maker of " watch
crystals," next as errand boy to a grocer, and at length,
when fifteen years of age, as apprentice, for six years, to
a master painter. The little knowledge which he had
acquired in the " Royal Jubilee " excited a thirst for
more, and, the means of obtaining it in the usual way
being withdrawn, he began to educate himself. A
passion for music sprang up; to gratify and cultivate it
he joined the choir of Christ Church, where he had the
advantage of studying thorough bass and counterpoint
under a fine specimen of the old-fashioned choirmaster,
Thomas Oxley. Mr. Oxley possessed a magnificent
voice, had a thorough knowledge of music, and was so
devoted to his art that he held his choir practices at
six o'clock in the morning ! Young Haswell made
rapid progress under Oxley's tuition, and at the age of
sixteen joined a military band, of which, shortly after-
/ ,
to
i-?
u'nrds, he was made the leader. Up to that time
scarcely anything beyond a plain quick-step or slow
march was attempted by bands of this class; but he,
not content with such a limited repertoire, arranged
standard glees and choruses from the oratorios for his
players. The new departure led to his becoming
leader of a fine band in South Shields, which gave a
weekly performance of classical music, scored by him-
self. Before long he acquired, without any tuition, a
complete knowledge of the pianoforte and organ. Nor
were graver studies neglected. All the time that could
be spared from his trade and his music was devoted to
mental improvement. He had formed the idea that his
real life's work was to be found in teaching ; he was
determined to bring to that work, when the time
^No? ember!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
499
arrived for it, a well-stored mind, and he realized his
object.
Preferring the "National" to the " Lancaaterian "
system of imparting instruction, he entered Westoe Lane
National School, South Shields, as a pupil teacher, and
having acquired the method adopted in such institutions,
lie accepted the mastership of Trinity Church School in
that town. Here an excellent prospect appeared to be
opening out before him, and it did open out, though not
exactly in the way that he and his friends expected. For,
instead of remaining in the southern harbour town to win
bis laurels, he was enabled to re-cross the water and win
them in the place of his nativity. In 1838, soon after he
had taken charge of the Trinity lads, the head-mastership
of his old school, the "Royal Jubilee," fell vacant; he
became a candidate, carried all before him, and was
elected over the heads of thirty competitors. Thus in
the 32nd year of his age, twenty-one years after he had
left the Royal Jubilee a half-educated scholar, he re-
entered its walk as chief master.
Mr. Haswell found his old school, with only forty
pupils, in a deplorable condition. The system of teach-
ing had but little changed since he spent his two and a
half years of drudgery within its uninviting walls. The
same dull, stereotyped plan prevailed — weary copying of
monotonous platitudes upon ricketty slates, listless read-
ing of dull monitions from repellent lesson books,
objectless iteration of sums in the four simple rules of
arithmetic. As fast as he dared, and his private means
would allow, Mr. Haswell changed all this. Music,
drawing, elementary chemistry, and many other subjects
•were introduced into the school curriculum. Nor were
athletic exercises forgotten. At regular intervals the boys,
about 200 in number, were marched to Tyneraouth to
bathe and to swim, or be taught to swim, in the sea. At
all times games of strength and skill were encouraged,
and although the master superintended them and joined
in them, he never obtruded his authority unnecessarily,
tmt allowed his lads to play as boys love to play — in their
own way. Thus there grew up between him and his
pupils, poor, ill-fed, and ill-clad as many of them were,
an affectionate regard, a mutual pride, and a generous
confidence that lightened the task of the one and eased
the toil of the other. In after years, old boys filling
useful stations in life acknowledged their obligations by
friendly correspondence, gifts to the old school, and other
tokens of grateful remembrance. Numbers of them,
taking to the sea, rose from forecastle to cabin, and
commanded great ships in great waters. A writer in
the Newcastle Chronicle some years ago recorded a
gathering of ship captains icebound in the Baltic, who,
dining together on Christmas Day, and recounting the
exploits of youth, discovered that each of them had been
a scholar at the "Jubilee," and received his first lesson
in navigation from Mr. Haswell.
In the second year of his mastership, Mr. Haswell
married a lady of musical taste and culture— Miss
Matilda Prest-jn Armstrong, and with her assistance
was able to develop his musical genius side by side with
his school duties. Absorbing as these duties were, he
managed to instruct private pupils in music, to organise
concerts and entertainments, and, in 1851 or 1852, to
undertake the duties of organist at the parish church
of North Shields, with all its responsibilities of choir
training, choir practice, and frequent service. He found
time also to compose music for his choir, and melodies
for the poetical inspirations of his friends. "Tyne-
mouth Abbey," u. beautiful air which he set to words
by Mr. John Stobbs, is known all over the North-
Country. One of his melodies, wedded to verses
written by Mr. J. S. Edington for the opening
of North Shields Mechanics' Institute, is strangely
suggestive of the gem in Gounod's "Redemption,"
published years afterwards, both compositions being
founded upon an identical bass. Another air,
" Welcome to the Hungarian Exiles," gave life to
other stirring lines by Mr. Edington, while "The Life
Brigade " performed the same service for a song by Dr.
Spence Watson. The theory of music was his favourite
study ; the practice of it his chief delight. That he had
penetrated deeply into the subject is shewn by the
following passage from the preface to a profound work on
" Musical Intervals and Temperament "(now a University
text-book), written by his friend W. S. B. Woolhouse,
.F.R.A.S., the eminent mathematician and astronomer : —
The publication of the first edition of this essav was
originally prompted by the suggestions of an old" and
highly esteemed friend, Mr. Thomas Haswell, of North
Shields, who always took great interest in musical dis-
quisitions, and was a diligent inquirer into everything ap-
pertaining to them.
During the early years of its existence, the "Royal
Jubilee," supported by voluntary subscriptions, had been
a free school. Later on a penny a week was charged.
But after the Education Act was passed subscriptions
fell off, and it became necessary to obtain a Government
grant and place the institution under Government in-
spection. Mr. Haswell rose to the occasion. Such was
his devotion to his work that, at 63 years of age, sub-
mitting to the ordeal of a formal examination, he
obtained a piece of parchment certifying that he was
competent to conduct a school in which he had already
trained from four to five thousand boys for the battle of
life ! In 1830 the school was taken over by the School
Board, and in December, 1886, having the year before
. sustained an irreparable loss by the death of his wife, he
retired from his post. Verging upon fourscore years, he
had been, for the most part of half a century, in active
service, and the Education Department, mindful of his
long and arduous labours, assigned to him a small
retiring pension. It was a considerate act, which the
recipient appreciated. Unfortunately he did not live
long to enjoy it. On the 8th December, 1889, his 82nd
500
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
\
November
1891.
birthday, he passed away, his last words being the
formula with which he had closed the Jubilee School
every day for nearly fifty years—" Slates away, beys !"
Twelve months after Mr. Haswell's death his old
scholars and friends honoured his memory by presenting
his portrait (painted by Mr. Shotton, a local artist) to
the Public Library at North Shields, and by giving to the
dux of the Jubilee School a medal bearing bis name, a
view of the school, of the house in which he lived, and of
the tower of the church in which he played the organ.
PABLIA5IENTAKT GOVERNOR OP NEWCASTLE.
This family traces from Rodger de Hezilrigge, one of
the knights in the invading army of William the Con-
queror, and it ranks amongst the most ancient gentry in
the kingdom. — Burke.
The family of Hazlerigg, or Heselrige, is found, a cen-
tury and a half after the Conquest, in possession of
valuable estates in the county of Northumberland. It
Sir "ft r \h ur "Ha nk n a q.
held the fertile manors of Brunton and Fawdon, in the
parish of Gosforth, and of Weetslade, which lies to the
northward, a little beyond Gosforth boundary. By
virtue of these possessions, " William de Hesilrigg " was
sent to represent Northumberland in two successive Par-
liaments of Edward II. For some or all of these estates,
in July, 1323, when the muster-roll was called over at
Newcastle, "Simon de Heselrige" answered to his name,
and, for the same reason, in the later Parliaments of
Edward III. and the first of Richard II., another
William de Hesilrigg represented the county. A great-
grandson of Simon, " Thomas de Hesilrigg," widened the
family connection by a fortunate marriage. Towards the
close of the fourteenth century he was united to Isabel,
co-heir of Sir Roger Heron, Knt., by Margaret, daughter
of Sir Ralph Hastings, and through this alliance he
acquired the fine estate of Nosely, in the county of
Leicester, which has been ever since the family seat.
From their union descended, in the seventh generation.
Sir Thomas Hazlerigg of Nosely and Brunton, created
a baronet in July, 1622. Sir Thomas died in January,
1629, leaving, as his heir, his son Arthur, whose career
is now to be recorded.
Sir Arthur Hazlerigg, succeeding to the title and estates
at his father's decease, was living the life of a country
gentleman at Nosely when that fatal contention began
between Charles I. and his subjects which ended in Civil
War. Party spirit, engendered and fostered by the
struggle, ran so high that every man of position in the
kingdom was, as it were, compelled to take sides in the
quarrel. Sir Arthur cast in his lot with the rising party
in the State who were determined to check the king's
tendencies towards absolute sovereignty, to uphold the
privileges of Parliament, and to maintain the rights and
liberties of the subject. His neighbours, the freeholders
of Leicestershire, sympathising with his opinions, returned
him as one of their representatives to the first Parliament
that assembled after his father's death. Charles had
been governing the realm without consulting either Lords
or Commons for ten years, and Sir Arthur Hazlfrigg
entered the House of Commons as a member of that as-
sembly which, hastily summoned in the spring of 1640,
and as hastily dissolved three weeks afterwards, is dis-
tinguished in English History as the "Short Parlia
ment." To the "Long Parliament," which met in the
November of that year, he was re-elected, and from that
date his public life may be said to run.
As soon as the House settled down to business, Sir
Arthur Hazlerigg began to take a leading part in its
proceedings, acting uniformly with the "Northern
men," and identifying himself generally with the party
led by Hampden and Pym. On the third day of the
session he was placed upon an important committee —
that of Elections, Returns, and Privileges. Within a
few months he had made his mark by bringing in bills
for the attainder of the Earl of Strafford, and for vest-
ing the command of the militia in officers chosen by
Parliament, supporting at the same time with much
ardour and persistency Sir Edward Peering's bill for
the extirpation of Episcopacy. In little more than a
year his name was blazing all over the kingdom as that
of a patriot, if not of a martyr.
So active had been Sir Arthur Hazlerigg's opposition
to the Royal will that the king ordered him and five
others to be put upon their trial for treason. On the
3rd of January, 1641-42, the House of Lords was
startled by the sudden appearance in their midst of
Herbert, the Attorney-General, who presented " articles
of high treason and other misdemeanours " against Lord
Kimbolton, a peer, and Denzil Hollis, Sir Arthur
November \
1891. )
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
501
Hazlerigg, John Pym, John Hampden, and William
Strode, members of the House of Commons. Shortly
afterwards, the Commons were agitated by the entrance
of the Sergeant-at-Arms, who, in the uame of the king,
demanded the arrest of the live members. The demand
was not complied with, but next morning the accused
attended in their places, and defended themselves from
the vague accusations brought against them. The
Commons thereupon took a bold step; they ordered
the apprehension of the Royal emissaries who had
seized and sealed up papers belonging to the five
members, and, declaring the articles of high treason to
be a "scandalous paper," desired the House of Lords
to assist in bringing the authors of it to condign
punishment. While they were deliberating, word was
brought to the House that the king was on his way
with a strong retinue to apprehend Sir Arthur Ha7le-
rigg and the other members within the precincts of
Parliament.
What followed, Rushworth, who was clerk's assistant,
sitting at the table near the Speaker, has told us in
his " Historical Collections " : —
The dcors of the House of Commons being thrown
open, his Majesty entered the House, and as he passed up
towards the Chair, he cast his eye on the Right-hand
near the Bar of the House where Mr. Pym used to sit,
but his Majesty not seeing him there (knowing him well)
went up to the Chair and said, "By your leave (Mr.
Speaker) I will borrow your Chair a little." Whereupon
trie Speaker came out of the Chair, and his Majesty stept
up into it ; after he had stood in the Chair a while,
casting his Eye upon the Members as they stood up
uncovered, but could not discern any of the five Members
to be there. Then his Majesty made this speech : —
" Gentlemen, I am sorry for this occasion of coming unto
you. Yesterday, I sent a Sergeant at Arms upon a very
Important occasion to apprehend some that by my
command were accused of High Treason, whereunto 1
did expect Obedience, and not a Message. . . . There-
fore, I am come to tell you that I must have them where-
soever I find them. Well, since I see all tlie Birds are
Flown, I do expect from you that you shall send them
unto me, as soon as they return hither. But I assure you,
on the word of a King. I never did intend any Force, but
shall proceed against them in a legal and fair way, for I
never meant any other."
When the King was looking about the House, the
Speaker standing below by the Chair, his Majesty ask'd
him whether any of these persons were in. the House?
Whether he saw any of them? and where they were?
To which the Speaker, falling on his Knee, thus
Answered : — " May it please your Majesty, I have neither
Eyes to see, nor Tongue to speak in this place, but as the
House is pleased to direct me, whose Servant I am here,
and humbly beg your Majesty's Pardon that I cannot
give any other answer than this to what your Majesty is
pleased to demand of me."
The " birds " had " flown " indeed, and the king's pur-
suit of them into the City, where they were concealed, was
as abortive as his intrusion into the House of Commons.
Within a week, soured and disappointed, his Majesty
quitted Whitehall, to which place he never returned till
he was led through it to the scaffold. A few days after
his departure. Sir Arthur Hazlerigg and his colleagues,
leaving the City in a gaily-decorated barge, returned to
the House "with such multitudes as had far more of a
triumph than guard ; and the seamen made fleets of boats,
all armed with muskets and murdering pieces, which gave
vollies all the way they went." The whole House, with
the Speaker, rose to receive them, and while Sir Arthur,
with Hampden, Hull is, and Strode, remained silent and
uncovered, Pym tendered thanks.
Thenceforward Sir Arthur Hazlerigg resumed his
accustomed place. It is scarcely possible to open tha
Journals of the Houae of Commons at this period without
encountering his name as member of a committee,
reporter of conferences with the House of Lords, teller for
the Ayes or the Noes, or as acting in some equally useful
and important capacity. Thus he continued till the
failure of negotiations with the king at Oxford, in the
early part of 1643, sent him into the field as a com-
batant. Parliament gave him the command of five
hundred horse, and directed him to join Sir William
Waller's troops in the West of England. His horsemen
Clarendon describes as " so completely armed that they
were called by the other side the Regiment of Lobsters,
because of their bright iron shells with which they were
covered, being perfect Cuirassiers ; and were the first
seen so armed on either side, and the first that made
any impression on the King's Horse ; who, being
unarmed, were not able to bear a shock with them ;
besides that, they were secure from hurts of the sword,
which were almost the only weapons the others were
furnished with." The first battle in which he was
engaged was that of Lansdown. near Bath, fought on
the 5th of July, where his cuirassiers did good service,
but neither side reaped much advantage. A week later
he was in the fight at Roundway Down, near Devizes,
where his horse, galloping up the hill, charged the Royal
troops disadvantageously, and after a sharp conflict, in
which he received many wounds, was put to a disorderly
retreat. As soon as he recovered. Sir Arthur returned
to his Parliamentary duties, and on the 22nd Septem.
ber he subscribed the Solemn League and Covenant.
Parliament, appreciating his zeal and activity, voted
him in December, 1644, "an estate in hands of the value
of £2,000 per annum, in acknowledgment of his many
great and faithful services to the kingdom," and, three
years later, he was appointed Governor of Newcastle.
To the people of Tyneside, Sir Arthur Hazlerigg was no
stranger, and they received him with open arms. The
burgesses of Newcastle presented him with a silver basin
and ewer, and in due time admitted him to the freedom
of the town. Nor was their confidence in him mis-
placed. He was a resolute and capable man, and his
government of Newcastle, to which was afterwards
added Tynemouth, Berwick, and Carlisle, was character-
ised by firmness, prudence, and tact. A few months
after his appointment he put down a general rising of
the King's friends in the North under Marmaduke
Langdale. A little later, when the troops at Tyne-
mouth, seduced by his deputy, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry
502
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{November
1891.
Lilburn, declared for the king, he stormed the castle, put
the garrison to the sword, and, cutting off Lilburn's head,
placed it upon a pole as a warning to like offenders. For
this service he was appointed one of the Council of State,
and received a special vote of thanks from the House of
Commons. In July, 1650, when Cromwell came through
Newcastle, marching to the victory of Dunbar, Sir Arthur
was his host. Later on, joining Cromwell in Edinburgh,
he shared in the feastings and rejoicings there, and "at
their going away the castle saluted them with many great
guns, and vollies of small shot, and divers lords convoyed
them out of the city."
While he was Governor of Newcastle, Sir Arthur added
to his Northern possessions large portions of the con-
fiscated lands belonging to the dissolved see of Durham.
He acquired, among other estates, the rich manors of
Bishop Auckland, Wolsingham, and Easingwold. So
extensive indeed were his acquisitions of ecclesiastical
land in the Palatinate that he was nicknamed by his
adversaries Bishop of Durham. Nor did his dealings
with the property of local Royalists, as one of the Com-
missioners for Sequestered Estates, escape criticism.
Courageous John Hedworth, of Harraton, vented his
feelings against him in "The Oppressed Man's Outcry, "
a remarkable epistle, which may be read in Richardson's
" Reprints of Hare Tracts." To that most pungent
attack some friend of Sir Arthur's published an equally
pungent reply, entitled " Musgrave Muzzled, or the
Traducer Gagged ; Being a Just Vindication of the Rt.
Honble. Sir Arthur Haselrigg. Newcastle : S. B. 1650."
Into the quarrel turbulent John Lilburn intruded himself,
and, as usual, met with discomfiture. A petition which
he, and ono Josiah Primat, a London leather-seller, cir-
culated, accusing Sir Arthur and the Commissioners of
wholesale confiscation and jobbery, was investigated by
the House of Commons, voted to be "false, malicious,
and scandalous," and ordered to be burnt by the common
hangman.
Being a rigid Presbyterian, Sir Arthur Hazlerigg
was the great friend and protector of the Puritan
preachers in the North of England. To him four of
them — Weld, Hammond, Trurin, and Durant — when
publishing a posthumous volume of sermons by Ambrose
Barnes's favourite minister, Cuthbert Sydenham, dedi-
cated the work.
While the Long Parliament lasted, Sir Arthur
Hazlerigg worked in harmony with the leaders of his
party. But when, in 1653, Cromwell forcibly dissolved
the House of Commons, a breach of the friendship
which had for so long existed between these two great
men occurred — a breach which was never properly
healed. Sir Arthur resented Cromwell's violence as an
infringement of the freedom and privilege of Parlia-
ment ; Cromwell retaliated by omitting Sir Arthur
from that political assembly, of his own choosing,
which is known in history as the "Godly, or Bare-
bones Parliament." At the election which followed!
the break up of Barebones's select convention, Sir
Arthur was chosen to represent Newcastle ; but, so far
as the Journals afford evidence, he took no part what-
soever in the proceedings of the House. He was re-
turned again in 1656, though for what constituency
does not appear.
When the House of Peers was abolished, Cromwell
nominated Sir Arthur Hazlerigg to bfi a member of an
Upper Chamber which was to supersede the Lords, but
Sir Arthur declined the honour. He did not approve ot
a division of parliamentary authority, and, according to
Whitlock, he and his friends created difficulties which
brought the affairs of the nation to a standstill. This
condition of things continued till Cromwell, seeing no
sign of returning harmony, dissolved both chambers-
After the Protector's death, a new Parliament assembled
under Richard Cromwell, and again Sir Arthur
proved refractory. He procured the dismissal of
Lambert, Fleetwood, and other old officers who had
led the forces of Parliament to victory, and placed the
entire control of the army in the hands of himself and six,
colleagues of his own party. General discontent of the
troops followed this rash and ill judged movement.
Something like a mutiny occurred at Portsmouth.
Within a few weeks afterward*, Monk came through
Newcastle, marching southward with his Coldstream
Guards, and the Commonwealth was tottering to its-
fall.
Monk, a wary tactician, feeling every step of his
ground, conferred and coquetted alternately with both
the great parties in the State. While the Puritans noted
his attentions to Royalist leaders, the Royalists regarded
him with suspicion, because, according to Clarendon, "he
was thought to have most familiarity and to converse
most freely with Sir Arthur Haslerig, who was irrecon-
cilable to monarchy, and looked upon as the Chief of that
Republican Party which desired not to preserve any face
of Government in the Church, or Uniformity in the
publick Exercise of Religion." The fears of the Royalists
were groundless. Sir Arthur Hazlerigg had no influence
over the General, and he soon found that even his hold
upon the House of Commons was slipping from his grasp.
In little more than twelve months after he had received
the thanks of the House for his conduct at Portsmouth,
viz., on the 6th March, 1660, in the restored Long
Parliament, an information was laid against him by the
Council of State, and the day following the charges were
openly read in his presence. Standing up in his place, he
denied the truth of the accusations, and that was his last
appearance in the scene of his triumphs. After the
Restoration, he was excepted, as regarded liberty and
property, from the Act of Indemnity. He died in the
Tower, a prisoner, about the 9th or 10th of January,
1661.
Sir Arthur Hazlerigg was twice married, his second wife
November \
1891. J
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
503
being a sister of Robert Greville, Lord Broke, the Parlia-
mentary General. One of his daughters was that persistent
Nonconformist, Kate, wife of Philip Babington, whose
body found a resting-place in the garden at Alnham, as
described in the Monthly Chronicle, vol. i., p. 375, where,
also, a curious sketch of Sir Arthur on a playing card ap-
pears. His successor in the title was his son Sir Thomas,
married to the daughter and co-heir of George Fenwick,
of Brinkburn. Sir Thomas was able to satisfy the King
that he was a loyal subject, and about two years after his
farther's death, the estates, or the greater part of them,
were restored to him. The Northumbrian manors of
Fawdon and Brunton were among the lands so restored,
and they remained in possession of the family until 1768,
when, by order of the Court of Chancery, they were sold,
reserving only the coal royalites, which the family stil
own.
JjjOHN STOBBS, of North Shields, who died
g in London a few years ago, communicated
to the Newcastle Weekly Chronicle, in 1876,
the following account of this song : —
I once heard an uncle and aunt of mine singing a song
of which this was the chorus : —
Shuffle, Darby, shuffle, Darby,
One, two, three ;
Shuffle, Darby, shuffle, Darby,
One, two, three,
Now the most curious part of the case is, that it is the tune
of the once famous "Jim Crow, " and my relatives must
have hrard and learnt the song when they were young
people, the air must have been in common use in the North
long before Rice brought it back again from America ;
and I think, taking their age into account, it is very
possible they never heard "Jim Crow" at all. I think
it very likely they would hear this old song in the neigh-
bourhood of Bamborough, where they would spend a
part of their youth, or perhaps at Glanton, where they
afterwards removed. I could only get a fragment or two
more than the chorus, but I had the subject matter told
over to me. It was this : — A well-to-do farmer's daughter
married hor father's man-servant ; owing to circum-
stances, his education had been neglected, i.e., he had
not learned to dance. To make up the deficiency, she
undertook to teach him herself, which certainly must have
been a heavy undertaking, as the had to keep a young
ba by, do such work as scouring, darning stockings, &c.,
sing the tune, and tell him what to do — all at once. I
was so pleased with the description that I have made up,
with some of the fragments, a song of my own, which I
will give below. How strange it seems, the possibility
df the tune of "Jim Crow "having been played or sung at
the Court of Ida, in his palace of Bamborough ! Yet such
may have been. I cannot say whether or no thn present
song is like the original, but it will give a better idea
of the description I had than I can convey in writing.
The reader will please to take notice that the first eight
lines are to be sung to the first part of "Jim Crow";
that is, the first part of the tune will b« twice sung over ;
whilst the chorua, "Shuffle, Darby," is to be sung to the
"Wheel about, turn about," etc., of the same, but the
words must be twice gone over as well as the music.
This Bung has never been in print, and, I think, scarcely
ever sung, although I have had it by me for
time :—
Set aside the chairs, Darby,
Shut the cupboard door ;
Get yoursel a' ready on
The middle o' the floor.
Dance awav, Darby, hinny,
, ; Dance, dance, away ;
Never mind what ony body
Hes a mind to say.
Shuffle, Darby, shuffle. Darby,
One, two, three ;
Shuffle, Darby, shuffle, Darby,
One, two, three.
Round by the table. Darby,
Past the easy chair ;
Stop before the looking glass,
Cut and shuffle there.
Hush abi my bonny babby,
Never mind your dad ;
He's only in a merry fit,
He isn't ffannin' mad.
Chorus : Shuffle, Darby, Ac.
What would you like o' Sunday, Darby,
For your Sunday's dinner ?
My eyes, but your a fjood'n
To be only a beginner.
Run the reel, Darby, hinny,
Darby, run the reel,
Lor-a niarcy, what a hole
There's in your stocking heel !
Chorus : Shuttle, Darby, &C.
Dance to the clock, Darby,
Dance to the clock ;
Mind as ye turn about
Ye dinnot get a knock.
Dance to the clock, Darby,
Turn about agyen,
Mind ye dinnot kick your toes
Again the trough styen.
Chorus : Shuffle, Darby, &c.
Cross the buckle, cross the buckle,
That's the way to dance ;
Cross the buckle. Darby ; wey,
Ye ninn ha been at France.
Hush abi, my bonny babby,
Hush upon my knee ;
Your dad '11 be a first* rate
Dancer I can see.
Chorus : Shuffle, Darby, &c.
long
EDITOR.
Cfturcft.
j]HE tower and the west wall of St. Peter's
Church, Monkwearmouth, are now the only
portions remaining of tha monastic establish-
ment founded at this place in the year 674 by Benedict
Biscop, and immediately endowed with great liberality
by King Ecgfrid. Before the sister house at Jarrow was
founded, seven' years later, Monkwearmouth was the
home of Bede, who has left a valuable record of the
early history of the twin monasteries in his "Lives of
the Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow."
The early churches founded in the North were chiefly
built of timber, " after the manner of the Scots " ; but
Biscop built his churches of stone, "after the manner of
the Romans." And it is interesting to find that the
same great founder of churches also brought makers of
glass from France, who not only, as Bede tells us,
glazed the windows of Benedict's churches, but taught
504
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f November
I 1891.
their art, which till that time had been unknown in
Britain, to the natives.
The sight of a structure which has withstood the storms
and changes of more than twelve centuries is always
impressive ; but especially is this the case when, as at
Monkwearmouth, that structure is linked with an event
of absorbing interest in the early history of our country.
Biscop and Bede were great men. The former was a
great builder, a man of large and liberal views, and a
generous patron of literature and the arts. The latter
was the great scholar of his age. Jarrow and Wearmouth
were the principal seats of learning, not in the North
alone, not in Britain alone, but in the whole of Western
Europe. The perishing sculptures which adorn the sides
of the entrance of this ancient tower may seem rude to us,
but no one can fail to see in the baluster shafts which are
built into the same doorway, and which also occur in the
little windows high up in the west wall of the nave,
evidence of genuine and refined art. And it must not
be forgotten that the famous Codex Amiatinus, the most
valuable MS. now in existence of the ancient Latin
version of the Bible, with its beautiful caligraphy and
its gorgeous illuminations, was certainly written either
at Jarrow or at Monkwearmouth.
MOXKWEARMOUTH CHURCH, SUNDERLAND.
November!
1S9L /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
505
We have only space to add that the lower portion of the
tower is of much earlier date than the upper part. This
lower part was originally not a tower, but a porch, the
porticui inyreasua as it is called by Bede. The gable line
of its original roof may be seen rising to a point between
the second and third string courses.
J. K. BOYLE, F.S.A.
Eft*
jj HE order of Dominican or Black Friars was
first introduced into England about the
year 1221, and, at the dissolution of the
Monasteries, there were in this country
6fty-five houses belonging to the order. At least as early
us 1240 they had acquired a footing in Newcastle ; for, on
the 2nd November in that year, Henry III. gave to each
of the Friars Preachers (Black Friars) dwelling in that
town, and to each of the Friars Minors (Grey Friars)
dwelling at Hart'epool, a tunic made of four ells of cloth,
of the value of twelve pence. Sir Peter Scot and his son,
Sir Nicholas Scot, are said to have been the founders of
the house, and this is no doubt correct ; as, in an inquisi-
tion held in 1442, to ascertain the heir of John de Hawks-
well, the lineal descendant of the Scots, Sir Peter is
described as " the founder of the house of the Friars
Preachers in the town of Newcastle-upon-Tyne." The
site of the house, however, is said to have been given by
three sisters, "whose names," to use the words of Bourne,
"have long since been ingratefully buried in oblivion."
The recorded historic events connected with this house
are not numerous, but some of them are of extreme
interest. It is interesting to find that the Black Friars of
Newcastle had a library containing books which the
THE BLACK FRIARS, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.
506
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
( November
1 1891.
bishop of a distant see cared to consult. In 1275,
William de Merton, Bishop of Rochester, bequeathed
twelve marks to the Dominican Friars of Newcastle, and
ordered that- a book which he had borrowed from them,
and which contained the Epistles of St. Paul, with a
commentary, should be returned.
That part of the wall of Newcastle which enclosed
the town on the west was built in the early years of
Edward I. The portion of it which still exists behind the
south end of Stowell Street was carried through the
garden of the Friars, and, in consequence of this, the
king gave them permission to make a narrow gate, which
in a later grant is called a "postern," through the wall, in
order, that they might have ready access to their garden.
Then, by and by, as a further means of defending the
town, a deep fosse was dug outside the wall ; and when
this was done, Edward II. gave the friars liberty to con-
struct a wooden drawbridge across the fosse, so that
they might pass "from their house within the wall of
that town, by their postern of the said wail, into their
garden beyond the fosse aforesaid."
Perhaps, however, the most interesting erent recorded
in connection with this house is that on the 19th June,
1334, Edward Baliol did homage for the crown of Scot-
land to Edward III. of England in its church. (See page
467.)
At this period the king frequently passed through
Newcastle, and, on several occasions, made his home for
a time with the Preaching Friars. He was here in the
autumn of 1334, and was present on All Saints' Day in
the church of this house, when Philip de Weston, a royal
chaplain, celebrated his first mass. The king gave him a
silver-gilt goblet, which weighed 37s. Id. in silver pennies,
and which was valued at 55s. 7d. The king in various ways
compensated the friars for the cost of entertaining him.
On one occasion he gave them ten quarters of corn, worth
50s., a tub of flour worth 40e., and a cask of wine worth
£5. At another time he gave them an alms of 10s. 8d.,
together with a present of 100 quarters of corn. We
learn incidentally that at this period there were thirty-
two friars dwelling in the house. On two other occasions
the king gave them 100s., and these benefactions are
expressly said to have been made in consideration of
"the injuries their buildings had sustained during his
visits." In 1335 Edward spent Christmas here, and on
Christmas Day heard three masses in the church, when
he made an offering of 9s. 4d. in honour of the great
festival.
In the year 1341, or a little before, a riot took place at
Newcastle between the inhabitants and the retainers of
the Earl ,of Northumberland. The then warden of the
Scottish marches, the Earl of Warren, was in the town,
and his proceedings in some way incensed the inhabit-
ants. Lord Warren took refuge in the Friary, to which
the people laid siege, when its gates were thrown down
and broken. The prior and brethren wished to set up
new gates, but the inhabitants would not allow them
They appealed to the king, and he, in consideration of
certain masses to be celebrated by them for his good
estate and for the souls of his ancestors, gave them the
required permission.
After this period, we learn little of the Black
Friars till we approach the time when the order
was suppressed in England. About the year 1536 one
Richard Marshall was prior of the house. He was a man
of some note, and when Henry VIII. threw off his alle-
giance to the Pope and proclaimed himself under God the
supreme head of the Church of England, Marshall boldly
preached against the new doctrine. By so doing he in-
curred the king's displeasure, and found it necessary to
leave the kingdom with all speed. He took refuge in
Scotland, whence he addressed a long letter to his
brethren in Newcastle, and where we afterwards bear of
his preaching against the practice of addressing the
Pater Noster to saints.
In 1537 a covenant was made between the prior of the
Black Friars and Robert Da veil, then archdeacon of North-
umberland, and master of the Hospital of the Virgin
Mary in Newcastle, by which, in consideration of a sum of
£6 18s. which Davell had bestowed on the friars, "in
their great need and necessity," they undertook to perform
daily certain services for the dead " before the picture of
Our Lord named the Crucifix, that is, betwixt the cloisters
and the outer choir door within the church of the same
convent." If at any time the friars omitted to discharge
these duties they were to "sing a solemn dirge with mass
of requiem with note, sending the bellman about the
said town to notify the same, that some may come to the
said Friars to make oblation for their friends' souls and for
all Christian souls."
Within less than two years after this time the house
was suppressed at the dissolution of all the smaller
religious houses in England. On the 10th June the last
prior surrendered the house, with all its possessions, into
the king's hands. It was at that time occupied by a
prior and twelve brethren, and its annual revenue was
estimated at 59s. 4d. Five yeare afterwards, the king
granted the Friary to the Mayor and Burgesses of New-
castle, for the sum of £58 7s. 6d. and an annual payment
of 5s. lid., reserving to himself, however, the bells and
lead of the church and other buildings.
In 1552, the house with its gardens and orchards was
granted to nine of the twelve ancient trade guilds of the
town, viz., the Bakers and Brewers, the Fullers and
Dyers, the Smiths, the Tanners, the Butchers, the
Cordwainers, the Saddlers, the Tailors, and the Skinners
and Glovers. All these companies still retain their respec-
tive shares of the property, and moat of them still have
their halls or meeting places within the ancient precincts
of the Friary.
Of the semi-monastic establishments which once flour-
ished within the walls of Newcastle, the remains of the
November!.'
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
507
house of the Black Friars are by far the most extensive.
Of the houses of the Grey Friars, the Trinitarian Friars,
and the nuns of St. Bartholomew, not a vestige exists,
whilst of the ancient homes of the Austin Friars and the
White Friars the remaining portions are of the most
meagre character. Of the house and church of the
Black Friars, however, much is still standing. The
existing buildings occupy three sides of a quadrangle,
which, there can be no doubt, formed the cloister.
Some of the corbels on which the cloister roofs rested
may yet be seen. Many parts of the buildings which
surrounded the cloister have been rebuilt, and it is im-
possible to determine with certainty the uses to which
some of those which remain were onginally devoted.
The church extended alone the whole south side of the
cloister. Outside the Tanners' Hall the heads of four
arches which opened into a south aisle are still visible.
Drawings exist which show a continuation of the same
arcade in the front of the old Cordwainers' Hall, which
was taken down in 1843. The nave was entered from
the cloister by a pointed door which still exists near its
east end, and was entered from the south side by a
similar doorway a little east of the 'termination of the
aisle. These doorways are now utilised for a passage
which leads from the street called the Friars into the quad-
rangle. The Smiths' Hall occupies the site of the tran-
sept or choir, or both. The outer wall ot this part,
immediately east of the buttress which projects into the
street, is of Early English date, and may be safely
regarded as contemporary with the foundation of the
house. It still, as may be seen from the accompanying
engraving, retains the arches and jambs of three
lancet windows. The Skinners' and Glovers' Hall, on the
west side of the cloister, retains several curious features.
On its east side is a pointed doorway, and on its
west side are two arches resting on a central pillar.
Over these is an ancient doorway. On the east side
of the Saddlers' Hall is a very singularly constructed
arch, the recess beneath which, there can be little doubt,
marks the site of the "curious old well" mentioned by
Bourne, and which, he assures us, " served the monastery
with water," and was " called Our Lady Well." There is
an ancient pointed doorway and a walled up pointed
window on the west side of the Bakers' and Brewers'
Hall. A very slight examination of these parts is suffi-
cient to show that they have been built at different times ;
but they are altogether too fragmentary to justify an
attempt to state their chronological order.
The remains of the home of the Black Friars in New-
castle form one of the rapidly diminishing number of monu-
ments which serve to connect the city with its own past
history. These ancient walls retain no single feature of
the art of bygone ages which we should be justified in
calling beautiful. The Black Frairs who once dwelt here
were a mendicant order, pledged to perpetual poverty,
but, to many of their bouses, an incessant stream of
donations and endowments was ever flowing, and the un-
defined estimate of religious poverty relaxed and widened
as the means by which poverty shades off into comfort
and luxury increased. The Black Friars of Newcastle,
despite the visits of kings, seem, however, to have been
always really poor. Their ancient dwelling place is stil
the abode of poverty. But the poverty of the Friars,
unlike that by which it has been succeeded, was never
tilthy and squalid. J. R. BOYLE, F.S.A.
Cnrsfci), iUvtr
at
JHE subject of this memoir has the glory which
belongs to the perception of duty in a grave
political crisis, and the quiet discharge of it
in the face of a frowning host in high places.
He could calmly say, in his place in the House of Com-
mons, " I have kept my oath, and done my duty to the
City of which I have the honour to be Chief Magistratej
and to my country." He did his duty, and was thereby an
effectual promoter of the freedom of the press. How this
Brass Crosbj/
came about is well told by his nephew, the late Sir Cuth-
bert Sharp, historian of Hartlepool, in his " Memoir of
Brass Crosby," published in 1829. But before we fall
back on this instructive quarto, let us take up the tale of
Parliament and Press at an earlier period than that of the
patriotic Lord Mayor.
Not, however, to go too far back, we may begin with.
the case of Dyer the news-letter writer, who in 1694 had
presumed to notice the proceedings of the House of Com-
mons, and was brought to the bar in December. On his-
508
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
{November
188
1891.
knees he prayed for pardon, and was dismissed with a
reprimand ; and it was resolved that no writer of news-
letters should presume to intermeddle with the debates or
other proceedings of the House. Poor Dyer escaped from
the Commons with words, but from Lord Mohun he had
blows. His lordship had been brought into a news-letter,
and cudgelled the writer in a coffee-house.
In the days of Queen Elizabeth, when her indefatigable
Minister, Sir Ralph Sadler, rode to and fro on errands of
State, his intelligent countrymen of the humbler sort
(fathered into curious knots wherever he tarried on his way,
and strove to learn from his lips the " news " of the day.
Thereafter, in a later generation, the pen and the press
began to cater for the commendable passion of a free
people for public intelligence. Men who had little part in
the choice of their rulers hankered after a larger know-
ledge of their sayings and doings. In 1738, Speaker
Onslow looked with grave concern on the practice that
prevailed of inserting an account of the proceedings
of Parliament in the printed newspapers; and
Sir William Yonge, who shared his apprehensions,
suggested the adoption of a declaratory resolution against
the printing or publication of the debates, either in or out
of session, save with the authority of the Chair. As it
was, said Sir William, an account not only of what they did,
but of whatjthey said, was regularly circulated through-
out the country ; and if the Commons did not punish the
publishers, or take some effectual method of checking
them, " they might soon expect to see their votes, their
proceedings, and their speeches printed and hawked about
the streets while they were sitting in this House !" To
print the speeches of honourable members, chimed in Mr.
Pulteney, "even though they were not misrepresented,
looked very like making them accountable without-doors
for what they said within." And it was unanimously
pronounced by the Commons to be a high indignity, and
a notorious breach of privilege, for any one to presume to
publish the proceedings of the House, or of any com-
mittee, in the recess or the session — an offence to be
visited with the utmost severity.
The reign oE our second George was still young when a
copy of the Gloucester Journal was laid on the table of the
House of Commons. The printer and publisher was
Robert Raikes, father of the philanthropist whom we all
know t.ncl revere in association with the general establish-
ment of Sunday Schools. Attention was called to the
insertion in this paper of the proceedings of Parliament,
and an order was made for the attendance of the pro-
prietor. Confined to his couch by fever, Raikes prayed to
be excused from personal appearance, and explained that
before the opening of the session he had given instructions
that no votes or resolutions of Parliament should be in-
serted in bin paper; but, as he understood, the report
complained of was copied from a news-letter sent to the
King's Head Inn, Gloucester, by Mr. Gythens (or
Giddine), Clerk of the Bristol Road, or his assistant. So
the writer of the news-letter, John Stanley, came under
examination ; and having admitted the authorship, he
was declared guilty of a breach of privilege, and given
into the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms, where we
leave him, and pass onward to the time of the Rebellion ;
beyond the days in which Dr. Johnson, receiving details
of the debates from a clergyman with a good memory,
moulded them into a connected form for Cave of the
Oentleman's Magazine — " frequently written from very
slender materials and often from none at all— the mere
coinage of his own imagination."
Cesar Ward, of the York Courant, was at the bar of the
House in 1745, receiving on his knees a reprimand from
the Speaker for his breach of privilege. The world was
agog for news : and if the news concerned the House of
Parliament, great was their offence who published it. In
1747, Edward Cave, of the Gentleman's Magazine, and
Thomas Astley, of the London Magazine, were brought
before the Lords in custody for printing and publishing an
account of the trial of Lord Lovat before his Peers. lu
the course of the examinations, the question of the print-
ing of the debates also came up ; and we catch glimpses
of the mode adopted by the Press for getting over the
orders of Parliament. Astley, who described himself as
*'the first that printed magazines," said *'of late the
debates had been inserted under the notion of an
imaginary club." Many speeches had been furnished
to him by one Mr. Clarke, who, he believed, some
times got into the House behind the Throne. Cave
also told the Lords' Committee that he himself got
into the House, heard the speeches, and made use of a
black-lead pencil, only taking notes of some remarkable
passages, and from his memory putting them together.
Being questioned how he came to take upon him the
publication of the debates, he admitted that it was
very great presumption, but he was led into it by custom
and the practice of other people, and never heard till
lately that any one was punished for it. The
result was that both Cave and Astley, laudable
as was their pursuit, and deserving of encouragement,
had to express themselves sorrowful for their offence,
beg pardon for what they had done, and promise to offend
no more !
To such humiliation did Parliament bring the Printer
in a former age. Cesar Ward must accept the reprimand
of the Speaker on bended knee ; Edward Cave and Thomas
Astley must crave forgiveness, and promise to do no more
so ; yet they were on the winning side. The Houses were
divided, and the nation was with the Press. It was simply
a question of time, and Time was impatient of delay.
Another reign, and Privilege of Parliament was to break
down.
When Sir William Yonge was unconsciously predicting
an nge of cheap newspapers and ubiquitous news-boys,
there was a youth in his teens who was to deal under the
Constitution one of the last and hardest blows at Parlia-
November 1
1891. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
509
mentary Privilege. This was Brass Crosby, born at Stock-
ton-upon-Tees on the 8th of May, 1725. At a suitable age he
had been articled with Benjamin Hoskins, an eminent soli-
citor in Sunderland ; and, removing to London in after-
years, he there practised his profession with success. Pros-
perity came to him by natural law. The historian of the
County Palatine, Surtees of Mainsforth, said Crosby was
born to be rich ; and, certainly, he was aided by some
lucky chances in the lottery of matrimony ; yet was he un-
doubtedly the architect of his own fortunes, by his talents,
address, and assiduity, qualities which had been remarked
in him from his earliest years. When little more than
thirty, he was called to the Common Council of London
by the Tower Ward. Two years later — in 1760 — he was
made City Remembrancer ; and in 1764 he was appointed
Sheriff. Next jear he was elected Alderman of Bread
Street Ward ; and in 1770, when, with Sir George Yonge
as his colleague, he was Member for Honiton, he became
Lord Mayor of London.
This rapid progress to wealth and honour, through all
the successive grades of distinction, was the fair effect of a
sound head and stout heart, of unwavering diligence and
steady industry. " But it is neither on account of his
wealth nor his civic honours," as Sir Cuthbert Sharp
justly observes, "that the name of Brass Crosby will be
recorded to posterity, but for the manly stand he made
against the whole power of Government, in defence of
the rights and franchises of which he was the protector,
and which forms an important epoch in the history of the
liberties of England ; for, ever since that period, the
proceedings and debates in Parliament have been regularly
printed and published, which before were not, and the
British empire is thereby in possession of an inestimable
advantage, for which Crosby deserves to be pointed out
in grateful remembrance, and to hold a distinguished
place in the annals of his country."
The proceedings of Parliament were still reported, as
remarked by Astley, "in the notion of an imaginary club."
The names of the speakers were veiled under thin dis-
guises. English lawmakers wore the aspect of Roman
senators. Everybody knew all about it, but the printer
must resort to his stars and dashes, and fancy names, and
fictitious assemblies. The Town and Country Magazine for
November, 1770, was announcing that on a certain day
"it would be finally determined, in the Upper and Lower
Club Rooms of the Robin Hood, whether the company
were for war or peace ; and the next day the same question
would be finally determined in the Cabinet." Gradually
growing bolder, initials came into use among the printers,
and the disguise was still more thin. In the month of
March, 1771, the Political Register thus dealt with the
proceedings in the House of Commons— ("Sir G. S."
being Sir George Savile, one of the members for York-
shire, after whom a Newcastle thoroughfare was named in
the last century):— "On Thursday, February 7, before
Sir G. S. moved in a certain club on an election matter,
Sir J. T., one of L. B.'s Lords of the T., got up and
proposed that, as there had been so lately a call of the
club, and they were likely to be crowded, the room should
be cleared. The standing vote of the room was accord-
ingly read, and the S. at A. had authority to seize all
strangers, and not to dismiss them without leave of the
club. Before the gallery was quite evacuated, some Irish
members of a club on the other side of the water were
excepted ; but very few remained behind, though the
Hon. T. T., like a true Englishman, beckoned to them
to resume their seats."
It was on Michaelmas Day, 1770, that the election of
Alderman Crosby to the office of Lord Mayor was made ;
and on the 9th of November he took the chair. The
Speaker of the House of Commons subsequently issued
his warrant against the printers of two newspapers on a
charge of misrepresenting the speeches of certain members.
Refusing to attend at the bar, they were secured under a
Royal proclamation offering a reward for their apprehen-
sion, and brought before the sitting Aldermen, Wilkes
and Oliver, who not only discharged them from custody,
but bound them over to prosecute tha person who made
the capture. Meanwhile, John Miller, printer of the
London Evening Post, similarly circumstanced, was taken
into custody by a messenger of the House; and the
Sergeant-at-Arms hastened to the Mansion House
to demand the bodies of both the printer and pub-
lisher, who had appealed to the Lord Mayor. His
lordship asked the messenger whether he had applied to
a magistrate to back the warrant, or to any peace-officer
of the City to assist him ; and receh ing an answer in the
negative, he said that so long as he held the office of
Chief Magistrate he was guardian of his fellow-citizens'
liberties, and no power on earth should seize a citizen of
London without authority from him or some other magis-
trate of the franchise. Then, declaring Miller at liberty,
he made out a warrant to commit the messenger for
assault and false imprisonment. The commitment was
signed by his lordship, alone in the first instance ; but
afterwards, at the request of Miller's counsel, by Wilkes
and Oliver also. The messenger was bailed by the
Sergeant-at-Arms.
The circumstances were reported to the House by the
Speaker on the 18th of March, when it was ordered that
the Lord Mayor, who was suffering from indisposition, do
attend in his place on the morrow, if his health should
permit. Alderman Crosby was in his place accordingly :
the facts were set forth ; and having recited his municipal
oaths, ho said that by the charters of the City, which had
been confirmed by Act of Parliament, no warrant, com-
mand, process, or attachment, must be executed within
the City of London, but by its ministers. At the time
the messenger was brought before him, he asked him
particularly if he was a constable of the City, or a peace
officer. He said he was not. He then inquired if he had
applied to an alderman of London to back the warrant,
510
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{November
11
1891.
that it might be properly executed. He said no. Thus
situated, he knew extremely well that, if he had not acted
in the manner he did in discharging the prisoner, he
should have been guilty of perjury, or of a breach of his
oath. With respect to the commitment, he did sign the
warrant ; but, at the same time, he rather desired that
the messenger might be admitted to bail, and much
pressed it. The officer of the House refused, however,
to give bail, though several gentlemen, then present at
the Mansion House, offered to become bail. If he had
not gone further than discharging Miller, and proceeded
to commit the messenger for the assault, he apprehended
he was liable to be called upon to answer in the Court of
King's Bench for not executing his duty as a magistrate.
The House, he was persuaded, would be very tender,
when they found on what motive he acted ; he meant
the obligation by the oath he took when he was first
appointed a magistrate.
In deference to the ill-health of the Lord Mayor, the
further consideration of the matter was adjourned to
Friday, March 22, and, meanwhile, his lordship was on
the 19th suffered to return home. On the 20th, his clerk
attended the House, by order, with the Book of Recogni-
zances ; and the recognizance of the messenger was read.
Whereupon, on the motion of Lord North, its erasure was
ordered ; and the clerk of the Mansion House had to erase
it accordingly on the spot. On the 25th, the Lord Mayor
having, with Alderman Oliver, resumed his place, Mr.
Welbore Ellis, for the Government, submitted a motion
that the discharge of Miller and committal of the
messsenger constituted a breach of privilege. The num-
bers were 272 to 90. It was now past midnight ; the Lord
Mayor, with the leave of the House, had withdrawn ; and
the case of Alderman Oliver having been taken in turn, it
was resolved, by 170 to 38, that he be committed to the
Tower. Thither, accordingly, he was conducted about 8
o'clock in the morning of Tuesday, the 26th. On the
27th, the Lord Mayor being again in his place, Mr. Ellis
said the crimes he had been guilty of were, in a degree,
higher than those of Mr. Oliver, and therefore ought to
meet with at least as severe an imprisonment ; but as his
lordship was not in a good state of health, to show the
tender mercy of the House, he should only move that he
be committed to the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. In-
dignant at this movement, the Lord Mayor, craving no
mercy from the Treasury Bench, expressed his readiness
to repair to the Tower if the House should so order ; and
Mr, Ellis then moved his commitment, which was carried
after midnight by 202 to 39. Mr. Alderman Crosby had
at this time retired to the Mansion House for a few
hours' sleep ; and at 4 in the morning, to avoid a popular
demonstration, he drove quietly to the Tower in a hack-
ney-coach.
Never was the City or the country more moved than by
this great conflict between Parliament and the Press.
The nation was agitated in all its members ; and at the
close of his mayoralty, the warm thanks of the Court of
Aldermen and Common Council were awarded to Alder-
man Crosby for his defence of the rights and privileges of
his fellow-citizens. He was made free of various corpo-
rations and companies ; addresses from all parts of the
kingdom were presented to him ; and the Muses were not
silent when his praises were sounding on every side. The
close of the session of Parliament, May 8, 1771, the anni-
versary of the day of his birth, brought release to the
Lord Mayor. He and Alderman Oliver left the Tower
under the discharge of twenty-one guns of the Artillery
Company of London. The City bells filled the air with
their music ; and upwards of fifty carriages were in
the long procession from Tower Hill to the Mansion
House.
Let the reader now turn to the memorial quarto of Sir
Cuthbert Sharp, and think of the words of good Sir
William Yonge in 1738, who foresaw that if the news-
papers were not restrained they might see "their votes,
their proceedings, and their speeches printed and hawked
about the streets, while they were sitting in this House."
The voice of the newsboy in the street is the everyday
comment on the controversy ot the last ceutury, with its
erased recognizance and committals to the Tower of
London. JAMES CLKPHAN (THE LATE).
at
THE PITMAN'S COURTSHIP.
SHORT account of the author of this song,
William Mitford (or Midford), appeared in
the Monthly ChronMe for 1887, page 311.
Mitford also wrote "X Y Z" and "Famous
Aud Gappy," which in their day attained the greatest
popularity, and will live as long as Tyneside songs are
sung.
"The Pitman's Courtship " has been usually considered
one of the best of our local songs, though there has been
some doubt as to the tune to which it was written. Mr.
Joseph Crawhall, in his "Newcassel Sangs," 1888, does
not solve the doubt, but gives two tunes for the song —
" The Night before Larry was Stretched " and " Drops of
Brandy " — both Irish.
During the present year, however, the writer, in the
course of a correspondence with Mr. Samuel Reay, of tha
Song School, Newark (see Monthly Chronicle, 1891, page
325), received from him a copy of a very quaint tune to
which he heard the song sung in his early days — a tune,
he says, which he never forgot. As Mr. Reay is a Tyne-
sider and a musician of note, having been organist of St.
roTemberl
189J. )
NORTH-COUNTR Y LORE AND LEGEND.
511
Andrew's Church, Newcastle in 1841, we have adopted
his copy as the correct melody of the son)?.
Quite soft blew the wind fra the west, The
un faint - ly shone in the sky, When
walk - Injt I chanced to es • py. Un-
dt=e=s=
heed • ed I stole close be • side them, To
Q=!^^=j==-£=:=jf=^==}
£:a±=g=gEE»=*=»EE^^Ej
hear their dis - course was my plan ; I
^=F=^E=^^^=*=*=\
list - ened each word they were say - ing, When
gan.
Quite soft blew the wind fra the west.
The sun faintly shone in the sky.
When Lukey and Bessie sat courting,
As, walking, I chanced to espy.
Unheeded, 1 stole close beside them,
To hear their discourse was my plan ;
I listened each word they were saying.
When Lukey his courtship began.
" Last hoppen thou wun up my fancy,
Wi' thy tine silken jacket o' blue ;
An', smash ! if their Newcassel lyedies
Cou'd marrow the curls on thy brow.
That day aw whiles danced wi' lanp Nancy,
She couldn't like thoii lift her heel.
Maw grandy lik:d spice singin" hinnies ;
Maw comely, aw like thou as weel.
" Thou knaws ever since we were little
Together we've ranged through the woods,
At neet hand in hand toddled hyem,
Varry oft wi' howl kites an' torn duds :
But noo we can tank aboot marriage
An' lang sair for \vor weddin' day ;
When married, thou's keep a bit shop,
An' sell things in a huikstery way.
" An' to get us a canny bit leevin'
A' kinds o' fine sweetmeats we'll sell.
Reed herrin', broon syep, and mint candv,
Black pepper, dye-sand, an' sma' yell ;
Spice hunters, pick shafts, farden candles,
Wax dollies wi' reed leather shoes.
Chalk pussy-cats, fine curly greens.
Paper kyets, penny pies, and huil doos.
" Aw'll help thou to tie up the shugger.
At neets when fra wark aw get lowse !
An' wor Dick that leaves ower by High Whickham,
Hell myek us broom buzzems for nowse.
Like an image thou '11 stand ower the coonter,
Wi' thy fine muslin, cambrickor goon ;
An' te let the folks see thou's a lyedy,
On a cuddy thou's ride to the toon.
"There'll be matches, pipe-clay, an' broon-dishes,
Canary seed, raisins, an' fegs ;
An' to please the pit laddies at Easter,
A dish full o' gilty paste eggs.
Wor neybors that's snuffers an" smokers,
Wor snuff an' wor backy they'll seek,
An' to show them we deal wi' Newcassel
Twee Blaokeys sal mense the door cheek.
"So now for Tim Bodkin aw'll send,
To darn my silk breeks at the knee,
Thou thy ruffles an' frills niun get ready,
Next Whissenday married we'll be.
Now, aw think it's high time to be stepping,
We've sitten tiv aw's aboot lyem."
So. then, wiv a kiss an' a cuddle.
These lovers they bent their way hyem.
I ANY changes have taken place since the accom-
panying drawing (page 512) of the Quayside,
Newcastle, from Hillgate, Gateshead, was
made. The aspect of the great mercantile centre has
been considerably improved. Many of the old-fashioned,
albeit picturesque, erections have disappeared, their place
being filled by palatial buildings, containing fine suites of
offices ; but one or two of the quaint structures remain to
remind us of the former aspect of the place.
The view from Hillgate is indeed a moving sight now.
Pinnacles and towers innumerable rise one above another.
The grandest of all is the tower of the Cathedral Church
of St. Nicholas, a beautiful object from any point of view-
always predominating, and always acknowledged to be
the noblest and best of its kind. To the right of St.
Nicholas in the picture is seen the spire of All Saints'
Church; while to the left is shown the Moot Hall, with
the Norman Keep of the Old Castle towering above it.
The railway viaduct that crosses Dean Street runs on a
level with the roof of the Moot Hall. Grey's Monument
is indicated near the centre of the view. There are now
many other prominent objects on the sky line ; but some
of these were probably undreamt of whet the sketch was
taken, some forty or fifty years ago.
From amidst the crumbling, poverty-stricken con-
glomeration of human dwellings that rise from the south
bank of the River Tyne near the foot of the High Level
Bridge we get another fine view of Newcastle. It is not a
very comprehensive view, but it includes several of the
most interesting buildings seen in the first picture. This
second sketch of Newcastle from Gateshead was made
by the well-known local artist, Robert Jobling, in 1881,
to illustrate Mr. R. J. Charleton's "Newcastle Town."
512
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{Xorember
1891.
It is from that interesting work that the drawing on next
page is reproduced by permission of Mr. Walter Scott.
IUTHBERT COLLINGWOOD,
Scott, and John Scott were among the
pupils of Hugh Moises, the famous head-
master of the Newcastle Grammar School ;
and of these three school-fellows, all of whom rose to
the peerage, one commanded the British navy, another
was judge of the Hisrh Court of Admiralty, and the
third sat on the woolsack. Lord Eldon, on attaining
the dignity of Lord Chancellor, hastened to offer his
old teacher a benefice ; Lord Stowell wrote the in-
scription for his tomb in St. Nicholas' Church; and
Lord Collingwood, who completed Nelson's victory of
Trafalgar in the year before Moises died, wrote home
from his ship, in 1806, sending "£20 for the monument
of his worthy master."
Collingwood came of a good stock. He was of an
ancient Northumbrian family — one of the oldest in the
county. The Coilingwoods are of frequent mention in
Border song and story. Thus, in the year 1585, we read
of the capture by the Scots of the English Lord Warden,
and other knights and nobles, one of whom was Sir
Cuthbert Collingwood. The incident was made the sub-
ject of a ballad, comprising the lines :—
And if ye wad a souldier search,
Amang them a' were ta'en that night.
What name sae wordie for your verse
As Collingwood, that courteous knight?
Lord Collingwood's great-grandsire, Cuthbert Colling-
wood of East Ditchburne, taking up arms in the cause of
Charles the First, lost large estates. Attachment to the
Stuarts was hereditary in the family. It was inherited
by George Collingwood of Eslington, whose wife, a
daughter of Lord Montague, was a keen Jacobite. Per-
suaded by her relatives, and sympathising with the Pre-
tender, her husband entered into the affair of 1715, and
lost his lands and his life. In the ballad supposed to
have been written by Surtees the historian, called
" Derwentwater's Farewell," he is addressed by the
youthful earl, companion of his fall : —
And fare thee well, George Collingwood,
Since fate has put us down :
If thou and I have lost our lives,
Our King has lost his crown.
Cuthbert Collingwood, the Admiral, was born on
October 24, 1748, in the tall brick house at the Head of
the Side, in Newcastle, now the property of Mr. John
Harvey, tobacco manufacturer, whose family purchased
it from the mother of the Admiral. A tablet, erected
on the premises by Mr. Harvey, records the fact of
Collingwood's birth there. " Lord Collingwood's father,"
says Mr. G. L. Newnham Collingwood, "found himself
reduced to a very moderate fortune, with which he settled
NEWCASTLE FROM HILLGATE, GATESHEAD.
November}
It91. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
513
at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and married Milcah, daughter
and co-heir of Reginald Dobson, of Barwess, in the
county of Westmoreland, Esquire, having by her three
sons and three daughter*" The eldest son, Cuthbert,
had been sent to sea in 1761, when he would be thirteen
years of ape. One of his schoolfellows, William or John
Scott (Lord Stowell or Lord Eldon), recalled him to
memory in after life, as a pupil at the Grammar School,
a pretty, gentle boy, who went away into the world (as
men would say) too young ; yet out of his early training
in the greater school of the sea came the renowned naval
commander. Little of scholarship could he carry to his
profession from the old chapel of the Hospital of St.
Mary ; but his cabin was a school to the end of his days,
and nature had given him an admirable master.
From.1761 to 1786 Collingwood was almost constantly
at sea, gradually rising in his profession, and serving in
various ships and in various parts of the world. Then
NEWCASTLE FROM GATESHEAD.
33
from 1786 to 1790 he was in Northumberland, "making
his acquaintance," as he said, "with his own family, to
whom he had hitherto been, as it were, a stranger."
He also made the acquaintance of Alderman John
Erasmus Blackett, who lived in Pilgrim Street, New-
castle, his cousin, Sir Walter Blackett, in whose third
mayoralty he was sheriff, residing "in a fine old house
directly opposite." Erasmus Blackett was a widower,
whose wife (daughter and co-heir of Robert Roddam, of
Heathpoole, in Northumberland) had left him in 1776
with two daughters, one of whom (as Brand has stated)
married Captain Collingwood. This event occurred in
the fourth mayoralty of Alderman Blackett, and is thus
recorded in t|»e Ktmastle Chronicle, June 18, 1791 :—
"Thursday, Captain Collingwood, of his Majesty's
frigate Mermaid, to Miss Blackett, daughter of John
Erasmus Blackett, Esq., the Right Worshipful Mayor
of Newcastle." "To this excellent woman," says Mr.
Newnham Collingwood, " he continued for
life most affectionately attached ; and by
her had two daughters, Sarah, born in
May, 1792, and Mary Patience, born in
1793."
Collingwood and his bride took up their
abode at Morpeth, uncertain how long
might be his residence on shore. " God
knows," says he to Nelson (in November,
1792), "when we may meet again, unless
some chance should draw us to the sea-
shore." His letter informs his friend of
"great commotions" on the Tyne, "the
seamen at Shields having embarked them-
selves, to the number of twelve or four-
teen hundred, with a view to compel the
owners of the coal-ships to advance their
wages." Greater commotions soon ensued
on a wider scale. War with France broke
out; and in 1793 Collingwood was ap-
pointed captain of the Prince, Admiral
Bowyer's flag-?hip. Tedious and wearing
service succeeded. To his father-in-law he
writes from the Excellent, off Toulon, in
May, 1796, where his ship had been cruis-
ing for a month:— "It is but dull work,
lying off the enemy's port. They cannot
move a ship without our seeing them,
which must be very mortifying to them ;
but we have the mortification, also, of see-
ing their merchant-vessels going along
shore, and cannot molest them. It is not a
service on which we shall get fat; and
often do I wish we had some of those bad
potatoes which old Scott and William used
to throw over the wall of the garden [at
Morpeth], for we feel the want of vege-
tables more than anything."
514
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f November
1891.
The year 1797 brought the great victory of Sir John
Jervis off Cape St. Vincent, in which Troubridge, Nelson,
and Collingwood were conspicuous. "Nothing, in my
opinion," were the words of the Hon. Admiral Walde-
grave to Collingwood, " could exceed the spirit and true
officership which you so happily displayed yesterday.
Both the Admiral and Nelson join with me in this
opinion ; and nothing but ignorance can think otherwise.
God bless you, my good friend ; and may England long
possess such men as yourself ! It is saying everything for
her glory. " As a commander, he was indeed exemplary
— firm and resolute, yet mild and merciful. He knew
how to govern men. It was the frequent practice of
Lord St. Vincent (Admiral Jervis) to draft the most
ungovernable spirits into the Excellent. "Send them
to Collingwood," he would say; "and he will bring
them to order." While capital punishments were fre-
quently taking place in other ships, he was one of those
who were able to maintain rule and discipline without,
and almost without the infliction of any corporal
chastisement whatsoever. On one occasion a seaman
was sent to Collingwood from the Romulus. This man
had pointed one of the forecastle guns, shotted to the
muzzle, at the quarter-deck, and, standing by it with a
match, declared that he would fire at the officers unless
he received a promise that no punishment should be
inflicted upon him. On his arrival on board the
Excellent, Captain Collingwood, in the presence of
many of the sailors, said to him, with great sternness
of manner, "I know your character well, but beware
how Vou attempt to excite insubordination in this ship :
for I have such confidence in my men, that I am certain
I shall hear in an hour of everything you are doing. If
you behave well in future, I will treat you like the rest,
nor notice here what happened in another ship ; but if
you endeavour to excite mutiny, mark me well, I will
instantly head you up in a cask, and throw you into
the sea." Under the treatment which he met with in
the Excellent, this man became a good and obedient
sailor, and never afterwards gave any cause of complaint.
When corporal punishment was unavoidable, the spec-
tacle wounded Collingwood to the quick ; and on these
occasions he was for many hours afterwards melancholy
and silent, sometimes not speaking a word again for the
remainder of the day. The older he grew, the greater his
abhorrence of the lash, and more than a year often
passed over without its infliction.
Collingwood never used any coarse or violent language
to the men himself, or permitted it in others. " If you
do not know a man's name," he used to say to an officer,
" call him Sailor, and not You, Sir, and such other appel-
lations : they are offensive and improper." Thus con-
siderately did he govein his ship. Justice and kindness
marked his command. Judicious and decided, he won
cheerful obedience ; and the seamen under his charge con-
sidered and called him their father.
"My wits are ever at work," he wrote to Alderman
Blackett in 1798, off Cadiz, " to keep my people em-
ployed, both for health's sake, and to save them from
mischief. We have lately been making musical instru-
ments, and have now a very good band. Every moon-
light night the sailors dance ; and there seems as much
mirth and festivity as if we were in Wapping itself."
Seven years later, Collingwood, ever thinking of the
family of which he had seen so little, wrote to his
father-in-law : — " I am delighted with your account of
my children's improvement, for it is a subject of the
greatest anxiety to me. Above all things, keep novels
out of their reach. They are the corrupters of tender
minds. They exercise the imagination instead of the
judgment; make them all desire to become the Julias
and Cecilias of romance ; and turn their heads before
they are enabled to distinguish truth from fictions
devised merely for entertainment. When they have
passed their climacteric, it will be time enough to begin
novels. "
It was on the 9th of April, 1805, that Collingwood gave
his word of warning about novels. On the 21st of August,
" Pray tell me," he wrote to his wife, " all you can about
our family, and about the beauties of your domain— the
oaks, the woodlands, and the verdant meads." With the
sea ever around him, and the sky overhead, his mind
wandered to the shadows of his trees and the flowers of
his fields. " This being for ever at sea," he sighed,
" wears me down ; and if I had not Clavell with me, I
should be ten times worse, for he is the person in whom
my confidence is principally placed."
The same thought finds utterance when he writes to
Alderman Blackett on the 21st of September, off Cadiz :
"It would be a happy day that would relieve me of this
perpetual cruising, which is really wearing me to a lath.
The great difficulty I have is to keep up the health of the
men; and it is a subject that requires an unremitted
attention, of which we seldom find any person disposed to
take the trouble. I am fully determined, if I can get
home and manage it properly, to go on shore next spring
for the rest of my life; for I am very weary."
Firm as was his determination, it could not be carried
out. He was not to get home next spring, or to get home
at all. Trafalgar was at hand.
The battle of Trafalgar, which cost England the life of
Lord Nelson, was fought on the 21st of October, 1805,
and gave her a victory over the combined fleets of France
and Spain. Admiral Collingwood dressed himself that
morning with peculiar care ; and soon after, meeting
Lieutenant Clavell, his dear friend and trusty colleague,
advised him to pull off his boots. "You had better," he
said, "put on silk stockings, as I have done ; for if one
should get a shot in the leg, they would be so much more
manageable for the surgeon." He then proceeded to visit
the decks, encouraged the men to the discharge of their
duty, and, addressing the officers, said to them, ''Now,
November 1
1891. ;
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
515
gentlemen, let us do something to-day which the world
may talk of hereafter." Nobly was Collingwood's invoca-
tion answered ; and the whole fleet responded bravely to
Nelson's famous signal reminding then of England's
expectations. Not a man off Trafalgar but did his duty,
from the commander-in-chief to the obscurest seaman.
Captain Blackwood, anxious for the preservation of an
invaluable life, had requested Nelson to allow some other
vessel to take the lead of his own, and obtained his per-
mission that the Temeraire should go ahead. Nelson,
however, had no intention that the order should have
effect, but crowded more sail on the Victory, and kept his
foremost place. The Royal Sovereign, to which, as a
better sailer than the Dreadnought, Collingwood had
changed his flag, was far advanced, when Clavell observed
that the Victory was setting her studding-sails ; and, with
that honourable emulation which prevailed between the
two squadrons of the fleet, and particularly between these
two ships, he pointed it out to his superior, and begged
that he might do the same. " The ships of our line," was
the reply, "are not yet sufficiently up for us to do so
now; but you may be getting ready." The studding-
sails and royal halliards were accordingly manned ;
and, in about ten minutes, the Admiral, observing
the Lieutenant fixing his eyes upon him with a
look of expectation, gave him a nod, on which that
officer went to Captain Rotheram (son of Dr.
Rotheram of Newcastle), and told him that Collingwcod
desired him make all sail. The order was at once given
to rig out and hoist away ; and in an instant the ship was
under a crowd of canvas, and went rapidly in advance,
till she broke through the enemy's line. The nearest of
the English ships was now distant about a mile from the
Royal Sovereign ; and it was at this time, when she was
pressing alone into the midst of the enemy's fleet, that
Lord Nelson made to Blackwood the now historic re-
mark, "See how that noble fellow, Collingwood, takes
his ship into action ! How I envy him !" While, on the
other hand, Collingwood said. " What would Nelson give
to be here !" Then, too, it was that Villeneuve, struck
with the daring manner in which the leading ships of
the English squadrons came up. despaired of the contest.
"There never was such a combat," were the words of
Collingwood to his father-in-law (Alderman Blackett),
"since England had a fleet. In three hours the combined
forces were annihilated upon their own shores, at the
entrance of their port, amongst their own rocks. Twenty
sail of the line surrendered to us. This was a victory to
be proud of ; but in the loss of my excellent friend, Lord
Nelson, and a number of brave men, we paid dear for it."
England mourned the death of Nelson, but rejoiced
that she had a son by his side who could so worthily
carry on his victory to completion. " His Majesty
considers it very fortunate that the command, under
circumstances so critical, should have devolved upon an
officer of such consummate valour, judgment, and skill as
Admiral Collingwood has proved himself to be, every
part of whose conduct he considers deserving his entire
approbation and admiration." Nelson, not less thouphi-
ful than the King, with his dying breath, sent Colling-
wood his affectionate farewell ; and his last letter, written
from the Victory on the 19th, was in familiar words
addressed to "my dear Coll." The anecdote told of the
King and Collingwood, however well known it may be to
the reader, cannot be omitted. Coming to the close of
the Admiral's despatch, narrating the incidents of the
battle, George III. is said to have exclaimed, "Where
did this sea captain get his admirable English ? Oh ! I
remember ! he was one of Moises' boys."
Raised to the House of Lords, Collingwood was too
self-possessed to be disturbed by the elevation. He
wrote to his wife and friends as sweetly and serenely as
before. Five or six weeks after Trafalgar he was telling
his wife of a dream. "A week before the war I dreamed
distinctly many of the circumstances of our late battle off
the enemy's port ; and I believe I told you of it at the
time. But I never believed that I was to be a peer of the
realm." "I suppose," he adds in a later letter (December
16), "I must not be seen to work in my garden now ; but
tell old Scott that he need not be unhappy on that
account. Though we shall never again be able to plant
the Nelson potatoes, we will have them of some other
sort, and right noble cabbages to boot, in great
perfection."
" I hardly know how we shall be able to support the
dignity to which his Majesty has been pleased to raise
me," he writes at the New Year (1806). "Let others
plead for pensions : I can be rich without money, by
endeavouring to be superior to anything poor. I would
have my services to my country unstained by any
interested motive ; and old Scott and I can go on in our
cabbage garden without much greater expense than
formerly. But I have had a great destruction of my
furniture and stock. I have hardly a chair th^t has
not a shot in it ; and many have lost both legs and
arms, without hope of pension. My wine broke in
moving, and my pigs were slain in battle ; and these
are heavy losses where they cannot be replaced."
To "his darlings, little Sarah and Mary," now in
their teens, he wrote from the Queen at sea, in Febru-
ary. A brig from Newcastle had brought him a letter ;
and with a word to Lady Collingwood, he enclosed a
line to their children : — " I was delighted with your
last letters, my blessings ; and desire you to write to
me very often, and tell me all the news of the city
of Newcastle and town of Morpeth. I hope we shall have
many happy days and many a good laugh together yet.
Be kind to old Scott ; and when you see him weeding
my oaks, give the old man a shilling. May God Almighty
bless you !" In the letter to their mother he said : —
" I am much obliged to the Corporation of Newcastle
for every mark which they give of their esteem and
516
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{November
1891.
admiration of my service ; but where shall we find a
place in our small house for all those vases and
ppergnes ? A kind letter from them would have
gratified me as much, and have been less trouble to
them."
Compliments and congratulations were showered upon
him by his countrymen ; and he was probably happy to
be out of the way of the deputations, dinners, and
speeches that would have been his lot at home. He,
while his honours were pouring in on all sides, hardly
knew which way to turn, so many were the demands on
his time. "Though I am a free burgees of many a city
and town, my dinner-time," be said, "is really a plague
from its interrupting me." Collingwood resembled in
his perplexities not a few of the sons of men, who find
their freedom beset by a thousand limitations. " I was
happy to hear," he continues, "that everybody had been
so attentive to you (Lady Collingwood) ; and, indeed, to
me the people of England have been kind beyond
examDle. I have received congratulatory letters and
freedoms from the principal cities of England — London,
the City, the Goldsmiths' and Drapers' Companies ; Bath,
Exeter, Cork; Portsmouth and Southampton I had
before; and letters from members of the nobility to
whom I was but little known." " How I long," he adds,
a few days after, " to have a peep into my own house, and
a walk in my own garden ! It is the pleasing object of
all my hopes." Home was in all his thoughts. Yet how
little he ever saw of it ! Once after he had left it in 1793,
he had a meeting with his wife and eldest child at Ply-
mouth, in 1801, "for a few hours, with scarce tiuie for
her to relate the incidents of her journey." After
Trafalgar they never met. As Lord and Lady Colling-
wood they never saw each other.
Few as were the years he had passed in Newcastle,
Collingwood looked lovingly back to the place of his
birth. In November, 1806, he sent to Alderman
Blackett, his father-in-law, "£20 for the monument
of his worthy master, Mr. Moises," and £20 each for
the Infirmary, Dispensary, Fever House, and Lying-in
Hospital. "It is now nearly thirteen months," he said
in December, " since I let go an anchor ; and, for what
I see, it may be as much longer." "This," he writes to
his wife on the 20th, "is my second Christmas at sea
without having been even at an anchor ; and, unless it
shall please God to take the Corsican out of this world,
I see no prospect of a change. "
But the end was drawing near. "The health and
strength " of the Admiral " were wearing away, and he
was become an inh'rm old man." Such was his report of
himself in the autumn of 1809. In February, 1810, he
writes to Clavell\: — "I have been failing in my health
very much for more than a year, and it is my constant
occupation alone that keeps me alive. Lately I have had
a very severe complaint in my stomach, which has almost
prevented my eating. It is high time I should return to
England, and I hope that I shall be allowed to do so
before long. It will, otherwise, be soon too late."
It was too late already. Early in March he was com-
pelled by extreme ill-health to leave the squadron.
Business was beyond him. He could not even write a
letter; it was with the utmost difficulty that he could even
dictate one. He had beeu repeatedly urged by his friends
to surrender his command, but he felt bound to remain at
his post until duly relieved. "His life was his country's,"
said he, " in whatever way it might be required of him."
But such was his prostrate state, that on the 3rd of March
he surrendered his command into the hands of Rear-
Admiral Martin. Captain Thomas observing to him, on
the 7th, in the cabin of the Ville de Paris, that he feared
the motion of the vessel disturbed him, "No, Thomas,"
he replied, " I am now in a state in which nothing in
this world can disturb me more." Once, on the 6th,
when his ship had sailed out of Port Mahon, and he was
told that he was again at sea, he rallied for a time his
exhausted strength, and said to those around him,
"Then I may yet live to meet the French once more."
It was the ruling passion asserting itself, but it was not
to have gratification : the flame of life was flickering,
and soon went out. He died calmly on the evening of
the 7th, in the 60th year of his age, his death being caused
by a contraction of the pylorus, brought on by confine-
ment on shipboard, and continually bending over his
writing desk in the course of his voluminous corre-
spondence.
The Admiral's remains, conveyed to England, were laid
by the side of Lord Nelson's in St. Paul's. Nelson had
fallen in the hour of victory : his friend survived the
battle to be worn out by laborious duty. By vote of
Parliament monuments were erected to their memory in
the metropolitan cathedral ; by Lady Collingwood and
her daughters a cenotaph was placed, in remembrance of
husband and father, in the church of St. Nicholas', New-
castle. The Corporation adorned the Guildhall with
portraits of the three schoolfellows, Lords Collingwood,
Stowell, and Eldon ; the town gave his name to a new and
principal thoroughfare ; and a meeting having been held
in the Assembly Rooms of Newcastle in 1838, with
Admiral Sir Charles Ogle in the chair, to consider the
propriety of rearing some public memorial of him, the
Collingwood Monument, the figure executed by Lough,
was erected in 1845 at the entrance of the Tyue, four guns
formerly belonging to Collingwood's ship the Royal
Sovereign being three years later placed upon the base
of the structure.*
* For a fuller account of the tfreat Adn.iral, the reader Is referred
to an admirable memoir by Mr. W. Clark Russell, published in
1891.
November \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
517
(Dttr
No. I.
j]E owe the parish register to the times of
the Tudors. " Wriothesley's Chronicle'
(Camden Society, 1875) informs us that
in the month of September, 1538, "Lord
Thomas Oumwell, Lord Privie Seale, Vicegerent to the
Kinges Highnes for all his jurisdiction ecclesiastical!
within this realme," sent out injunctions for the provibion
of the Bible in English in every parish church, the taking
down of all the lights of wax save three, " and that every
curate shall keepe a booke or register wherein shall be
written every weddinge, ehristninge, and buryinge within
the same churche throughout the yeare, the same
booke to remaine in a chest with two lockes, and two
keyes in the same church provided for the same, the one
keye to remaine with the curate, and the other with the
churchwardens of the same church, the charge to be at
the cost of the parish."
The oldest register quoted in Sir Cuthbert Sharp's
" Ch.rm.icon Mirabilc,"* is that of St. Oswald's, Durham,
dating from 1538 (the year of Lord Cromwell's injunc-
tion), and we purpose to borrow a page or two from that
invaluable little volume. Full of interest are Sir Cuth-
bert's diligent extracts, and of instruction also. They
bring back to us departed days. Our forefathers live and
die for us. We read their fortunes in the story of birth
and death, baptism and marriage. We smile and are sad
over the quaint memorials of bygone years.
Very calm and methodical are parish registers now-
a-days. No breath of passion or prejudice ruffles their
leaves. The entries are as free from warmth, or
partisanship, or play of fancy, or leaning to supersti-
tion or credulity, as the records of a modern ledger.
But it was not so of old. Character and individuality,
and love of wonder and romance, found expression in
parochial chronicles aforetime.
Registration had to make its way against opposition
in the beginning. A feeling of conservatism was
ngainst it. It was regarded as an intrusive innovation.
Cromwell's injunction, in the reign of Henry VIII.,
was but partially heeded. All through the sixteenth
century, successive endeavours to realise his wise
purpose failed of general effect. They were continued
to the end of the reign of Elizabeth, with only limited
success. In the first year of James, an order was
made that a parchment book be procured, into which
all the old registers were to be transcribed, and
registration was to go regularly forward thereafter.
An ordinance on the subject was issued in the time of
the Long Parliament, and there was a statute under
* The "Chronicon Stirabile" published in 1341, contains a
selection of all the more curious and interesting entries in the
Parish Registers of the Northern Counties.
the Commonwealth requiring every parish in th«
country to have a register and to appoint a registrar.
The rated inhabitants were to have the appointment,
and their choice was to be approved by a justice of
the peace. But neither the behest of Thomas Crom-
well, nor the enactments of the Parliament of Oliver,
escaped neglect and resistance. The Act of 1653 pro-
duced considerable excitement and disapproval during
the eclipse of the Monarchy, and was not confirmed at
the Restoration.
The Elwick Register contains a minute of the
election of a registrar for that rural parish : —
"28th November, 1653, William Wardle, of Bridg-
house, of the parish of Elwicke Hall, in the
county of Durham, yoeman, being elected and
chosen by the inhabitants and householders of
the pariah of Elwicke Hall aforesaid, was the day
and yeare above said, sworne and approved re-
gistrar for marriages, birthes, and burials in the said
parish according to the Act of Parleament concerning
the same. Before me, CH. FULTHORPE."
After the word Parliament, some partisan pen has
interlined, " id est, a company of rebels, assembled
under yt [that] tyrant Oliver Cromwell." There is also
the following "mem.": — "That marryinge by justices,
election of registers by the parishioners, and the use of
ruling elders, first came into fashion m the times of
rebellion under that monster of nature and bloody
tyrant, Oliver Cromwell."
The Staindrop registrar remarks : — " 1644. From
this time to 1646, through want of a minister and care-
lessness of ye cleark during ye wars, much of ye
register is lost, only here and there a name, regis-
tered." Also: — "1644. August 22, mem. From this
time to 28 December following, anno 1646, no account
at all can be given of the register, by reason of the
carelessness of Hewitson ye then clerk." In about
seven or eight years more there is a further memoran-
dum : — " 1653, 4 October, an Act of Parliament passed
for registering births and baptisms of children, and
Thomas Peerson, ye cleark, was sworne register by
ye Right Honourable Sir Henry Vane, senior, at Raby
Castle." In the next century we read :— " 1709, March —
Mem. From this time until the 21st of November
following, anno Dom. 1710, no account at all can be
given of the register, by reason of the carelessness of
John Pearson, the late dark. As witness my hand —
THO. LAMB, Curate of Staindrop."
After the passing of the bill of 1653, awakening the
parishes to new life, there seems to have been in-
creased action in various directions. A quaint note
appears in ' the course of the year in the register of
Houghton-le-Spring :— "Let noe man whatsoever pre-
sume to scribble, blot out, or tear out any of the leaves
of this register booke, &c., as they will be answerable
518
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{November
1891.
for such their great presumption and folly unto the
gent, and fower and twenty of the said parish,"
An instructive record was made at Monkwearmouth,
in the latter days of the last century, setting forth the
destruction of many of the registers of one of the most
venerable of our parish churches : — "On the 12th of
April, 1790, a terrible fire broke out in the dwelling-
house of the Rev. Jonathan Ivison, minister of Monk-
wearmouth, which entirely destroyed the same, together
with all the household furniture thereunto belonging ;
and, amongst other articles, the registers (being of great
antiquity) were totally consumed, exeept the register ot
christenings from 2 September, 1779, and register of
burials from 3 January, 1768, down to this time." " A
meeting was held (adds Sir Cuthbert Sharp) to deter-
mine what was best to be done, when all persons were
desired to fetch copies of such private registers as they
had in their possession, when several were entered, and
sworn to before a magistrate."
We shall now cull several passages from Sir Cuthbert's
book throwing some of them under general heads, and
giving separately such as do not call for classification, or
admit of it ; following in the main the words and ortho-
graphy of the parish clerk, although not rigidly adhering
to his contractions, capitals, and commas.
BUKIAL IN WOOLLEN.
Our ancestors made many sumptuary laws. Not only
the costume of the living, but the clothing of the dead,
was regulated by a succession of enactments. There
was an Act passed in 1666 for "burial in woollen";
and two others followed in 1677 and 1680, with amend-
ments. "Here," says the Stockton register in August,
1678, "the Act for burying in woollens takes place."
The statute states its intention to be " the lessening
of the importation of linen from beyond the seas, and
the encouragement of the woollen and paper manu-
factures." It was, in short, a measure of Protection ;
but it also had an eye to registration, enjoining the
clergy "to take an exact account, and keep a register
of burials." At St. Mary-le-Bow, in Durham, on the
24th of April, 1683, " John Archbold, alias Captain
Catch," was "buried in woollen." But in December,
1678, Christopher Bell, gent., interred in the same
parish, "was lapped in linen, contrary to the late
Act." So also at St. Oswald's, Durham, in September,
1678, " Miss Faith Buck " was " hurried (but not
in woollen)."
THE WANDERING POOR.
In the summer of 1587, when there was pestilence in
the land, and no plenty, food being at famine prices,
"a poor wretch, which died in the church poorch,"and
"a poore young man, which dyed in the Gun House
of the Sand Hill," were buried at St. Nicholas', New-
castle,
"A certayne old woman travellinge for relief," who
had " died in the fields." was buried at Bishop Middle-
ham, January 14, 1596.
The infirm poor were carried on their journeys
between parish and parish. '• Katherine White, a
Scottish woman, being a stranger," and "having a
passe to travell homeward, fell sick by the way ; and
being brought hither [to Merrington] upon a barrow
from Winleston, extreme sick, died here ; and was
buried," February 12, 1615. Four days afterwards,
"John Steward, a stranger, died in the bake house in
Midlestone, and was here buried."
" Isabel, an old distressed cripple, died in the bake
house in Merrington, buried, November 21, 1621."
RELIGION.
"Richard Snell, br'nt." So runs a burial register of
September 9, 1558, at Richmond. An explanation of this
record of the closing days of Queen Mary may be read in
"Fox's Martyrs." Two of the Snells had been impri-
soned for religion. One of them, after his toes had rotted
off in confinement, walked upon crutches. At last he went
to mass, having a large sum of money given him by the
people ; but in three or four days he drowned himself in
the Swale. Thus one of the Snells died by fire, another
by water.
" At Hesleden, Mr. Robert Mayer and Mrs. Grace
Smythe, Mar. 24, 1591." Mr. Maire, of Hardwick, mar-
ried the only child of an eminent lawyer in Durham.
Both were Protestants. But after their marriage they
were present at Dry burn, when four " semynaries,
papysts, tretors, and rebels to hys Majestye" (such are
the words of the St. Oswald's register), were hanged
under the law then in force, making it death for a priest
of Roman ordination to be in England. Moved by their
courage and constancy, the newly married pair became
converts to the Catholic faith. Mrs. Maire's father, a
Puritan, was indignant; termed her in his will "his
graceless daughter Grace"; and what he bequeathed her
she was only to receive on condition of conformity.
With her husband, however, she was steadfast to her
choice. " The 27 daie of April 1595," says the Hesleden
register, " was a child buried in the night supposed to be
Mr. Robert Maire's of Hardwick, a recusant."
" Henry Wright, a recusant," aged 60, was on the 14th
of April, 1620, at Pittington, " buried in the night."
At Whorlton, in 1630, "Richard Appleby did commit
his pennance in whyte lynin ye 21 of November, accord-
ing to lawe, and Margret Symson ye next Sabbeth
after."
At Newcastle, in the register of St. Nicholas, is.
written: — "Infant Knight and Mary Watson, being ex-
communicated, buried in a garden, 31 December 1664."
The Ryton register has a note in 1676 of " excommuni-
cated persons," comprising William Tempest, Gent.,
Francis Hed worth, Gent., Timothy Shafto, Gent.
November 1
1691. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
519
rite Battle 0f
N episode of the great invasion scare of the
beginning of the century— the attempt to
capture Clifford's Fort at North Shields— is
well-nigh forgotten, but is still worth placing on record
here.
On October 2, 1801, a line of keels was moored across the
Tyne, near Clifford's Fort, and deals were laid over them
from shore to shore. After carefully inspecting this extra-
ordinary highway, Lord Mulgrave mounted his charger,
and, accompanied by General Murray, Major Heron, and
other officers, rode over from the county of Durham to
Northumberland. Major Heron then galloped back
again. Soon after, Lord Mulgrave marched the 1st
Regiment of Royal Lancashire Militia (accompanied by
their field pieces and ammunition waggons) from Tyne-
mouth Barracks across this bridge to the Herd
Sands, when an action took place against a supposed
enemy. At the same time, several shells were
fired from the Spanish Battery on the north side,
which had a fine effect. The troops were afterwards
led back again, and Major Heron, after firing three
close volleys, marched the South Shields volunteers
across the bridge mto Northumberland. The adjacent
banks and hills were covered with spectators to witness
this novel sight, and the experiment succeeded beyond
the most sanguine expectations. A large flat-bottomed
boat, called by the watermen Buonaparte, was originally
used for conveying troops or military carriages over the
river; but the bridge of keels was found infinitely superior,
as it enabled any required movements to be made with as
much facility as by land.
On April 30, 180*, the North Shields and Tynemouth
Volunteers enttred upon permanent duty for one month.
The guards at Clifford's Fort, Tynemouth Barracks, and
the Spanish Battery were delivered up to them. The
company in Clifford's Fort had not been in possession of
it more than four hours when Major Doyle, of the Light
Brigade, from Sunderland, crossed the Tyne in the
Buonaparte, accompanied by one company of the 61st
Regiment, one company of the Northumberland Militia,
and one company of the Lanark Militia. The officers, it
appears, had got vain-glorious over their cups ; and when
disputing about the merits of their respective corps, the
major had said he could easily surprise any of the forts
garrisoned by the volunteers, and he was dared to make
the attempt. Accordingly at early morning on the above-
mentioned date, Major Doyle's company, whose quarters
were at Whitburn, crossed the Tyne, »nd landed on the
Lighthouse Sand. From thence they proceeded, as noise-
lessly as possible, with the major at their head on his gallant
charger, up the narrow passage, close to the fort. But
before they could reach the entrance to it, the volunteers
had made preparations to receive them, their landing
having been observed, in spite of their caution. One
man got his arm broken during the hurry in bar-
ricading the gate. The number of volunteers within
the fort being insufficient for the guarding of the em-
brasures and the walls, an express was sent off for the
remainder of the corps, who happened to be on parade in
Dockwray Square. These had already noticed what was
going on, and hastened down the bank to the assist-
ance of their comrades. When the light company, which
was in the van, reached the Low Lights, they found the
bridge in possession of a party of the besiegers, who,
being supplied with blank cartridges, instantly com-
menced a brisk fire upon them. By the point of the
bayonet, they forced the pass along the narrow passage
referred to above, up which only one or two couid
pass abreast. Capt. Hearne seized hold of the bridle of
Major Doyle's horse, and attempted to stop him. The
major then swore a round volley of oaths, and, brandish-
ing his sword in the captain's face, asked him whether he
thought they were real enemies. The captain replied
that he had no reason to think otherwise, and stoutly
stood his ground. But after a minute's parley, by advice
of a brother officer, he allowed the major to pass, and the
latter instantly rode up to the gate. This he found
to be shut and strongly barricaded, and his summons
was met with open defiance. Determined not to be
baffled, however, the besiegers proceeded to attempt
to carry the fort by storm. As the fort was not well
constructed for resisting a land attack, they would
probably have succeeded ; but the other volunteers, arriv-
ing from Dockwray Square and the Old Barracks (Percy
Square), attacked the besiegers in the rear, and effected
a diversion. Many bloody knuckles and in some in-
stances broken arms were the injuries which the regulars
and militia received in their attempts to scale the walls.
After a smart conflict, in which great skill was displayed
on both sides, the contending parties charging bayonets
at intervals, the assailants were beaten off and forced to
retreat.
When making a reconnaissance, shortly before the
beginning of the fray. Captain Robert Shields was
captured by a party of the Northumberland Militia,
who had been placed in ambush in a saw-pit.
Colonel William Linskill, who commanded the Shields
and Tynemouth Volunteers, hurrying down to the scene
of action with all possible speed, and finding the
captain in this awkward predicament, cried out.
" Shields, Shields, Shields ! what are you about ?"
" What am I about, sir?" replied the more valiant than
wary officer; "bad enough ; I'm taken prisoner !" He was
at once rescued from his captors, who ran the risk of being
captured in turn. But at a later stage of the affair he got
his revenge. Meanwhile, the doughty assailants, over-
powered by numbers and pressed on all sides, retreated
slowly and sullenly, and disputing every inch of
ground, not, however, to their ships, but to the
520
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f November
I 1891.
Hat-bottomed Buonaparte, by which they made good their
retreat, not without difficulty. Pushing off as they best
could, they returned to the south shore, rather crest-
fallen at their want of success. Nor did their misfortunes
end there. On arriving at The Bents, they found that a
party of the volunteers, headed by Captain Shields, had
slipped across in some scullerboats during their absence,
and had demolished their camp and carried off all their
flags. This was worse than defeat, as it involved dis-
grace, and it was many a long day before it was forgotten.
Throughout the day, the temper of the troops was well
preserved. A determined coolness and intrepidity was
visible in both parties, and the volunteers proved them-
selves worthy of being entrusted with the fort, having so
bravely defended it against excellent troops, one-third of
whom were of the line.
Major Doyle was much censured for attacking Clifford's
Fort. His exploit might have led to very disagreeable
and even fatal consequences, and General Grey, who
commanded in the district, is represented to have said
he would have put him into the black-hole had he been
taken by the volunteers. The gentleman in immediate
command of the fort was Captain Ramshaw, and as he
happened to be indisposed that morning, the besiegers
could not have chosen a better time.
The North Shields and Tvnemouth Volunteers were the
second volunteer corps raised in England, and among the
last that were disbanded. W. S.
JHtftttft at tfte
j]OST conspicuous amongst the objects shown
in the engraving of the mouth of the Tyne on
this page, are the two towers known as the
High and Low Lights of North Shields. These lights
guide the mariner into the harbour. Numerous fishing
boats will be seen anchored near the little quay of the
town. South Shields lies on the opposite side of the
river. Connected with the land there is a narrow sand
bank which is shown to the right of the picture, with a
wooden structure at the end of it. The light which is
placed in this structure is to warn mariners entering the
Tyne from approaching too near the dreaded Herd Sands.
Opposite the Herd Sands, but not seen in our view, are
the equally dreaded Black Middens, on which many a
gallant craft has gone to pieces. The two arms that are
seen projecting ;nto the sea are the North and South
Piers, chief among the wonderful works of the Tyne
Commissioners. There was a time when the bar at the
mouth of the Tyne was so shallow that foolhardy sailors
THE MOUTH OF THE TYNE.
NOT ember 1
1891. )
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
521
•were said to have waded across it. But the bar itself has
now practically been removed, since vessels of the largest
tonnage can now enter the river at almost any time of
tide.
faints' Cftttrrfc,
JiRIGINALLY called All Hallow's, old All
Saints' Church dates from the year 1286. At
that time it was a Gothic structure ; but it
underwent many changes and restorations, until the end
of the last century, when it was demolished, and the
present edifice erected. Mackenzie, the historian of
Newcastle, was living when old All Saints' was pulled
down, and from him we learn that the steeple and west
end occupied the site of the present structure. The old
church itself extended to where the burial ground now is.
When, on the south pillars in the interior of the church
giving way, it was proposed to restore it, Dr. Sharp, the
Archdeacon of Northumberland, objected to having the
chancel shortened. A thorough inspection of the church
showed that it was rapidly decaying, and on Easter
Tuesday (April 18, 1786) a general meeting of the
parishioners was held, at which it was unanimously
resolved to build a new edifice. While the work of
pulling down the old church was being proceeded with,
an accident occurred by which a popular inhabitant,
named Captain William Hedley, was killed by one of the
stones of the great west door falling upon him.
A design of Mr. David Stevenson's having been
selected, the foundation stone of the new church was laid
by the Rev. James Stephen Lushington, Vicar of
Newcastle, on August 14, 1786. The building was
finished in 1796 at a cost of £27,000, which sum, excepting
£2,061 19s., raised by the sale of pews, £30 in donations,
and a gift of £100, was obtained by assessment of the
parish. Built in the form of an ellipse, the church
resembles the Pantheon at Rome in architectural arrange-
ment. The roof, which is a splendid piece of carpentry,
devoid of supporting pillars, was first constructed at the
Austin Friars yard. It may be stated that it was there also
that the bells of the old church were cast. At the south
end a square tower supports the steeple, beneath which
is the vestibule. There is a wing on either side. That
on the right is a vestry, m which the celebrated brass of
Roger Thornton hancrs, while the wing on the left is utilized
as a morning chapel, as well as for baptisms. Not the
least important of All Saints' architectural arrangements
is the noble Doric portico in connection with the south
front.
It was on Tuesday, November 17, 1789, that All
Saints' was consecrated by the Bishop of Durham, the
Right Rev. Thomas Thurlow, the sermon being preached
by the Rev. Hugh Moises, the famous head master of the
Grammar School, and morning lecturer of All Saints'.
In course of time the edifice began to present a neglected
aspect, and in 1881 attention was drawn to its condition.
The appeal for funds to restore it being heartily
responded to, the work of repair was begun, and on
November 23, 1881, it was re-opened, the Bisbop of
Durham, Dr. Joseph Barber Lightfoot, preaching the
opening sermon.
Towards the end of 1881, Mr. R. S. Donkin, M.P. for
Tynemouth, whose place of business is near to the old
church, made an offer to improve the churchyard at his
own expense — an offer which, it is needless to say, was
accepted by the parishioners. And so the old churchyard
was speedily metamorphosed into a pleasant retreat.
Amongst the many benefactors of All Saints' may be
mentioned Mr. John Hall, who presented the church with
a clock. In connection with the ceremony of illuminating
and starting the clock on February 3, 1882, an address
was presented to Mr. Hall by Mr. Joseph Cowen on
behalf of the people of the parish. It is said that at this
ALL SAINTS' CHURCH, FROM PANDON.
522
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/"November
I 1891.
ceremony there were no fewer than ten thousand people
present.
Mr. Joblmg's sketch of All Saints' Church which
accompanies this article, is taken from Pandon. It was
originally drawn to illustrate Mr. R. J. Charleton's
" Newcastle Town," published by Mr. Walter Scott.
Carfcatr.
j]DWARD CORVAN was born in Liverpool in
1829, but in all other respects be was a genuine
Tynesider. His speech and manners were
racy of the soil. Although of a later generation than the
immortal Billy Purvis, he is fairly entitled to rank as a
public entertainer with that eccentric genius. Indeed, it
was as a young member of Billy's company that he began
his professional career.
Ned was a tall man, standing about 5 feet 10 inches in
height, possessing a bony, muscular frame, surmounted
by a head which suggested a certain kind of rough power,
and a countenance whose expression betokened infinite
good nature and a rare fund of comicality. His features
were rough, irregular, and certainly not classical, the nose
beine large and prominent. He was a consummate
master of the patois of Tyneside, and, by his lyrical and
musical talents as a performer, he made it the agent for
producing some of the best effects alike of pathos and
humour.
Although not in the strict sense a literary artist, he
possessed sufficient knowledge of the mechanism of
rhyme to construct not a few excellent local songs.
These possessed the true spirit of ballad poetry, going
direct to the hearts of his audience, by virtue of their
homeliness of sentiment, and that " touch of nature
which makes the whole world kin." Ned was a competent
musician, too, being a really expert violinist. As a
comic singer of local ditties, he has perhaps never been
equalled. Moreover, he was an excellent actor.
My earliest recollection of Corvan's singing was a visit
which I once paid to a music hall at the west end of the
Central Station, near to the Cattle Market, Newcastle —
the Tyne Concert Hall. This public resort, which stood
on a vacant piece of ground now covered by substantial
edifices, was a large wooden structure, and had been
originally used as a circus. On the evening iu question,
the building was densely crowded by an enthusiastic and
demonstrative audience. Corvan was the "lion "of the
occasion, and his appearance on the stage created quite a
furore, altogether eclipsing the other performers. At
that time, his most popular song had reference to the then
recent erection of the Central Station, by which the
Forth, originally a favourite and ample playground for
the youths of Newcastle, was filched away. This formed
the burden of the lay, which, as rendered by Ned, dressed
as a schoolboy in a white pinafore, with leathern belt, and
trundling his hoop, produced an extraordinary effect.
The boy's lament for the loss of his playground —
Oh, dear me,
Aa've ne plyace noo te play,
Sin' fra me
The Forth they've taen away —
appealed universally to local sympathies, and was simply
irresistible.
Another lyric sung at the period of which I write, and
which enjoyed much popularly, was a burlesque ditty, in
which the yeomanry were rather mercilessly ridiculed.
It seemed a peculiarly hard fate that our citizen soldiers
of that day, who, long before the Volunteer movement
was dreamt of, donned once a year a blue and by no
means unbecoming uniform in defence of our hearths and
homes, should be thus cruelly decried. Yet such was the
fact, the appearance of these gallant defenders in our
streets being the invariable signal for ragged, unkempt
urchins to assail them with the most uncomplimentary
epithets conveyed in such doggrel as —
Blue-legged Bumler,
Cock-tail tumler,
Fireside soulger,
Daurna gan te war.
Corvan's song, although not descending to quite so low
a level of invective as this, was assuredly not lacking in
the elements of broadest comedy. No one who once
witnessed the singer's lugubrious grimaces when giving
the refrain-
He wad be a noodle,
He wad be a noodle,
He wad be a noodle,
Tiie greet slaverin' cull,
November \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
523
or listened to the tumultuous applause which greeted his
mock expressions of indignant grief, will readily forgtt
the scene.
The last occasion on which I enjoyed the treat of
listening to Ned Corvau's characteristic vocalism — poor
Ned died in Newcastle on August 31st, 1865 — was at
a mixed entertainment, held over thirty years ago, in the
large room of the Grainger Hotel, at the corner of Market
Street. The concerts which took place nightly were of
the free and easy type, and were not specially noted for
their refinement. Ned was, on the evening of my visit to
this public resort, in his best form, and saner, amidst
much enthusiasm, his most famous ditties. At a later
stage of the entertainment, Ned, with a roguish twinkle
in his eye, thus addressed the miscellaneous audience
before him : — " Noo, ma freends, wad ye like to hear me
play the Carnival — what de they call'd? — 'da Venis,' on
the fiddle, or draw ye the phiz of Napoleon on the black
board?" Before the question could be answered, the accom-
plished entertainer swept in a masterly style the strings
of his violin, which responded in the grand chorus of
Pacanini's piece de resistance. Ere the plaudits of the
assembly had died away, he produced from his pocket a
piece of chalk, with which he drew in rapid succession the
most life-like portraits of then living celebrities, including
the late Emperor of the French, Mazzini, Kossuth, and
others.
It may not be generally known that Corvan possessed
very considerable gifts as an artist, and that, contradictory
as it may seem, he generally selected as the subjects of
his portraiture sacred events, somewhat after the style of
John Martin, whose prodigal _fancy and daring imagina-
tion drew their inspiration from the Apocalypse.
But Ned's no more,
So no more of Ned.
J. EMBLETON SMITH.
aittr Crrmnwtttams.
LEMMINGS.
W. S. C. — understood to be the initials of a Sunder-
land gentleman — lately contributed to the Pall Mall
Budget an account of a winter trip through Norway.
The following extract relates to a mysterious little
animal which somewhat resembles a guinea pig : —
" Fortunately the huge army of lemmings (Georhycus
lemmut) which once in five years marches across Scandi-
navia to perish in the North Sea had reached the out-
skirts of Trondhjem just before our arrival. Tha mystery
surrounding their dwelling-place, and the strange fatality
which attends their westward march, make these little
creatures extremely interesting. They come from some
place to the east of Scandinavia, but where is not known ;
but it seems probable that, the increase of their numbers
causing a scarcity of food in their native mountains, a
portion of the community is driven to seek its for-
tunes in the west every fifth year. On they swarm
across the country, always keeping in a straight
line, avoiding houses, but swimming fjords and rivers,
until the sea is reached. They plunge in and swim
bravely on for a couple of miles, but their strength then
fails, and so they perish, not a single lemming ever return-
ing eastward. A bad harvest is said to follow this
visitation, and the Lutheran used to solemnly exorcise
them, using a special Lemming Litany for the purpose.
As we climbed the steep road leading up Steenberget,
we saw numerous dead bodies strewn about, victims of the
nightly raids made by the cats of the city, and on reach-
ing the fields, found them literally swarming with the
lemmings, two or three of which were easily caught for
examination. They are about the size of a small water-
rat, of a beautiful reddish-brown colour, shading to white
on the breast, with a broad black band across the shoulders
and along the back of the head. The tail is small and
scarcely visible, and the prominent teeth are typical of
the Rodentia. They show fight most persistently and
gallantly, keeping up a shrill squeaking all tbe time, with
the head thrown back, and the sharp, yellow teeth
vigorously snapping. They can draw blood, as I found,
but a slight blow on the nose kills them instantly."
C., Gateshead.
A DREADFUL WINTER-
The beginning of the present century was marked by a
severe scarcity, occasioned by the failure of the harvest
in 1799, and the continuance of war on the Continent.
A large portion of the grain crops in the counties of
Northumberland and Durham remained uncut till near
the end of January, 1800. In the January of this year
wheat sold in Newcastle market at one guinea the Win-
chester bushel, equivalent to 168s. the quarter ; and in
March, 1801, the quartern loaf of four pounds five and a
half ounces rose to one shilling and tenpence halfpenny.
W. S., South Shields.
BEN WELLS, THE DANCING MASTER.
The people of Cumberland and Westmoreland, as is well
known, are very fond of athletic exercises, and extra
ordinary powers are still developed among them. During
524
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{November
1891.
the long life of Wordsworth in this region, there was one
man more famous among the common folks than he,
namely, Ben Wells, for fifty years dancing master and
fiddler to the country people of Cumberland. Ben was the
kind of man who, in primitive times, gave country folk
their legends. Mr. Craig Gibson, wrote a lyric in 1869
about him, and in a note says: — "The last time I met
him was about twenty years ago in the bar parlour of an
inn in the southern part of the Lake District, where the
strains of his fiddle, produced at my request, caused such
excitement that a general and very uproarious dance (of
males only) set in, and was kept up with such energy that,
the space being confined, the furniture was seriously
damaged, and Ben was at last ejected by the landlady, as
the readiest— indeed the only — method of putting a stop
to the riot. He was light, muscular, and springy, and in
earlier years wonderfully swift of foot, so much so, that
the late Dr. Johnston, of Cockermouth, told me that he
once (at Scale Hill) saw him, without assistance, run down
and capture a wild rabbit — a proof of activity rarely
paralleled." The following is a verse from Mr. Gibson's
poem in the Cumberland dialect on this celebrated char-
acter : —
Ben Wales's fiddle many a neet
Gev weel-oiled springs to t' heaviest heels,
For few cud whyet hod the'r feet
When Ben struck up his heartenin' reels.
Vfiti elbow room and rozel't weel,
Swinge ! how he'd mak fwoke kev an' prance ;
An' nowt cud match t1 sly fiddle squeal
At si.nal'd kiss i' t' cushion dance.
CUMBRIAN, Wcrkington.
of Mr. Bailey, a well-known sculptor of the day, was
brought from London by the Newcastle trader Halcyon.
FORRESTER, Newcastle.
GREY'S MONUMENT.
One of the ir.ott conspicuous objects in Newcastle is
Grey's Monument. It was erected to commemorate the
services of Charles, Earl Grey, in connection with the
first Reform Bill. The foundation stone, as we read in
Fordyce's "Local Records," was laid by Messrs. John and
Benjamin Green, the architects. A glass bottle, her-
metically sealed, containing a drawing of the building,
surmounted with a statue of the earl, a list of subscribers
to the undertaking, a collection of silver and copper coins
of the Brunswick dynasty, with several local medals and
tradesmen's tokens contributed by Mr. John Fenwick,
was deposited in a chamber cut in the stone, and encased
in plaster of Paris. On the llth of Aueust, 1838, the
column had reached its elevation, and on the 24th of the
same month the statue of Earl Grey was placed upon its
summit. The bells of the churches immediately after-
wards commenced a merry peal, and continued at inter-
vals during the remaining portion of the day. The
height of the column to the top of the figure is 133 feet,
and the diameter of the shaft at the base is 9 feet 11
inches. The architecture is Roman doric, and there is a
staircase consisting of 164- steps to the summit of the
capital, from which there is a fine panoramic view of the
town and the surrounding country. The figure, the work
INDIFFERENT AS TO THE RESULT.
Just after the competitors in a boat race on the Tyne
had started, and the chrers were resounding for the
respective scullers, an old pitman in one of the steam-
boats philosophically observed : — " Wey, it'll not myek
much mettor te me ; aa hev half-a-croon on byeth ways !"
INGRATITUDE.
A few weeks ago, several old women were watching the
funeral of an undertaker. "Aye, aye," exclaimed an
ancient dame, " the canny -aad soul ! He myed monny a
coffin for deed folks in his time for nowt, and noo, the
ungrateful beggors, thor's not yen o' them lies followed
him te the grave !"
AN INTERRUPTION.
As a brass band, composed mainly of miners, was
marching down the North Road towards the Haymarket,
Newcastle, playing a lively tune, the bandmaster
suddenly stopped, and, running to the front, shouted : —
" Haad on, lads, haad on ! Ye're plaaing as if ye'd
nivvor been doon this way afore !"
LIGHTNING RODS.
At the erection of a dissenting chapel at South Shields
the question of putting a lightning conductor in the tower
was discussed by the Building Committee. One member
strenuously opposed the expense, and asked, "What's
the use of putting such things up ? Leetning can get doon
quick eneuf wivoot them ! "
FLOWEK SHOW AMENITIES.
The annual flower show was recently held at Amble in a
small marquee. A young man who was having a look
round remarked to a lady of his acquaintance, a visitor
from one of the neighbouring collieries, that the show was
"only a middlm" one." She replied, "Well, but it sets
the tent off a bit, onnyhoo !"
AN INVOICE.
At a new pit near Leamside Station, it happened, a few
years ago, that some sinking apparatus had been ordered,
for which no invoice had arrived. A master sinker,
named George, on going to "his work one morning, passed
the above station, and saw the invoice in the office
there. "Tommy," said he to one of his men when he
got to the pit, "hes thoo got the invoice for them
thingamies yet ?" Tommy replied, "Aa's not, Geordie."
" Wey, man," returned George, ''aa seed it at thestation
just noo, as aa passed. Ha'd away for't !" Tommy went
off to the station. Looking round, he saw a sewing
machine on the platform. Thinking it to be the article
wanted, he got a barrow to take it away. One of the
Novetrberl
1H91. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
525
railway officials accosted him thus, " I say, what are you
going to do with the barrow?" Tommy replied, "Aa
want it to trek that invoice to the pit," pointing to the
machine. "That's no invoice, man," said the potter;
"it's a sewing machine for Middle Rainton." "Wey,"
said Tommy, " aa was telled it was an invoice for the new
pit. Aa've been luiking for it this last week or mair."
AN UNEXPECTED ANSWER.
A local schoolmaster one day whilst instructing one of
his classes in English history, carefully explained to the
children the difference between infantry and cavalry.
The next day he went over the same lesson, and for ob-
vious reasons, the last question he asked was : — " What is
the name given to horse soldiers ?" The answer, though
unexpected, came short and swift :—" Noodles, sor,
Noodles !" ,
A LUNAR LANDMARK.
On a moonlight evening, a few years ago, a stranger to
the village of Benwell, wanting to cross the river by the
ferryboat, asked a native to kindly show him the way to
the landing. The youth replied, " Dis thoo see yon meun
yonder?" The stranger answered in the affirmative.
"Then," says the youth, " gan as far as that, and then
torn doon !"
AN UNEXPECTED RETORT.
A party of gentlemen were travelling a short time ago
on the Carlisle line, and at one of the stations the joker of
the party thought he would have a lark with the railway
porter. He shouted : — "I say, porter, you have not
returned me the shirt I lent you." The porter quickly
replied : — " Get away, man, ye divvent wear shorts ; ye
wear nowt but cuffs and collars ! "
LOVE MB, LOVE MY PIQ.
A miner in the county of Durham instructed his wife
to take a half-grown pig to Chester-le-Street. She duly
arrived at Lamesley Station, and succeeded in getting her
ticket ; but when she was about to enter the carriage, she
was stopped by the guard, who said, " You are never
going to take that pig into the- carriage amongst the pas-
sengers?" "What for, then?" said she, " where munaa
gan? It's yen o'wor Jack's best breed." "Nevermind,"
said the guard, "it can't go in there." "Varry weel,
then, "said she, "where it cannit gan, aa cannit gan, se
we'll just waak ! " And walk she did.
AN ELECTION INCIDENT.
In the year of the great election in Northumberland,
when the late Matthew Bell was one of the candidates,
two miners named Thomas Laverick and Jacob Thomp-
son, belonging to a colliery near North Shields, went to
Newcastle to buy each a pair of trousers. Laverick pur-
chased the first pair. Thompson went to another shop,
and said he wanted a pair like Tom Laverick's. The
shopman got down trouser piece after trouser piece.
"Man," said Thompson, "aatell thoo aa waant a pair
like Tom Laverick's troosers was, sky blue colour, Matty
Be'.l for ivvor ! "
Mr. John Nanson, Clerk of the Peace for Carlisle, and
for upwards of forty years Town Clerk of the same city,
died on the 17th of September. The deceased, who had
considerable reputation as an archieologist, was 71 years
of age.
On the 20th of September the death took place of the
Rev. R. Waters, Vicar of South Hetton, at the age of
62 years.
On the 24th of September, Mr. John Manderson, who
for upwards of half a century had taken a prominent part
in disseminating temperance principles throughout the
North of England, died at New Delaval, his age being
78 years.
On the 25th of September, Charles Mclntosh, who claimed
to be an old soldier aged 98 years, and who earned a
few coppers by hawking pens and laces, died at Sunder-
land from the effects of an overdose of chloroform and
laudanum, to the use of which he had been addicted for
thirty -five years. (See Monthly Chronicle, vol. ii., p. 274.)
At the age of 42 years, the Rev. H. S. Eckersley/a
Wesleyan Minister, formerly connected with Newcastle
and Gateshead, died at Ramleh, Alexandria, Egypt, on
the 27th of September.
On the 27th of September, the remains of Mr. John
Taylor, artist and wood engraver, were interred at
Dunston-on-Tyne.
Mrs. Hannah Towers, the last surviving niece of George
Stephenson, the eminent engineer, died at Medomsley on
the 27th of September, at the advanced age of 84 years.
Mr. George Bateman, farmer, Easington, died suddenly
on the 3rd of October.
On the 4th of October, Mr. H. Merryweather, senior
auctioneer in the Hartlepools, died, his age being 77 years.
Mr. Alfred Thomas Rogers, for two successive years
Mayor of Richmond, Yorkshire, died on the 5th of
October.
On the 9th of October, news was received at Stockton
of the death, at Norham-on-Tweed, of Lady Ernest Vane
Tempest, widow of Lord Ernest Vane Tempest, brother
to the late, and uncle to the present, Marquis ot London-
derry.
iUcavtr at
©ccurrcnccjs.
SEPTEMBER.
12. — According to a statement made by Mr. Alderman
Stephens at the Central Hall, there were, as the result of
the recent Brewster Sessions for Newcaatle, 12 fewer
licenses than last year, leaving 710 licenses, or one for 262
inhabitants.
12.— A dead whale, about 30 feet long, was towed ashore
on Boulmer Rocks, Northumberland.
— A beautiful stained glass window, erected in the east
end of the north aisle of Lamesley Parish Church by the
Vicar (the Rev. R. W. Snape), in memory of his father,
the late Rev. Dr. Snape, so long head-master of the Royal
Grammar School, Newcastle, was unveiled and dedicated
by the Rev. W. S. Reeman, Vicar of Fatfield.
526
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{November
1891.
14. — The new parish hall and schools of St. Nicholas,'
in Hanover Square, Newcastle, were opened by Mr. \V. D.
Cruddas. (Seep. 239.)
15. — The enthronement of Dr. Maclagan, aa Archbishop
of York, took place in the Minster, the Duke of Cambridge
being amongst the audience present on the occasion. On
the 21st his Grace paid his first official visit to Middles-
brough, and was presented with an address of welcome on
the part of the Mayor and Corporation. At night he pre-
sided at the annual meeting of the Middlesbrough and
District Church Extension Society, in the Town Hall of
that borough. The new Archbishop, on the following day,
took part in the proceedings connected with the laying of
the foundation stone of the new church of St. Barnabas,
Linthorpe Road, in the same town. The ceremony
was performed by Sir Raylton Dixon.
— A committee of twelve gentlemen was appointed to
administer the Friar's Goose Disaster Fund, in accord-
ance with the necessities of the various families bereaved.
— A destructive fire broke out in the storehouse at
Craggs and Sons' Shipyard, Middlesbrough, the buildings
being completely gutted.
16. — Dr. George Macdonald, the well-known novelist,
delivered a lecture in Ryehill Chapel, Newcastle, on " A
Talk with Dante."
— A show of dogs was opened in the Garrison Field,
Sunderland, the exhibition being the largest of the kind
ever seen in that town.
• — A meeting of the committee in charge of the contem-
plated new " History of Northumberland" was held at
their rooms, 24, Grey Street, Newcastle, under the presi-
dency of Earl Percy. With a view to commencing the
undertaking with parts of the county not already dealt
with in Hodgson's "Northumberland" and Raine's
" North Durham," it was agreed that the volumes com-
prising the districts round Bamburgh and Alnwick,
Hexham and Bywell, should be the first prepared. Mr.
Edward Bateson, the editorial secretary, was instructed
to take the necessary steps for beginning the work at
once.
17.— The directors of Sir W. G. Amstrong, Mitchell,
and Co., Limited, decided to recommend a dividend for
the year ending 30th June last at the rate of Hi per
cent. This was subsequently confirmed at the annual
meeting of the shareholders, under the presidency of
Lord Armstrong.
— A lecture on "The Artificial Propagation of Salmon
and Trout " was delivered in the New Assembly Rooms,
Barras Bridge, Newcastle, by Mr. J. J. Armistead, of
the Fishery, Dumfries.
— The twenty-first annual meeting of the Newcastle
Hospital Sunday Fund was held in the Bible Society's
Rooms, Pilgrim Street, the chair being occupied by the
Sheriff (Mr. Stephen Quin). The total receipts of the
year were reported to have amounted to £4,647 12s. 7d.,
the largest sum ever received by the fund in one year.
—The will of Mr. Henry Nelson, J.P., of Westoe,
South Shields, shipowner, &c., was proved in the Durham
Probate Court, the gross personal estate being sworn at
£118,244 Is. 3id. Other local wills of the month included
those of Mr. George Garry Taylor-Smith, of Colpike
Hall, Lanchester, J.P., sworn at £17,955 14s. 2d. ; and of
Mr. Joseph Snowball, of Seaton Burn House, North-
umberland, sworn at £12,673 15s. 4d. The will of Mr.
Robert Johnson, late of Stotes Hall, Jesmond, New-
castle, and a member of the City Council, was also sworn,
the personal estate being valued at £25,75S 8s. 2d.
18. — By the sudden capsizing, off Roker Pier, Sunder-
land, ot a racing boat belonging to Sergeant Hawks, of
the River Wear Police, John Hawks, a young man 22
years of age, the son of the owner, and River Constable
Snelger, were drowned ; Sergeant Hawks and Mr. W.
E. Marshall, collector at Bodlewell Lane Ferry, who
were also in the craft at the time, having been rescued.
— Mr. J. B. Radcliffe, sporting editor of the Newcastle
Journal, rowed a quarter of a mile, swam a quarter of a
mile, ran a quarter of a mile, bicycled a quarter of a mile,
and rode a horse a quarter of a mile, all within thirteen
minutes, he having wagered to perform the fivefold feat
in fifteen minutes.
19.— Mrs. Ashton Dilke, widow of Mr. Ashton Dilke,
formerly M.P. for Newcastle, and daughter of Mr. T. E.
Smith, formerly M.P. for North Shields, was married in
London to Mr. Russell Cooke.
— Pierre Autret, a Frenchman and a hawker of onions,
19 years of age, was arrested by the Sunderland police on
a charge of having caused the death by stabbing of a man
named Thomas Callan, who had endeavoured to snatch a
string of onions from him. Autret was afterwards com-
mitted for trial.
21. — The foundation-stone of a large and commodious
range of buildings, in connection with the Bath Lane
Schools and the Corporation Street School of Science and
Art, was laid at the end of South View, Heaton, by the
Mayor of Newcastle (Mr. Joseph Baxter Ellis), who was
accompanied by the SherifE/Mr. Stephen Quin).
— A banquet, in commemoration of the twenty-first
anniversary of the storming of Rome by the troops under
General Cadorna, and of the union of the Eternal City to
Italy, was held by the local Italian residents in the
Criterion Restaurant, Market Street, Newcastle. The
chair was occupied by the Italian VicivConsuI, Signer
Cavaliere Rizzetto, who, in proposing the toast of the
Press, alluded to Mr. Joseph Cowen, who, he said,
amongst Englishmen, had, perhaps, been the greatest
friend Italy had ever possessed. Mr. Reginald Barnett,
of the literary staff of the Newcastle Chronicle, responded
in the Italian language. Lieut. John Eyre Macklin, one
of the Tyneside Garibaldian volunteers, also took part in
the proceedings.
— A verdict of wilful murder was returned by a coro-
ner's jury, in Newcastle, against a woman named Eliza
Tate, who was alleged to have caused the death of Benson
Blacklock, a boy 2i years of age, by striking him on the
head with a coalrake.
— During a severe gale, the s.s. Hallet, from London,
ran ashore behind the South Pier at Amble, and
W. Aldridge, the mate, was washed overboard and
drowned. The Norwegian schooner Ankaltor was
wrecked at Berwick, and one of the crew was killed.
22. — The science course of the Cambridge and Durham
Universities Extension Lectures was initiated in the
Lecture Room of the Literary and Philosophical Society,
Newcastle, Mr. Ernest A. Parkyn, M.A., Cambridge,
delivering the first of a series of twelve lectures on human
physiology.
23. — In the Grand Assembly Rooms, at Barras Bridge,
Newcastle, the Rev. Frank Walters delivered the first of
a course of six lectures on the English poets and men of
letters, the chair being occupied by the Earl of Carlisle.
24. — Fifteen annuitants were elected in connection
November 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
527
with the James and Mary Elizabeth Robson's Charity for
Aged Females.
— At a conference of medical officers of health of
Northumberland, Durham, Cumberland, and Westmor-
land, a branch of the Society of Medical Officers of
Health was formed, and Dr. H. E. Armstrong, of New-
castle, was elected president.
25. — A custom, known as "Blackberry Friday, "was ob-
lerved to-day ; and there was a general holiday at the Board
Schools and other
teaching establish-
ments in Newcastle.
26. — The foundation
stone of a new Presby-
terian Church and
school, to be called the
Dall Memorial, was
laid at Bedlington by
Sir George B. Bruce,
of London.
— The first annual
meeting of the North-
ern Musicians' Benevo-
lent Society was held
in Newcastle, the trea-
surer's report showing
a credit balance of
£89.
— William Forster,
farmer, of Brown
Knowe, North Cum-
berland, was shot dead
by a man named James
Armstrong, who was
afterwards found in
his cottage with his
throat cut and quite
dead.
28. — Dr. Westcott, Bishop of Durham, laid the founda-
tion stone of a new isolation ward at the Sunderlaud In-
firmary.
29.— The thirty-third annual conference of the North of
England Temperance League was held in the Temperance
Hall, Eston, near Middlesbrough, under the presidency
of Mr. J. Backhouse, in the first instance, and of Mr. J.
J. Wood in the afternoon.
—At the Moot Hall Police Court, Newcastle, Sidney
Old, who had been extradited from the United States,
was committed to the sessions for trial on a charge of em-
bezzling the sum of £344 4s. 9d., and the further sum
of £518 4s. 9d., the moneys of the Pontoon and Dry Dock
Company at Wallsend, on the 30th of December, 1890.
— A meeting of the Executive Council of the Newcastle-
upon-Tyne Mining, Engineering, and Industrial Exhibi-
tion, 1887, was held at the offices of the Mining Insti-
tute, Mr. John Daglish presiding. The report of the
committee, dealing with the settlement of claims in con-
nection with the model dwelling, and also with the final
payments in respect of the closing of the accounts, was
adopted. It was subsequently resolved that the surplus,
amounting to £5,762, should be handed over to the Col-
lege of Physical Science : and a committee, consisting of
the chairman, Mr. Wm. Ccchrane, Mr. J. C. Ridley, and
Mr. R. Urwin, was appointed to confer with the council of
the college as to the purposes to which the fund should be
applied. Votes of thanks were passed to Lord Ravens-
worth and to Mr. John Daglish for their services as presi-
dent and chairman of the council of the Exhibition, and
also to Mr. J. J. Pace for his services as honorary
treasurer.
OCTOBER.
1.— In accordance with an engagement entered into
several months previously, the Right Hon. W. E. Glad-
THE GLADSTONE CASKET.
stone, M.P., arrived from Scotland on a short visit to
Newcastle. The train containing the eminent statesman,
his wife, and others, steamed into the Central Station
about twenty minutes
pastlOo'clock atnight.
The party were re-
ceived by Mr. John
Morley, M.P., Dr. R.
Spence Watson, the
Mayor (Mr. J. Baxter
Ellis), &c. Escorted to
the carriages outside
which were in waiting
for them, the distin-
guished visitors, amid
a scene of much ex-
citement and enthusi-
asm, were driven to
the Mansion House —
the guests of the
Mayor and Mayoress
(Mrs. Barker Ellis)
being Mr. and Mr?.
Gladstone, Mr. and
Mrs. H. Gladstone,
Mr. John Morley,
w. E, GLADSTONE, M.p. M.P., Lady Hayter,
nnd Sir Andrew Clark,
528
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f November
Mr. Gladstone's physician. On the afternoon of the
following day, Mrs. Gladstone presided for a short time
at a public meeting held in Ginnett's Circus, Bath Road,
in connexion with the Women's Liberal Federation. In
the evening, Mr. Gladstone addressed a great political
meeting in the Tyne Theatre, the chair being
oecupied by Dr. R. Spence Watson. Brief ad-
dresses were also delivered by Mr. John Morley,
M.P., Mr. T. Burt, M.P., and Sir William Harcourt,
M.P. Next morning (Oct. 3rd), at half-past 10 o'clocki
at a large and representative meeting in the Town Hall,
Mr. Gladstone received the honorary freedom of the city,
enclosed in a handsome casket, in recognition of his
merits as a man of letters and of his distinguished
services to the country, the presentation being made by
the Mayor. Mr. Gladstone and party left Newcastle by
the 12'55 p.m. train for the south, Hawarden being
reached the same night at 6 o'clock.
— On this and the following day the annual meeting of
the National Liberal Federation was held in the Town
Hall, under the presidency of Dr. R. S. Watson; the
sittings of the Women's Liberal Federation simultaneously
taking place in the Lovaine Hall, St. Mary's Place. The
chair at the outset was occupied by Mrs. Spence Watson,
in which position she was followed by other ladies.
—The Bishop of Durham (Dr. Westcott) presented the
prizes at the annual conversazione and exhibition of stu-
dents' drawings and paintings in connexion with the
Gateshead School of Art.
— The Marquis of Londonderry distributed the prizes
and certificates to the students of the Durham College of
Medicine, Newcastle, under the presidency of Dr. Heath-
—A largely attended public meeting in advocacy of the
disestablishment of the Church of England in Wales, was
held in the Town Hall, Newcastle. The chair was occu-
pied by Sir George Trevelyan, M.P., while speeches were
de ivered by several Welsh members of Parliament, and
by Major E. R. Jones, formerly of Newcastle.
3. — The first People's Concert of the season was held in
the Town Hall, Newcastle, in the presence of the Mayor,
the Sheriff, and several members of the Corporation-
The hall was crowded, and many hundreds were unable
to gain admission.
5._The annual conference of the Northumberland and
Durham Unitarian Association was held in the Church
of the Divine Unity, Newcastle, under the presidency of
the Rev. Frank Walters.
— The Bishop of Durham presented the prizes to the
successful students at the inauguration of the twenty-first
session of the Durham Colleee of Physical Science in
Newcastle.
7.— A new Congregational Church was opened in
Sorley Street, Millfield, Sunderland.
— A new hall for the use of the Presbyterians of
Heaton, Newcastle, and erected in Heaton Road at a cost
of £3,100, was opened by Mr. Councillor Button.
— The Mayor of Newcastle unveiled, in the Council
Chamber, which was re-opened after having undergone
renovation and decoration, a portrait of the late Mr. John
Clayton, who was for nearly 50 years Town Clfrk of the
borough. The picture, which was painted by Mr. R.
Wells. R.A., as a replica, was the gift of Mr. N. G.
Clayton, of The Chesters, the owner of the original.
— The annual Wesleyan Service of Song was held in
the Town Hall, Newcastle. The total strength of the
choir was 1,110 voices.
8. — A new place of worship, known as the Wesley
Centenary Wesley Chapel, Dilston Road, Newcastle,
built from designs by Mr. J. W. Taylor, architect, waa
dedicated by the Rev. E. O. Coleman.
9. — At a meeting of shareholders, it was resolved to
wind-up voluntarily the Darlington Co-operative Corn
Mill Company, Limited.
CBtncral ©ccnrrcntcs.
SEPTEMBER
13. — Serious floods were reported in Spain. At Con-
penegra, in the province of Toledo, the river Amarguillo
overflowed its banks and destroyed almost the whole town.
Nearly 1,500 lives were lost.
— Great excitement was caused by a rumour that British
troops had seized the island of Sigri, off the coast of Mity-
lene. The cause of alarm was ultimately explained to have
been due to a detachment of bluejackets having been
landed for gun and torpedo practice.
15. — A serious outbreak against the Government took
place in Guatemala. During the fighting that ensued, five
hundred persons were killed.
16. — Mr. Henry Irving publicly unveiled a memorial to
the poet Marlowe, which had been recently erected near
the Christ Church gate of Canterbury Cathedral.
19. — Ex-President Balmaceda of Chili committed suicide
by shooting himself whilst in hiding at Santiago.
30. — General Boulanger committed suicide by shooting
himself with a revolver on the grave of Madame de
Bonnemain, at the Ixelles Cemetery, Brussels.
OCTOBER.
1. — Two dynamite bombs exploded on the railway at
Rosenthal, on an embankment over which a train contain-
ing the Emperor of Austria was expected to pass shortly
afterwards.
6.— The Right Hon. W. H. Smith, the First Lord of the
Treasury and leader of the Conservative party in the
House of Commans, died as Walmer Castle, aged 66.
— Mr Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of the Irish
party in Parliament, died at Brighton, aged 45. His
death, which was quite unexpected, created a profound
sensation.
7. — Sir John Pope Hennessy died at his residence,
Rostillan Castle, County Cork, aged 57.
8. — The result of a Parliamentary election for North-
East Manchester was declared as follows : — Sir James
Fergusson (Conservative), 3,680 ; Mr. C. P. Scott (Glad-
stonian Liberal), 3,353.
11.— Mr. Parnell's remains were buried in Glasnevm
Cemetery, Dublin, enormous numbers of people being
present.
Printed by WALTER SCOTT, Felling-on-Tyne.
Chronicle
OF
NORTH-COUNTRY*LORE*AND*LEGEND
VOL. V.— No. 58.
DECEMBER, 1891.
PKICB GD.
EGINNING5
are not easy
to be got at.
The dates of
inventions and discoveries
are seldom to be given
with the precision of an
almanack ; and most as-
suredly no witness has
handed down to us the
day on which the wind-
mill first gave its wands
to the air of our island.
The Crusades, set on foot
in the eleventh century,
about a generation after
the Conquest, are some-
times said to have brought
wind-mills from the East.
The Crusaders, indeed,
like the Gulf Stream, are
credited with many boons,
and probably with more
than their due ; yet we
should be sorry to de-
prive them of the wind-
mills, seeing how desir-
able it is for these knights-
errant to have some inci-
dental set-off against
their unchristian raids.
Leaving them, there-
ore, to one side, and say-
ing nothing about the
530
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I Dfc
I 1
189L
Saracens, we keep near home — to our native Britain
— where traces have been found of the mills of Rome.
The Romans, when quitting our shores, left evi-
dences behind them how they ground the grain they
consumed during their occupation. They had hand-mills,
cattle-mills, water-mills ; but, says Beckmann, " it is very
improbable, or, much rather, false, that they had wind-
mills." When their imperial sun had set, and the Nor-
mans were playing a leading part on the public stage ;
when Harold had been slain at Hastings, and Duke
About 1850.
William reigned in his stead, then began the flutter
of the mill-sail to be heard in history, if mills had
sails so early. History, defective as it is in details,
is much given to wars and rumours of wars. It is
only " between the lines " aa it were — (using a phrase
of modern introduction) — it is only by crack and crevice
that we catch odd glimpses of the pursuits of peace ; and
yet, turbulent as is English and Scottish story, our fore-
fathers on the soil severed by the Tweed had their wits at
work, long centuries ago, on improved processes — not
overlooking the process of forcing corn inco flour. One
step leads ingenious minds to another. The braying of
wheat prepares the way for turning the quern ; the hand
relieves itself of its drudgery by the substitution of cattle ;
:ind the running river is employed for the revolution of
the wheel that moves the mill-stone. But winter comes,
and the stream is frost-bound, while the wind goes free.
The wand reduces the grain to powder when the ice
arrests the wheel. It finds the family in flour, moreover,
where there are no flowing waters to move a mill. So the
world waes on— quern and cattle-mill, water-wheel and
wand — till the time cornea when the restless sons of
men, aided by a few corfs of coal from the mine,
are travelling over land and sea by steam, and grinding
their corn by a motive power more stable than winder
water, running with equal pace round the whole circuit
of the clock.
But at what hour of the clock of time did the wind-
driven mill begin its round in Britain ? " On the
estates of the monasteries," says Mr. Cosmo Innea
(Professor of History in the University of Edinburgh),
" water-mills and wind-mills were used for grinding
corn in the thirteenth century, and previously ; though
the rude process of the hand-mill kept its ground in
some districts of Scotland to a recent period." ("Scot-
land in the Middle Ages," 1860.) Professor Innes
carries back the wind-mill to the twelfth century — the
century in whose latter years the " Boldon Buke " of
Bishop Pudsey was compiled. Pudsey's Survey was
made in the year 1183, when there were mills scattered
all over the Bishopric, from hand-mills upwards ; but
we are rarely informed as to the moving power. Oxen-
hall (Darlington) had its " horse-mill." The sites of
other mills may suggest wind or water ; and the nature
of not a few is indicated by incidental allusions. The
" mill-pond of Fishburn " (Sedgefield) is conclusive
enough. Of Stanhope we are told that "all the villans,
and all the men who hold of the farmer, make the
mill-dam and carry mill-stones." "Guy deRedworth "
—(we are now copying the translation of the Boldon
Book as it appears in the volume of the Surtees
Society edited by Canon Greenwell) — " Guy holds the
new town near Thickley in exchange for Redworth,
and renders one marc, and fnds 12 men one day.
or one man 12 days, to mow in autumn ; and he
ploughs one day, and works at the mill-dam, and goes on
the Bishop's errands, and carts wine with four oxen."
These extracts would prove of themselves, if proof were
needed, the presence of water-mills. Th*? greater nuin-
-Vf • '-- . .-w1 '•; '<&' \\> Ht s 3 »'/ ,^'XV* V
ber of the mills of the county palatine, in the twelfth
century, were doubtless of this description. But when
we read of the mills of Gateshead and Boldon, Easington
and Shotton, Wearmouth and Tunstall, Ryhope and
Burdon, we are not to assume with certainty that none of
1891.
'.""}
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
531
•them went by wind; nor need we conclude that "the
mills " of Norton, which " had eight acres and thn
meadow near the mill, "were careless of the breezes that
blew around them both. The diocese of Durham had
f».'(
wMKf "yy 'MI ,
giiSjf1
'»f"*l *[
iPW"*r|L
aBX-«klilFLIi ^ eg
In ref. moln' fullon ibidem ...............
In ref. moln' de Wolsingham ...........
In ref. moln' de Cestr' .....................
In ref. moln' de Gatesheued . ............
In ref. moln' de Ryton .....................
In uno novo inolendino aquatico facto
apud Brunhop ..............................
In ref. moln' de Bedlington ...............
In ref. moln' de Langcestr' ...............
In ref. moln' de Esington ..................
In ref. moln' de Weremue ..................
In uno novo molendino construendo
apud Neubotill .............................
In ref. moln' de Norton ad tascam .....
In solutione facta Roberto de Tevydale
carpentario pro meremio colpando ad
j. molendinum ventriticum faciendum
apud Norton .................................
0 19
5 0
0 12
0 13
0 10
7
2
7.
4
0
5 19
0 6
2 8
2 1
0 16
10
0
4
5
0
1 14
1 11
4
8
100
probably wind na we'll as water power catering for the
daily bread of the Bibhop's subjects. And shall we not
make a note of the fulling mill also? for, early in
Pudeey's pages, we find ourselves on " the land of
Reginald the fuller," whose mill, standing under
the shadows of the Cathedral, must remind the
reader of one of the ancient arts of the country,
and recall the words of Scripture, where it is
written that "His raiment became shining, ex-
ceedingly white as snow, so as no fuller on earth
can whiten them."
A hundred years after Boldon Book was framed,
came Bishop Bek. Chosen in the summer of
1283, he was consecrated in the ensuing month of
January, and died in March, 1310, having worn
his mitre upwards of a quarter of a century. A
Roll of Bek is printed in the Surtees volume that
contains the Survey of Pudsej', and gives an ac-
count of receipts and expenses of the twenty-fifth
year of his reign. It begins with the rents of
the mills of Darlington, Chester, Easington, and
Stockton Wards, including the fulling mill of
Auckland ; and as old mills must be repaired and
new ones constructed, we have a statement of the
disbursements made in this direction, not too long
to preclude its transfer to these pages : —
REFECTIONE MOLEXDINOHUW.
In refectione mtilend' d« Heighinton... £3 11 8£
In ref. molend' de Northauklaud 140
Sunmia £28 8 11£
This table comprises about a dozen of the mills of the
Bishopric, one of which, we are told, was a fulling mill,
another was a water-mill, and a third was a wind-
mill. "Robert de Tevydale," a Scotch millwright,
cutting wood tor the making of a mill to go by wind in
Norton, draws twenty shillings from the Bishop's purse
for his job. It is the first clear sight we catch of mill-
wands on the Tees.
Later than Bek, but in the same century, we have
Bishop Hatfield, who held the see from 1345 to 1381 ; and
a memorable battle — the battle of Neville's Cross — fought
in full view of the monks assembled on the Minster,
distinguished the period of his sway. A survey, similar
to that of Pudsey, was made about the close of his reign,
and is more specific than prior records as to the mills
of the district. We learn from it that Haughton,
Heighington, Killerby, Chester, Ryton, Huughton,
.'.'•' "*
J&fa
%,„
Coruforth, Morton, and Newbottle, all had water-mills.
Wolsinghain had both water and fulling mill. North
Auckland had its fulling mill ; and such a mill is also
mentioned, in connection with Sedgefield, as being near
532
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
t December
I 1891.
Cornforth. Cornforth had its water-mill. Sedgefiekl
had both water-mill and wind-mill. So, likewise,
had Gateshead. Easington, Hameldon (Wearmouth).
and Hartlepool, had wind-mills. We have thus five
wind-mills mentioned in the time Bishop Hattield ; three
fulling mills ; and numerous water-mills. There were
also other mills, the character of which is not specified,
at Lanchester and Burnhope, Wearmouth and Tunstall,
Kybope and Burden, Whickham and Swalwell, and at
Carlton, Norton, Stockton, and Hartburn. One of these
— at Norton— we know to have been a wind-mill :nore
than seventy years earlier than the date of Hatfield's ,
Survey ; and we may not too rashly surmise that mill-
wands were not in motion in several places, between the
Tyne and the Tees, long before the days of Bishop Bek.
The Conqueror may not have seen them go round when
he landed in Britain ; but if. is not unlikely that his
descendant, the builder of the Keep of Newcastle in the
twelfth century, saw the landscapes of England enlivened
by the revolving wind-mill — the four-armed giant chal-
lenging to combat all roving Don Quixotes ready for the
fray.
The fourteenth century, which gives us the evidences of
Bek and Hatfield, supplies, also, a testimony of 1344.
when, between these two bishops, Richard de Bury, that
ardent lover of books, was Count Palatine on the Wear.
In the period of this immediate predecessor of Bishop
Hatfield, the Mayor and Burgesses of Stockton sought
counsel, as to customs and privileges, from the Mayor and
Bailiffs of Newcastle, and received from them a commu-
nication in the autumn of 1344, throwing light on the sub-
ject of mills ; and it would appear, from this instructive
paper, that hand and horse-power, and the power of wind
and water, were at that time all in action on the Tyne
together, for the grinding of corn. "Every burgess,''
near F£txh,am.,i89i
said the good men of Newcastle, " may have a mill of
his own upon his own land, horse-mill, water-mill, or
wind-mill, or hand-mill. He may also have an oven or
furnace, but not to bake bread to sell ; and he inay^
receive his neighbours unto his oven, saving the right of
Our Lord the King of furnace or baikhouse." Thus, in
the days of Bek, and Bury, and Hatfield, the mill-wand
was as familiar a spectacle as the ship-sail in the dominion
of our Bishops. That there were wind-mills on the Tweed
before the battle of Neville's Cross, we learn from the
instructions given, about the year 1344, to John de Coup-
land, the stalwart Northumbrian knight who captured.
David of Scotland in 1346. He was one of the Commis-
sioners for raising forces in the northern parts, and had.
injunctions to see two ruined wind-mills repaired at Ber-
wick-upon-Tweed. (See Appendix to "The Battle of
Neville's Cross." by the late Mr. Robert White.)
"It has been often asserted," says Beckmann, "that
windmills were first invented in the East, and introduced
into Europe by the Crusaders ; but this is improbable, for
mills of this kind are not at all (or very seldom) found in
the East. There are none of them in Persia, Palestine, or
Arabia : and even water-mills are there uncommon, and
constructed on a small scale. Besides, we find wind-mills
before the Crusades, or at least at the time when they
were first undertaken." The Historian of Inventions and
Discoveries thinks it probable that wind-mills "may
have been made known to a great part of Europe, and
particularly in France and England," by returninc
Crusaders. " Mabillon mentions a diploma of the year
1105, in which a convent in France is allowed to erect
water and wind-mills (molcndina ad ventum)." And "in
the year 1143 there was in Northamptonshire an abbey
(Pipewell) situated in a wood, which in the course of one
hundred and eighty years was entirely destroyed," one
of the causes of its
destruction being
said to be, "that
in the whole
neighbourhood
there was no
house, wind or
water-mill built,
for which timber
was not taken
from this wood."
(Duedale.) In the
twelfth century,
when wind-mills
began to be more
common, a dis-
pute arose whether
the tithes of them
belonged to the
clergy ; and Pope
Celestine II. de-
FORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
533
termined the question in favour of the Church. In the
year 1332, one Bartolomeo Verde proposed to the Vene-
tians to build a wind-mill. When his plan had been
examined, a piece of ground was assigned to him, which
he was to retain in case his undertaking should succeed
within a time specified. In the year 1393, the city of
Spires caused a wind-mill to be erected, and sent to the
Netherlands for a person acquainted with the method of
.grinding by it."
Facts these, of the fourteenth century, which point to
the West, rather than to the East, for early familiarity
•with the wind-mill — a contrivance that was used in Britain
for grinding corn "in the thirteenth century and pre-
viously." Wind and water-mills were not, however, an
unmixed good. We know not how it fared with families
when grain was crushed into flour by hand or horse, but
-the baron's mill, moving by wind or water, bore heavily
•enough on his dependents. Professor Innes, in his
"Lectures on Scotch Legal Antiquities," describe-j the
various grants of the Crown, and, among others,
those " in molendinis — mills— perhaps one of the oldest
adjuncts of a barony— one of the most grievous
oppressions of the peasantry." This kind of
grant "is often amplified by the addition cum
multuris et scqudis— specifying the multure
dues of the. baron's mill, and the sucfen, as we
call the population thirled to the mill. These
• rights are the subject of very frequent trans-
actions. The neighbours fought, not only with
the miller, who was the universal enemy, but
with each other, as to their roumc and order of
•service. One curious point of the service of the
sucken was the bringing home of the mill-
stones. Considering that there were few or no
roads, the simplest arrangement was to thrust
a beam or a young tree through the hole of the
miil-stone, and then for the whole multitude to
wheel it along upon its edge— au operation of
some difficulty and danger in a rough district."
"It is a far cry to Loch A we, '"says the old pro-
verb. It is a long stretch from the hand-quern to the steam-
mill. But time bridges over the distance. The stepping-
stones of invention connect the two devices together
The rude process leads up to the more refined. The
fashion of successive generations passes away. The wind-
mill, once thought so surpassing, gives place in its turn.
In the memory of living men, the heights that face
Newcastle on the Tyne were crowned with an array of
wands, as depicted in one of the engravings of Brand.
Animated was the spectacle on the "Windmill Hills"
in bygone days — days of no far distant date. But steam
has made an end of it all. One or two towers,
their wands departed, alone remain. All is
changed on both sides of our river. The arms
that flew merrily round on Painter Heugh and
made music in every passing breeze are as silent
as the horn that sounded gaily down the steep
Side and along the Tyne Bridge of other days.
The wind-mills that nourished in Plantagenet
times sleep with the mail-coaches and the
querns.
While this paper was in course of preparation
(1874), a wind-mill, not numbered among our
acquaintances before, rose up on the shores of
Jarrow Slake, and was introduced to us by a
fourth volume of the Register of Richard de Kel-
lawe, successor of Antony Bek in the see of Dur-
ham. The editor, Sir Thomas Duffus Hardy, Deputy
Keeper of the Public Records, recalls in his Preface the
days when Edward I. was at war with the Scots, and
the Bishop of Durham was at war with the Prior. Bek
had compelled the tenantry of the Prior and Convent to
follow him across the Borders ; and on one of these
occasions they came home without leave. Their plea was
that they were not bound to do service in the field beyond
the patrimony of St. Cuthbert. Their obligation to fight
was limited by the Tees on the South and the Tyne on
534
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
TDK-ember
1 1891.
the North. But the Bishop thought otherwise ; he would
not listen to the limitation ; and several of the offenders
were thrown into prison. Sore was the quarrel between
the Prelate and the Prior. Bek besieged and battered
his neighbours ; destroyed their aqueduct ; broke down
the gates of the cloisters ; dragged the Prior, Richard de
Hoton, into prison. Long is the indictment piled up by
the Prior against the Bishop ; but there is only one of its
ounts which concerns our story. Hoton charges Bek
"with dismantling his wind-mill at Jarewe." The feud
of the year 1305 discloses the fact that about the time
when Norton had its wind-mill on the banks of the Tees.
Jarrow had its
wind-mill on the
Ty n e, and
strengthens us m
our faith that be-
tween these two
rivers there were
doubtless wind-
mills in the Bishop-
ric elsewhere.
The miller was
grinding corn by
wind on the south-
ern side of the
Tyne m the reign
of Edward I,
When did he begin
the use of his
windmill on the
northern shore?
Mathew'a map of
1610 pictures a wind-mill in the reign of James I.,.
outside the walls near Pandon Gate; and there
was also one within the walls — we know not precisely
how many years before. The 38th volume of the Surtees
Society; consisting of "Wills and Inventories," takes us,
on the 8th of November, 1592, to the sick bed of Alder-
man Mark Shafto, Sheriff of Newcastle in 1573, Mayor
in 1578. The prosperous merchant and coalowner is
making his will in "the house (he says) wherein I nowe
dwell, scituate in a streete called the Side"; and to his
nephew and namesake, Mark Shafto the younger, he
bequeaths his "mill, standinpe in a certaine place called
the Painter heughe." Thus, then, in the latter years of
Queen Elizabeth, the mill-wands of the merchant were
moving round— now in haste, now leisurely, as the wind
listed— where the lofty railway arch of to-day bestrides
the confluence of the modern and ancient thoroughfares of
Dean Street and the Side !
JAMES CLEFHAX (THE LATE).
The history of wind-mills has been traced for us by
Mr. Clephan in the foregoing pages. It remains,
therefore, to add merely a few particulars about the
remnant of old mill-stacks that are still extant in the
immediate neighbourhood of Newcastle, Gateshead, and
Shields. Sketches of a few of these structures, most of
them not without picturesque features even when robbed
of their flying sails, have been specially drawn to accom-
pany this article. Of all the wind-mills which once gave
animation to the district, only one is now in full opera-
tion—that at Chimney Mills, Newcastle. All the rest
have been dismantled, left to fro to wreck, or converted to
other uses. Several of them, it will be observed, are now
dwelling houses for the poor. The Windmill Hills at
December!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
535
Gatesliead, topped as they were by a long line of graceful
looking objects, must have presented, when Brand was
writing his "History of Newcastle," a remarkably
interesting appearance. Of the great array of wind-mills
which are figured in one of the plates to Brand's work,
the shattered and stunted remains of two alone are yet to
be seen on the elevated ground to which they gave a
name that will last for centuries. Billy Mill, near North
Shields, has imparted its name to the hamlet which
has grown up around it. It was from the neighbour-
hood of this Tillage that Killingworth Moor, whereon
Newcastle races were formerly run, extended west-
ward to Long Benton. The remarkable looking
structure which was still in existence near North
Shields about 1850 shows what attractive additions to
the landscape of Tyneside have been lost by the sub-
stitution of steam for wind in the grinding of our corn.
Even more picturesque than the object figured on page
630, it that other old mill of which a drawing (p. 529), was
made by the elder T. M. Richardson. The locality of
this quaint and striking structure is not known to us ;
but we have to thank the Rev. J. R. Boyle for the
loan of the beautiful etching from which our sketch
was taken. To obtain even a momentary glance at
such a picture as old T. M. loved to paint must have
been worth the toil and trouble of a considerable
journey. And now we can only lament the rapid dis-
appearance of the mill-wands that lent in old time so
charming an aspect and variety to English life and
scenery.
etc.
iUnftttiot,
URN HALL, situated near the city of
Durham, was one of the residences in the
County Palatine which was, at one time,
supposed to have been the birthplace of
Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Even the husband of the
poetess had no certain knowledge on the subject. All
doubt concerning it, however, as may be read in the
Monthly Chronicle for 1889, pp. 303-378, was removed
when the Rev. Canon Burnet discovered from the register
of the parish of Kelloe that Elizabeth Barrett was born
and baptised at Coxhoe Hall. But Burn Hall was the
birthplace of another Elizabeth, who was almost as re-
markable a person as Elizabeth Barrett herself.
Elizabeth Smith was born at Burn Hall in the
December of 1776. She was the daughter of George
Smith, a gentleman of considerable means at the period
of her birth. It would seem that the family, when
Elizabeth entered her sixth year, moved into Suffolk,
whence, three years later, having inherited a splendid
property in the valley of the Wye, not for from Tintern
Abbey, they migrated to that district. When Elizabeth
entered her sixteenth year, however, misfortune over-
took her parents through the failure of a banking-house.
For some time after this event, they were subjected to
much distress and even privation. The father, mean-
while, obtained a commission in the army, joined his
536
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I December
I 1891.
regiineut in Ireland, and eventually rose to the rank of
colonel. Residing alternately in Ireland and various
parts of England, Elizabeth, her motlier, and some
other meirbers of the family eventually settled down
at Tent Lodge, a villa situated in a beautiful spot
at the head of Conislon Lake, no great distance
which ultimately caused her death on the 7th of August,
1806, at the early age of 29. The latter months of her
life were spent mostly in a tent that had been pitched
upon the lawn, where she could receive fresh air from the
lake and see the beautiful scenery of the mountains. It
was from this circumstance, we believe, that the house
ever afterwards came to be known as Tent Lodge. The
unfortunate lady was buried in Hawkshead Churchyard,
where a small tablet of white marble was inscribed with a
scanty record of her virtues and talents.
But the memory of Elizabeth Smith has happily been
pieserved in a biographical sketch of great length and
interest which Thomas de Quincey contributed to one
of the magazines of the day, and which Professor
Masson has reprinted in his collected edition of the
works of the great opium-eater. Moreover, the life of
Elizabeth Smith, together with fragments from her prose
and verse, was published in two volumes at Bath in 1809
by an early friend of hers, Miss H. M. Bowdler. It is to
De Quincey's account, however, that readers of the pre-
sent day will naturally turn for what they may want to
know about his accomplished friend. "It appears," he
says, "that she made herself mistress of the French, the
Italian, the Spanish, the Latin, the German, the Greek,
and the Hebrew languages. She had no inconsiderable
knowledge of the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Persic.
She was a good geometrician and algebraist. She was a
very expert musician. She drew from nature, and had
an acurate knowledge of perspective. Finally, she
"•• /./. .,. •
i »te< ';; $•* ';<— '
Mralt&IH, " /S« fc»«»S«inMll!hi&li.»*i "'' "'
from Brantivood, the residence of Mr. Ruskin.* It was
while residing at Coniston that Elizabeth Smith caught a
sudden chill, which made her an invalid for life, and
* If we are not mistaken, Tent Lodge was occupied for a short
time about I860 by the family of Alfred Tennyson.
manifested an early talent for poetry ; but, from pure
modesty, destroyed most of what she had written, as
soon as her acquaintance with the Hebrew models had
elevated the standard of true poetry in her mind, so as to
disgust her with what she now viewed as the lameness
December!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
537
»nd inefficiency of her own performauces." With all
these acquirements Elizabeth Smith was perfectly
From Harper's Maftulne. Copyright, 18S1, by Harper i Brothers.
THOMAS DE QUINCEY.
feminine in lier disposition. "She paid," we are told,
"particular attention to economy. No young lady
dressed with more elegance and simplicity. She made
a gown, or any other article of dress, with as
much skill as she explained a problem in Euclid or
a passage in Hebrew." De Quincey himself describes
how, when the family found themselves suddenly trans-
ferred to a miserable cabin in Ireland — "dirty, narrow,
and nearly quite unfurnished" — Elizabeth changed her
dripping garments (for they had travelled all day on
horseback in pouring rain), donned an apron, and in no
long time gathered together a very comfortable dinner for
her parents — "amongst other things, a currant tart
which she had herself made iu a tenement absolutely un-
furnished with every kitchen utensil." It was this sin-
gularly talented young person who translated the memoirs
of the German poet Klopstock, and rendered the Book
of Job into English in such a way that one of the
best qualified judges of the time, says De Quincey, de-
scribed it as "conveying more of the character and mean-
ing of the Hebrew, with fewer departures from the idiom
of the English, than any other translation whatever that
we possess." " I have often conversed, " adds De Quincey,
"with Mrs. Hannah More about her, and I never failed
to draw forth some fresh anecdote illustrating the vast
extent of her knowledge, the simplicity of her character,
the gentleness of her manners, and her unaffected
humility."
Burn Hall, of which, and the scenes in its grounds, we
give two illustrations, is now the property of Mr. Bryan
J. Salvin. It is a conspicuous mansion, facing the old
Sunderiand Bridge at Croxdale, and occupies a bold and
prominent position as seen from the North-Eastern Rail-
way, immediately after leaving Croxdale Station on the
journey northwards.
'-: '<
538
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
f December
t 1831.
at
atrtt
STtorrtt.
elje IjeaiJlamjf,
LEADERS IN CHUKCH AND STATE.
ITHIN living memory the name of Heaci-
lam was a name to conjure by in the North
of England. One of those who bore it,
Alderman Headlam of Newcastle, was for
half a century at the head of his profession aa a
physician, and leader- of the Whig party in Tyneside
politics; his brother was archdeacon of Richmond and
rector of Wycliffe ; his nephew was a representative of
Newcastle in Parliament ; his son was for many years
postmaster of the town. Yet at the present day not a
single person bearing this time-honoured cognomen is to
be found upon Tyneside. Like that of Brandling, Fife,
and Doubleday, once so popular and powerful, the name
has dropped out of our public life, and is only to te found
in the records of the past. Such are the transitions and
fluctuations of human greatness and worldly aggran-
disement !
Early in local history the Headlams appear. Henry
Headlam was vicar of Newcastle in 1386. Thomas Head -
lam witnessed, in 1421, a deed by which John Dolphanby
endowed the chantry of St, John in the church of Gates-
head. Thomas Headlam (possibly the same person) was
Sheriff of Newcastle in the municipal year 1444-45, and
an exporter of wood, on board the good ship Peter of
Newcastle, in 1450. Whether the modern family claimed
descent from these old-time worthies it were profitless to
inquire. Foi the purpose of this menrjir, it is sufficient
to know that in the latter half of last century the repre-
sentative of the family upon the Tyne was Thomas
Emerson Headlam, a shipbuilder from Stockton, whose
yard was at the South Shore, and whose residence was
near the Tolbooth, Gateshead ; that he died in October,
1821, at the great age of 96 years ; and that he was the
father of the archdeacon and the alderman, and the pro-
genitor of all the Headlams with whom local history
makes us acquainted.
THOMAS EMERSON HEADLAM, M.P.
Archdeacon Headlam, rector of Wycliffe, had a family
of six sons and five daughters. The eldest son, born on the
20th June, 1813, and named after his grandfather and
uncle, Thomas Emerson, was sent to Shrewsbury School
to receive his preliminary education. From thence he
proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, where, in 1836,
Bishop Colenso's year, he was sixteenth wrangler.
When he left college, being intended for the law, he
was entered as a student at the Inner Temple, and
the same year that he took his M.A. degree (1839) he-
was called to the bar.
Following the example of his uncle, the alderman,
young Mr. Headlam took a keen interest in polities' ;
following him also in political preferences, he allied
himself to the party that, having given the country
the Reform Bill, looked to the new electorate to assist
them in accomplishing still further reforms. It is too-
much to suppose that at this early stage of his career
he entertained the idea of becominar a candidate for
the borough of Newcastle. But it is a fact that th&
VV hig party, flushed by their victories in the Reformed
Council of 1826, had made up their minds to obtain
as speedily as possible a monopoly of the Parliamen-
tary as well as the municipal representation of the
town, and that young men of good local family con-
nections were the only candidates likely to fulfil their
expectations. They had attempted to effect their purpos&
in 1837, with Mr. Charles John Bigcre as second candidate,
and failed ; the retiring members, Mr. William Ord, Whig,
and Mr. John Hodgson Hinde, Independent Tory, being
re-elected. At the next election, in 1841, they were not
prepared for a contest ; but in the summer of 1847, when
Parliament was dying a natural death, the opportunity-
came. Alderman Headlam had introduced his nephew
to the party leaders ; he was considered to be an exe^p-
tionally strong candidate ; and with him they determined
to tight. Parliament was not expected to break up till
the end of July, yet on the 5th of that month Mr.
Headlam issued an address to the constituency, and
enteied upon a vigorous personal canvass. For some-
December 1
1891. I
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
539
reason or other Mr. Hodgson Hinde declined to fight for
his party in this contest, and the gauntlet thrown down
by the Whigs was taken up by his brother, Mr. Richard
Hodgson, one of the members for Berwick. Exchanging
candidates after a contest has begun is akin to swopping
horses in mid-stream, and the usual result followed. Mr.
Headlam carried everything before him. On the day of
nomination, Mr. Ord and he won the show of hands ; on
the day of election they headed the poll. When the
declaration was made by the returning officer, jubilant .
Whigs read the official figures with noisy demonstrations
-Ord, 2,196; Headlam, 2,068 ; Hodgson, 1,680.
With the Whigs the representation of Newcastle
remained unbroken for eighteen years. During that
time six elections occurred, and in five out of the six
efforts were made to break down their supremacy. But
all in vain. Whether their opponents were Tories or
Radicals, the Whigs held their own. And although
changes did occur by the substitution of one Whig for
another, yet during seven-and-twenty years Mr. Headlam
retained his seat. At the election in 1852, Mr. William
Henry Watson, leader of the Northern Circuit and after-
wards judge, entered the contest, and was defeated by
Mr. J. F. B. Blackett. Mr. Peter Oarstairs was equally
unsuccessful in 1857 ; Mr. P. A. Taylor, Mr. William
Cuthbert, and Mr. Carstairs were easily beaten in 1859.
It was not until 1865, when Mr. Joseph Cowen (after-
wards Sir Joseph Cowen), wrested the second seat from
Mr. Somerset Beaumont, that the strength of the Whig
party in Newcastle was seriously shaken ; and it was not
until February, 187*, when Mr. Headlam himself suffered
defeat, that their predominancy in local politics was com-
pletely broken up.
The impartial biographer, recording merely facts and
dates, indulges in neither personal nor political criticism.
It is enough in this place to state that Mr. Headlam's
political career, if not brilliant, was respectable. He
took in hand the question of mortmain ; obtained, in
1852, the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire
into the matter ; and was chiefly instrumental in procur-
ing the adoption of the Charitable Trusts Act, by which
the law relating to pious uses was placed upon a better
foundation. He accepted office in the Liberal Govern-
ment which came into power in 1859 and lasted till 1866,
his post being that of Judge- Advocate-General.
Upon his defeat in Newcastle, Mr. Headlarn retired to
his estate at Gilmonby, near Barnard Castle, and devoted
hiii. self to the discharge of his duties as a, magistrate of
the county of Durham and the North Riding of York-
shire. The loss of his seat, which he had occupied
uninterruptedly in six Parliaments, told upon his health.
Ordered abroad in the winter of 1875, he proceeded as far
aa Calais, and there, on the 3rd December, he died.
ALDERMAN HEADLAM, OF NEWCASTLE.
Thomas Emerson Headlam, the alderman — Dr. Head-
lam, as he was more familiarly called --was born at Gates-
head, on the 4th of June, 1777, and received his early
education at the Royal Free Grammar School of New
castle. In due course, being designed for the pro-
fession of medicine, he was sent to Edinburgh Univer-
sity. Taking his degree in the year 1800, he commenced
1 e ;i
did i
to practice at Durham, but, being appointed one of the-
physicians to the Infirmary, upon the resignation in 1804-
of Dr. John Clark, founder of the Dispensary, he
removed to Newcastle.
Settling down to a steady and piogressive practice, Dr.
Headlam took up his freedom of the Shipwrights'
Company, and interested himself in local politics and
public affairs. At the election of 1820, when the friends
of the Scott family brought forward a son of the
future Lord Stowell to oppose the retiring members, he
went on the hustings, and proposed the re-election of Sir
Matthew White Ridley. From that time he devoted
himself to the promotion of the interests of the Whig
party. Throughout the great struggle for Reform he
was a staunch supporter of Earl Grey, and although dis-
playing neither the enthusiasm of Fife, nor the sarcasm
of Attwood, and lacking both the fire of Larkin and the
eloquence of Philipson, he was able by his tact, culture,
and social position to render effectual service to the
agitation.
The position that he had taken up in politics kept Dr.
Headlam outside the close preserves of the old Cor-
poration of Newcastle. But, as soon as the Municipal
Reform Act had opened the doors of the Council to
the ratepayers at large, he was nominated a councillor
for North St. Andrew's Ward, and returned at the top
of the poll. At the first meeting of the newly-constituted,
body he gained the highest place but one amongst the
540
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I Derember
1 1891.
elected alJermen, and, taking his seat in the Council
Chamber, began to exercise an influence, potent in
character and prompt in action, upon municipal affairs.
Working generally with Fife, Losh, Doubleday, and
the Reformers in the Council, he assisted to maintain
the supremacy of his party in the higher departments
of corporate office. The writer of the "Corporation
Annual" (1S36), dedicated to him as "T. E. H., Esq.,
Leader of the Clique," makes it appear that the main-
tenance of his party in power was the mainspring of
Dr. Headland's municipal career, and the doctor un-
doubtedly laid himself open to the charge. In a speech
"of some length" he supported the motion by which
the Mayor under the old regime, Mr. J. Lionel Hood,
a Tory, was ejected from his seat and replaced by Mr.
Charles John Bigge, a Whig. He also it was who,
the following year, moved and carried the election of
Mr. Joseph Lamb, the second Whig Mayor. And it
was he who, for the third Mayoralty in the new
Corporation, allowed himself to be nominated. There
was a reason for his action on this occasion. The British
Association was coming to Newcastle ; a man of culture
was needed to represent the town worthily, and the
doctor was chosen unanimously.
President of the Medical School in connection with the
University of Durham, acknowledged head of the profes-
sion, and leader of his party, Dr. Headlam held a position
resembling that which aforetime had been occupied
by the Blacketts and the Ridleys. Into the later period
of his long career, with its trials and troubles, it its un-
necessary to enter. Reverses of fortune, to which no act
of his contributed, cast their shadow over the evening of
his life. Proud and reserved, he bore them with the
dignity which characterised the brighter days of his
youth and prime. Once in his declining years an oppor-
tunity arose by which his quondam political associates
might, have retrieved his fortunes, and crowned them-
selves with honour in the process. The mastership
of the Mary Magdalene Hospital fell vacant. Dr.
Headlam would have filled the post with credit to him-
self and to them. But, in spite of appeals and protests,
they passed over their venerable and learned fellow-
townsman, and appointed a stranger ! No word of
complaint, no sign of resentment at the shocking ingrati-
tude, of his old colleagues came from Dr. Ueadlam. He
absented himself from the Council Chamber while the
controversy raged, but as soon as it was over he resumed
his round of duty, and took his share in municipal work.
In 1862 he accompanied to Cambridge the Newcastle
deputation which invited the British Association to
revisit the Tyne, and before that second visit had taken
place, in his 87th year, he led a deputation to London to
invite the Royal Agricultural Society to hold another
exhibition in Newcastle. He was in his place at the
meeting of the Town Cuuncil on the 3rd of February,
1864, and moved that loyal and congratulatory addresses
should be presented to the Queen, and the Prince of
Wales, " upon the auspicious birth of a son who might
at some future day ascend the throne of these realms."
That was his last public appearance. A fortnight later,
on the 18th of the month, he died, and on the 24th his
remains were honoured by a public funeral.
fiobert floats*.
ORIGIN'ATOB OP ST. NICHOLAS'S STEEPLE.
Few of the eminent men whose public services have
been described in these sketches have left to posterity
a memorial of their good works so lofty and so durable
as that with which Robert Rhodes enriched the North of
England when he originated the beautiful lantern tower
of St. Nicholas' Cathedral, Newcastle. "It lifteth up a
head of Majesty, as high above the rest as the Cypresse
Tree above the low Shrubs," writes Gray inthe"Choro-
graphia." "Supposed, as to its Model, to be the most
curious in the whole Kingdom," continues Bourne.
"Surpassing the Cathedral of St. Sophia at Constanti-
nople, the Mosque of Sultan Saladin at Jerusalem, the
Church of St. Peter at Rome, and even the Temple of
Minerva at Athens, "adds one of the Vicars, in a fit of
generous, and apparently genuine, enthusiasm.
Gray tells us that this " stately high Stone Steeple,
with many Piuakles," and its "stately Stone Lantherne,
standing upon foure Stone Arches," was "builded by
Robert de Rhodes, Lord Priour of Tynemouth, in Henry
6 dayes." Bourne, doubting the accuracy of this state-
ment, was "rather inclinable to believe that one Robert
Rhodes, Esq., who lived in this Town in the Reign of
Henry the 6th, was the true Person." Subsequent in-
quiry has confirmed Bourne's conjecture. It is true that
there was a Prior of Tynemouth named Robert Rhodes
in the latter part of Henry the Sixth's reign, but there is
no proof that he troubled himself in the slightest degree
with matters relating to Newcastle or its churches. By
common consent, therefore, the erection of St. Nicholas'
lantern-crowned steeple is ascribed to Robert Rhodes,
Esq. Fortunately for us, an accomplished local antiquary,
Mr. W. H. D. Longstaffe, has gathered together suffi-
cient details of the life and doings of this great benefactor
to form an interesting biography.
Robert Rhodes, "learned in the law," was a sou of
John Rhodes, of Newcastle, and Isabel, his wife.
Besides the lawyer, John Rhodes had a son named after
himself, and either he, or that son, succeeding the great
merchant, Roger Thornton, was Mayor of Newcastle
from Michaelmas, 1429, to the same date in 1432.
Robert Rhodes did not accept municipal office. In 1427
he was elected one of the representatives of Newcastle
ir. Parliament, and he occupied the same position in
seven successive elections — perhaps in eight, for the
returns of the Parliament which met in 1445 (the
eighth after his first appointment) have not been
December!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
541
preserved, and the names of the Newcastle mem-
bers are unknown. While he was thus occupied,
before 1435, he marriel Joan, daughter and heiress of
Walter Hawyck, of Little Eden, near Easington. This
lady was connected, in some way or other, with William
Hoton, of Hardwick, in the parish of Sedgefield, steward
of the convent of Durham, in whose will, dated 1445,
"Robert Rodes, and Joan his wife, "and Roger Thornton,
appear with separate remainders. Shortly after his mar-
riage his name occurs in the Rolls of Bishop Langley
(1436) as a commissioner, with Roger Thornton, Sir
William Eure, and six others, to take inquisition con-
cerning all persons seised of lands, rents, offices, &c., of
the annual value of 100s. and upwards, and, therefore,
liable to the payment of a new subsidy granted to the
King. The following year, described as Robert Rhodes,
of the parish of All Saints in Newcastle, he conveyed
property at Gateshead to one William Abletson, and Agnes
his wife, and about the same time he became lessee
for forty years of the manor of Wardley, near Jarrow,
formerly a demesne residence of the Priors of Durham.
In 1440, Henry VI. appointed him Controller of Customs
at Newcastle.
Loans of money to the convent at Durham and other
acts of devotion to the Church procured for Robert
Rhodes in August, 1444, a grant of "Letters of
Fraternity" from the Prior and the brethren, entitling
him to be addressed as " brother," and to participate in
all masses, vigils, fasts, prayers, divine offices, and other
works of piety performed by the monks and their
successors during his lifetime, and after his death to the
usual suffrages of prayer for the welfare of his soul. The
following year, on the decease of William Hoton, the
Prior wrote to Sir Thomas Neville, brother of the Bishop,
suggesting that Hoton's successor in the stewardship of
the convent should be "a learned man, "as Hoton was,
and desiring him to "charge Robert Rhodes, my Lord's
servant, and yours, and my trusty friend, to be our
steward, for we had never more need." Sir Thomas com-
plied with the Prior's wish, and Rhodes, accepting the
appointment, was assigned an official residence at Dur-
ham, in the South Bailey, near the Watergate. Soon
after his appointment he presented to the shrine of St.
Cuthbert a handsome cross of gold, " containing portions
of the pillar to which Christ was bound, and of the rock
in which his grave was hewn," and in return, to make his
occasional residence within the precincts agreeable, the
grateful monks obtained for him license to construct a
little door, "in the outer wall of the castle of Durham, in
the southern bailey, opposite his mansion there, and con-
tiguous to the garden thereof, and to have free ingress
and egress thereby." In 1451, with Roger Thornton the
younger, he became a trustee of the possessions of William
Johnson's chantry (St. Catherine's) in St. Nicholas'
Church, Newcastle, and the same year acquired the vill
of Whetlawe, or Wheatley Hill, near Wingate. During all
this time he retained his Newcastle home, as appears from
a letter addressed to him in June, 1456, by the Prior of
Durham, desiring him, being on business in London, to
purchase two hogsheads of the best " Malvesye" that could
be bought there, and send it, in his own name, to his
"house in Newcastle."
His wife, Joan Hawyck, dying childless, Robert
Rhodes married Agnes , a lady whose surname has
not been discovered. The date of the marriage is un-
known, but it was before September, 1459, on the 14th of
which month, Agnes, wife of John Bedford, of Hull, and
widow successively of John Strother and Richard
Dalton, of Newcastle, bequeathed "to Agnes Rhodes"
a girdle, embroidered in silver gilt. About this
time, prior to the deposition of Henry VI. (1461), whose
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/December
\ 1891.
license was obtained for the purpose, he and his second
•wife refounded the chantry of St. John Baptist and St.
John Evangelist, in St. Nicholas' Church, to find a priest
for ever to say mass daily, and pray for their souls and the
souls of all Christian people.
Robert Rhodes died on the 20th April, 1474,
without issue. His estate at Little Eden went,
tinder settlements, to the Trollop family ; Wheatley
Hill and the rest of his property descended to his
heiress, Alice, daughter of his brother John.
At what time Robert Rhodes set up the stately
crown of St. Nicholas' is unknown. That its
erection was due to his munificence can hardly be
doubted. "A little worse for smoke and substitu-
tions," writes Mr. Longstaffe, "there it stands, a
joy ; and, aloft in the groining of the coeval tower
•which supports it, we read, 'Orate pro anirna
Roberti Kodes.'" The same prayer, and shields
bearing Rhodes's arms, were at one time to be seen
in the churches of All Saints and St. John. When
All Saints was rebuilt, these memorials disappeared.
At St. John's one of the shields decayed, and an
attempt was made to reproduce it. "But," as
the late Mr. James Clephan wrote, "not long had
the new shield and inscription occupied the place of
the old ere an iconoclastic chisel was raised against
the legend, and 'Orate pro anima' fell before its
edge — leaving the grammar of ' Roberti Rodes ' to
shift as it might. 'This was the most unkinde^t
cut of all '—an indignity which might well have
been spared to the escutcheon of Robert Rode.i."
1337 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, of which he
subsequently became a fellow. For two years he held the
professorship of English Literature at the London Uni-
versity College. In November, 1845, he was called to the
bar (Middle Temple), and travelled the Northern Circuit
STaylcrr, tire 8Tftirtf
MONO tho many brilliant men who have
controlled the destinies of Punch, is one who
belonged to the North-Country. We allude,
of course, to Tom Taylor, who, upon the death
of Shirley Brooks in 1874, became editor of the great
comic journal. Considering that his reign was of an
exceptionally successful and genial, character, it may not
be amiss if we briefly indicate a few of the leading events
in his life.
Tom Taylor was born on October 19, 1817, in a house
in the High Street, Sunderland. Subsequently the family
lived for many years in Union Street, their house occupy-
ing a site now covered by the north end of the Central
Railway Station platform. Tom's father was a brewer to
business; and his mother, though English-born, was of
German extraction. For several years Tom attended Dr.
Towers's Academy in William Street. He then went to
Glasgow University, where he studied two sessions. In
TOM TAYLOR.
until 1850, when he was appointed Assistant-Secretary
to the Bourd of Health. The Board was reconstructed in
1854, and he became secretary, which position he tilled
until the abolition of the department, when his services
were transferred to the Local Government Office — a de-
partment of the Home Office which the Act of 1866
created.
It was in early life th.it Tom Taylor gave evidence of
his love for the drama. A loft over a brewer's stable con-
stituted his first theatre, and his play-fellows were the
dramatit penona'. His first attempt at dramatic com-
position was a rhymed extravangaza, written in conjunc-
tion with Albert Smith and Charles Kenny. The piece
was performed in 1846, and from this time forward
Taylor wrote continuously for the stage The best known
of his dramatic pieces, which number over one hundred,
are "New Men and Old Acres," "Masks and Faces"
(in collaboration with Charles Reade), "Still Waters Run
Deep," and " The Ticket of Leave Man."
Tom Taylor has been pronounced the first dramatist of
his day, so far as general appreciation goes ; and if, in
writing pieces, he made it his chief business to construct
a popular play, his dramas are at the same time remark-
able for their literary excellence. Besides writing plays,
Taylor was a very frequent contributor to the light maga •
December"!
1SS1. J
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
543
zine literature of the day. He also edited the "Auto-
biography of B. R. Haydon," the " Autobiography of C. R.
Leslie, R.A.," and the "Life and Times of Sir Joshua
Reynolds." In 1872 he withdrew from official life, and
two years afterwards accepted the position of editor of
Punch.
Occasionally Tom Taylor appeared with success in
amateur theatricals. Among his hits were the
character of Adam in •' As You Like It " and that of
Jasper in "A Sheep in Wolf's Clothing." He was like-
wise an amateur painter of no mean order, and for many
years acted as art critic to The Times.
Tom Taylor, who retained to the last a strong affection
for his native town, died on July 12, 1880, at Lavender
Sweep, Wandsworth, London. During hia career, he
frequently wrote articles for the Sunderland Herald, his
contributions to that paper being sent, one of hia intimate
friends states, purely out of love for Sunderland.
A splendid portrait of Mr. Taylor, executed by H.
Fleuss, and presented by his widow, is hung in the
Subscription Library, in Fawcett Street, Sunderland. It
was sent to Mr. Edward Dapper Robson, president
of the Library. The frame bears this inscrip-
tion : — " Tom Taylor : born in this town October 19th,
1817 : died in London July 12th, 1880. Presented
by his wife, Laura W. Taylor, to the Sunderland Sub-
scription Library, an institution ever associated in his
mind with the happy recollections of his early days."
The following letter, addressed to Mr. Robson, accora-
i anied the gift: —
October 24th. 1883. 5. London Road,
St. John;s Wood, W.C.
Dear Sir, — I have in my possession a full-lenerth por-
trait of my dear husband, which I should feel gratified to
present to the Library of Sunderland, a place beyond all
others intimately and interestingly associated with his
early youth and studies, :md where it would be seen and
appreciated by his fellow-townsmen. My brother-in-law,
Arnold, at my request, mentiomd the subject to you
during his late visit to Sunderland, and he tells me you
expressed yourself on the subject in a way most gratifying
to the feelings of myself, my son, and daughter. I there-
fore write to you, as president of the Library, to beg you
to accept the picture as a record (imperfect, it is true, but
still bearing many traits of the beloved original) of one
whose memory Sunderland must be proud to honour and
cherish. — Yours sincerely, LAURA W. TAYLOR.
TRIBE of queer-looking dwarfish elves or
demons, closely related to the Norse Dwergar
and German Zwerge, who had their generic
name given to them from their being so very deformed,
cross-grained, and ugly ('rorn the Teutonic zwerch, quer,
meaning cross, oblique, awry), were once supposed to
haunt the Simonside Hills, which lie in the centre of
Northumberland, between Rothbury and Elsdon.
They were oiten said to be heard and seen by the
country people in the olden time, especially by the shep-
herd*, whose vocation led them to be out late at night at
lambing-tiine or on the appearance of a storm among
these bleak, heath-covered hills, almost worthy to be
called mountains, since the clouds frequently rest on their
summits.
Some time during last century, so runs the tale, one
person, bolder than his neighbours, who had never
happened to fall in with any of these supernatural beings
during his nocturnal perambulations, and who, in fact,
did not believe in their existence, went out one night on
purpose to challenge their appearance, and ascertain who
and what they really were, if, as he certainly did not
expect, they chose to show themselves. Dare-devils of
this sort were not uncommon in that age, any more than
they are now ; but their deficiency in the bump of cau-
tiousness was apt to lead them at times into wild if not
perilous adventures ; and so it fell out in this case.
Our adventurer knew the neighbourhood well, and felt
assured that he would soon come safely back, after having
satisfied himself that the dwarfs were a pure myth ; that
the noises alltged to be made by them were really made
by moss-bum u.ers and heather-bleaters, or by buzzards,
shrikes, bitterns, and wild-geese flying past ; and that
those who thought they had seen them had either mis-
taken in their panic some weird-looking natural object in
the dark for an uncanny elve. or been telling downright
tibs to astonish the weak-minded natives. He had him
self one night heard "Roarie," when going through a
thick, dark plantation, and had afterwards clearly ascer-
tained that redoubtable boggle to be neither more nor less
than un old owl.
Wrapped in his plaid, and furnished with a stout stalf,
he wandered about for some time, but saw nothing por-
tentous. At last, before wending his way homeward, his
fancy took him to pretend that he was lost, and so he lustily
shouted, "Tint ! tint !" in the old Northumbrian vernacu-
lar. Immediately a light shone towards him. like a
candle in a shepherd's cottage window ; and he set oat for
the place with great care, as the ground was rough and
the night dark. He soon came to a deep hollow, from
which turf or peat had been dug, and which was now
filled with mud and water. This stayed his progress, for
he was resolved that it should be no Slough of Despond
for him. So, raising a piece of turf lying at his feet, he
threw it into the moss-hagg— splash '. The imps, it would
seem, thought he had fallen in, and that he would
assuredly be suffocated among the filthy mud ; and there-
fore, their devilish purpose having been accomplished, out
went their light. The conqueror, a- he deemed himself
to be, was overjoyed at his victory, though won at the
expense of his hitherto stubborn iccredulity ; for now,
indeed, it really seemed that dwarfs there were, and that,
like the murderous wreckers on some parts of the British
coast, they hung out false lights to wile wanderers to their
doom. Turning on his heel, therefore, he began to pro-
ceed homewards ; bat, not satisfied with what he had so
544
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f December
[ 189L
cleverly accomplished, and anxious, moreover, to have
something further to tell his wondering neighbours, he
again began to cry with all his might, "Tint ! tint !"
But now, lo and behold ! three little demons came up in
hard pursuit of him, with bowed legs, scrasgy arms, and
distorted features, and holding lighted torches in their
(liny hands, as if they were wishful to get a clear view of
their daring foe. No wonder he took to his heels ; but
before he had run many yards, he found himself sur-
rounded by a great crowd of elves, each with a torch in
one hand an-J a club in the other.
They brandished their weapons as if they would hinder
his flight and drive him back into the slough; but he
turned and charged them, staff in hand, and with its
oaken weight smote the foremost to the earth — at least so
he t'lought, for they instantly vanished. Alack ! it was
only to come back again as quickly. His well-aimed
blow had fallun upon nothing palpable; and out of his
reach, from the surrounding darkness, new swarms ap-
peared, larger and more frightful than before. His
valour at last began to wane— not because he was physic-
ally weakened, but because the grim, weird faces which
wove not of earthly mould, struck like fiery darts into his
so-jl, and paralysed him with something worse than fear
— with horror indescribable. In this condition he sank
down until daybreak, and only recovered his senses when
the light arose, and he could find his way home — "a
sadder and a wiser man."
On another occasion, according to tradition, a traveller
found himself benighted in these wild regions, and, follow-
ing up a glimmering light, came to what seemed a hut. On
the floor a fire was burning between two rough grey stones,
and he thought the place must lately have been left by the
HERBER TOWER, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.
gipsies, for the burning embers were those of wood, and
on one side lay two gateposts, ready to be chopped up for
more. He ntade up the fire with some refuse brushwood,
which was strewed about the floor, as if left from besom-
making; and, having thus made things comfortable, sat
down on one of the stones. But lo! a visitor enters — a
little creature, in uncouth human shape, no higher than
his knee, waddling in, and quietly sitting down on the
other stone.
The traveller, who had been fully instructed by his-
sage grandmother in the ways of boggles, knew how to
behave in the presence of. such individuals as this
evidently was, and, without either speaking or moving, sat
stolid and self-possessed. As the fire blazed up, he looked
clamly into the hollow eyes of his new friend and ex-
amined with no little interest his stern, vindictive features,
and his short, strong, ungainly limbs. Soon, however,
feeling the cold night air set in, against which the hut
offered but a poor protection, he broke a small piece of
wood over his knee ; and laid the fragments on the waning
fire. The demon seemed to look upon this action with con-
tempt, and, to show his superior power, scornfully seized a
gratepost, broke it over his knee, and laid the pieces
on the fire likewise. The mortal now sat still till
morning, and let the Kre die away into darkness, not
being very anxious to see any further demonstrations of
supernatural power.
Day dawned, and where was he? Sitting alone on a
stone, with a heap of white ashes before him. The-
fiendish dwarf had vanished, together with the spectral
hut, but the stone was a real one, being one of the highest
pinnacle crags beetling over a deep precipice, down
whose rugged steep the slightest careless movement would
have thrown him !
It might be inter-
esting to tile reader
to hear how and
where these dwarf*
— to some so mali-
cious, to others so
beneficent — took
their rise. Accord-
ing tu the mythology
of our Northern
sires, they were sup-
posed to have been
bred in the bowels
of the earth, like
worms in a corpse ;
in fact, they were
nothing else than
maggots in the flesh
of Ymir, the father
of the frost giants,
and himself the old
frost giant who was-
December 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
545
alain by Odin. Of his flesh the earth was formed; of
his blood or sweat, the sea ; of his bones, the moun-
tains ; of his hair, the trees ; of his skull, the heavens ;
of his brains, the clouds. The dwarfs, then, were at first
mere worms ; but they partook, by the will of the gods,
of human shape and understanding, though their
dwellings were the most rugged and inaccessible rocks
and cavec. Records of these curious little beings are to
be found in the folk-lore of all nations.
at
flX the Middle Ages the great cities and
towns of England, like those of the Con-
tinent of Europe, and indeed of most parts
of the world, were girded about by fortified
walls. Such provisions for defence were indispensable.
Rebellions, civil wars, and invasions were of frequent
occurrence, and the strength of a kingdom, and the very
stability of a throne, depended upon the possibility of
rapidly and effectively putting the great military centres
and outposts into an efficient state of defence. Especially
was this the case with fortresses and fortified towns in
proximity to a contested borderland. Every student of
Border history is aware of the part played by Carlisle
and Berwick a«d Newcastle in the oft-revived struggle
between England and Scotland. But this state of
things has for ever passed away. The great castles have
either become the peaceful abodes of splendid wealth or
have fallen into ruin, whilst the walls of the towns have
been piece by piece removed to make way for modern
extensions and im-
provements. Of the
many English towns
which were formerly
fortified, only York,
Chester, and Con-
way retain their
walls even in a com-
paratively perfect
state. In most
cases, only a few
fragments remain,
while in some the
fortifications have
entirely disap-
peared.
It is not necessary,
in writing about the
walls of Newcastle,
to recapitulate the
history of the found-
ing of the town. It
is sufficient to say WALL TURRET
35
that the fortress to which Newcastle owes its name was
erected by Robert, Duke of Normandy, in 1080, for the
express purpose of resisting such invasions in future as
that of King Malcolm which he had then led an army
into the North to avenge. It ia, however, to William
Kufus that Newcastle owes its foundation, not as a mili-
tary outpost, but as a great commercial centre. Har-
dinge, the metrical chronicler, in recording the deeds of
Rufus, tells us that
He builded the New Castle upon Tyne
The Scots to gainstand and to defend
And dwell therein. The people to incline
The town to build, and wall as did append,
He gave them ground and gold full great to spend ;
To build it well, and wall it all about ;
And franchised them to pay a free rent out.
This passage clearly refers to the building of toe town,
and there is evidence to show that the works to which it
relates dated from the year 1095. It must not be
supposed, however, that the walls erected in the time
of Rufus occupied even the same sites as those of later
times. They may have done so to a very limited extent,
but it is certain that, as the town extended, portions of
the walls were rebuilt, so as to enclose an enlarged area.
Of this process we have one extremely interesting instance
recorded, to which we shall again refer.
The later lines of mural fortification were due in the
main to the Edwardian period. Leland, the antiquary,
after quoting Hardinge's account of the erection of the
walls, adds, "This is clean false as concerning the town
walL" Leland's own account of their origin has been
printed in the Monthly Chronicle (see voL for 1890, p. 291).
But whilst his legend that the capture of the wealthy
merchant by the Scots was the occasion of the first
NEAR ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH.
546
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/ December
\ 1891.
walling of the town must be discarded as mere fable, he is
undoubtedly right in ascribing the walls, as they existed
in his day, to the three first Edwards.
The walls never quite encircled the town. Before the
Edwardian fortifications were commenced the river side
of the street known as the Close seems to have been so
completely occupied as to preclude the erection of a, wall
there. And besides this, there could not have been the
same necessity for a mural defence there as round other
parts of the town. The Close could only be attacked
from the river, and the existence of the bridge was an
effectual barrier to the approach of an enemy in that
direction. But, from the west end of the Close, the wall
extended in an unbroken line round the town, till it
joined the north end of Tyne Bridge. The whole length
of the wall was about eighty yards less than two miles, but
the circumference of the enclosed part of the town was a
little over two miles and a furlong. The wall had six
principal gates ; but, besides these, there were two or
three posterns, and between the corner of Sandhill and
the Sand Gate were several small gates which had been
made for the purpose of carrying merchandise to and
from the vessels lying in the river. Between the gates,
and at irregular distances, averaging 116 yards, were
towers, and between these again were small turrets, built
upon the battlements of the wall. The towers were
twenty in number ; and, according to Bourne, there were
generally two wall-turrets between one tower and the
next. On the turrets figures of soldiers, rudely cut in
stone, were mounted. Several of these have been pre-
served, and may be seen in the guard-room of the Old
Castle.
Not one of the gates of Newcastle has been allowed
to remain, but we possess drawings or engravings of
the whole of them, and from these we learn much
about their architectural character and their military
importance. Several of the towers still exist, though in
almost every instance they have been greatly modernised,
or entirely rebuilt. But considerable portions of the
wall are yet standing, and, although we cannot but
regret that so much has been in many cases needlessly
destroyed, we must be grateful for what is left. These
fragments of the ancient fortifications of the town
enable us to realise the character of its military de-
fences in bygone times in a way immeasurably more
accurate and valuable than could be possible from
written or printed records and pictures. We are
thankful for records and pictures, but let us cling
tenaciously to existing remains.
The first thing to be noticed is the strength of the
walls themselves. Leland assures us that "the
strength and magnificence of the walling of this town
far passeth all the walls of the cities of England, and
most of the towns of Europe." William Lithgow,
the traveller, bears similar testimony. He says : —
"The walls about the town are both high and strong,
built both within and without with saxo quadrate, and
mainly fenced with dungeon towers, interlarded also
with turrets, and along with them a large and defensive
battlement. . . . The walls here of Newcastle are a
great deal stronger than those of York, and not unlike to
the walls of Avignon, but especially of Jerusalem."
The height of the wall is said to have averaged
twelve feet, while its thickness was at least eight feet at
the ground level. Outside the wall was a deep and wide
ditch or fosse. Its width was at least twenty-two
yards. In considering the defence which such a structure
afforded it must be remembered that it was built at a
time when the use of gunpowder was unknown. The
only means by which it could be attacked were, mining
its foundations, employing the battering ram against it,
and scaling its front. It would occupy more space than
we can afford to describe the manner in which these
systems of attack were carried out or the military engines
which were employed. The military value, however, of
such fortifications lay in the fact that a comparatively
small garrison within could defy an immeasurably larger
force without.
The great purpose of the towers was to enable the
garrison to assail the enemy who might be attacking the
walls themselves. The towers projected from the face of
the wall, .and thus afforded means of lateral defence,
while the turrets afforded protection to the soldiers who
were actually upon the battlements of the wall.
The wall may be said to have commenced on the brink
of the river, a few yards south of the Close Gate. Here
there was a tower. The site of the Close Gate is marked
by an inscription in the wall on the north side of the
street. Behind the houses, close to this inscription,
some shapeless fragments cf the wall remain, but there is
no trace of the Break Neck Stairs by which the steep
bank was ascended. On the crest of the bank stood the
White Friar Tower, which derived its name from its
proximity to the house of the White Friars. Immediately
beyond this point a portion of the wall, with its battle-
ments .still perfect, yet remains. It is one of the best
preserved fragments now in existence. The masonry is
distinctly of the Edwardian period. The next tower,
which stood on a site now occupied by the new railway
works, was the Denton or Neville Tower, the former
designation due to the fatnily who gave their name to
Denton Chare, and the latter to the proximity of the
town residence of the Nevilles. At this point the wall
took a sudden turn to the west, and ran forward to the
West Gate, passing on the way West Spital, Stank,
Gunner, and Pink Towers, the last of which remained,
though in a modernised form, till Fink Lane was widened
a few years ago. With the exception of the New Gate,
the West Gate was the finest of the town entrances.
Leland describes it as a "mighty strong thing of four
wards and an iron gate." Tradition ascribes its erection
to the great Roger Thornton, and, although there must
December \
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
547
have been a gate at this point long before his time, as,
indeed, is implied in the legendary rhyme : —
At the West Gate came Thornton in,
With a hap, and a halfpenny, and a lamb skin,
yet the architecture of the gate which was taken down
in 1811 was certainly of his time.
Between West Gate and New Gate several consider-
able portions of the wall still exist. Tha most interest-
ing part is that which runs along the back of Stowell
Street, at the west end of which is the Berber Tower.
The outer front of the tower forms a bastion-like pro-
jection from the face of the wall. The long stone
corbels which stand out from the tower were intended
to carry a timber gallery, from which the garrison
could shower their arrows and other missiles down
upon their assailants. The towers between West Gate
and New Gate were called the Durham, Berber,
Morden, Ever (from the family of Eure), and Andrew
Towers. Then came New Gate, a truly majestic
portal, and the main entrance to the town from the
north. It had barbican, drawbridge, and portcullis,
and was certainly one of the strongest and most
magnificent gateways in England. Its architecture
was of various periods, but much of it was at least
as early as the end of the thirteenth century.
Its name seems to imply the previous existence of
a gateway on the same site. There were only two towers
between New Gate and Pilgrim Street Gate. These
were named Bertram Monboucher and Fickett Towers.
Pilgrim Street Gate seems to have been an Edwardian
structure, but had been greatly modernised. Then came
Carliol Tower (named from the local family of Carliol), re-
moved a few years ago to make way for the Public Library
Buildings, and Carliol Croft (or Plummer) Tower, which
still exists. This is the first part of the wall now in
existence after we leave the precincts of St. Andrew's
Churchyard. Next came Austin Tower, which had its
name from its nearness to the abode of the Augustinian
Friars. No part of it now exists. Of the next tower,
called the Corner Tower, a considerable portion remains,
and forms an important landmark, not only of local
topography, but of local history. Formerly the town wall
ran southward from this point, by Cowgate and Broad
Cbare, to the brink of the river. The comparative width
of these thoroughfares is due to the fact that they were
formerly partly occupied by the wall. But in 1299 Pan-
don was annexed to Newcastle, and it became necessary
to include it within the walls. For this purpose the part
of the wall which ran along Cowgate and Broad Chare was
taken down, and what is spoken of in documents of that
period as a new wall was carried round Pandon by way
of Wall Knoll. This accounts for the abrupt change in
the direction of the wall at Corner Tower, and also for
the name of that member of the fortifications. Wall
Knoll or Carpenters' Tower yet exists, but only a small
portion of the wall itself (behind the warehouses of
Messrs. Monkhouse and Brown and Messrs. Angus and
Co.. Stockbridge) now remains in this neighbourhood.
Between Wall Knoll Tower and the site of the Sand Gate
the wall has been almost, though not quite, destroyed.
A small part of it may be found by the diligent seeker on
the east side ot a short cul-de-sac which leads from the
Quayside just west of the Milk Market. Sand Gate was
entirely taken down in 1798, and the part of the wall
between it and Tyne Bridge had made way for the La'.es
and barrels of Quayside commerce thirty -five years before.
But, none the less, it may be truly said to still exist, for
its stones were used, in part at least, to build the present
church of St. Ann.* J. R. BOYLE, F.S.A.
in tit*
pWCASTLE was the scene of many in-
teresting incidents in the career of the
celebrated tragedian, William Charles
Macready. Descriptions of some of these
incidents are scattered through the diary and journals
of the great actor himself, published in 1875 by
Messrs. Macmillan and Co. It is from this interesting
work that we propose to take a few passages relating
to the North. The elder Macready, a provincial
manager of some repute, was at different times tlie
lessee of theatres in Birmingham, Leicester, Stafford,
Manchester, Newcastle, and other places. William
Charles, who was born in London on March 3, 1793,
appears to have been .a scholar at Rugby when his
father first entered upon the management of the
Theatre Royal, Newcastle. Owing to the financial
trouble which overtook the elder while the younger was
still at school, young Macready resolved to adopt the
theatrical profession, for which, however, if we may
take his own statements seriously, he never t-eeins to
have had much affection. While the father was fight-
ing with his creditors in Manchester, the son assumed,
for a short summer season, the supervision of the
Newcastle theatre. This was in 1809. A year
later, William Charles appeared on his father's
boards at Birmingham in "Romeo and Juliet,"
" the part of Romeo by a young gentleman,
being his first appearance on any stage." Soon after-
wards the " young gentleman " played leading char-
acters in Newcastle, becoming very speedily "the
established favourite of the Newcastle audience." And
from this date (1810) down to the end of his career on
the stage, he was a frequent visitor to Tyneside.
Writing of his early experiences in Newcastle,
Macready puts down some grateful recollections of
* For other views ot the walls and gates of Newcastle see previ-
ous volumes of the Monthly Chmmde. Reference to these may be
readily obtained by consulting the general index to the eeriea.
548
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/ December
I 1891.
three ladies of the name of Hedley. This is what he
says under date of May, 1810 : —
The peculiar situation in which I had been placed for
the greater part of the year was one, as I now look back
upon it, that might have determined my lot for. more
severe trials than have— I say it thankfully— fallen to my
share. It almost unavoidably threw me into intimacy
with minds not capable of improving, nor likely much
to benefit, one so young and impulsive as myself, and led
me into occasional dissipation, which might have induced
habits destructive of ability and reputation. To my
excellent friends, the Misses Hedley, three maiden sisters,
of good family, and almost oracles in the best social
circles of Newcastle, I owe my rescue from the liabilities
I was then incurring. They were lovers of the theatre ;
one particular box was nightly reserved for them, which
they scarcely ever failed to occupy for some part of the
evening. A little before the close of the season they
gave me an invitation to take tea with them, and took
advantage of the occasion to represent to me that some of
the leading people in the place would be ready to show
me kindness and attention if they were sure that I was
select in my associates. They pointed out to me the
evils and dangers of dissipation and low company in the
career I was about to enter on, and induced me, by their
friendly and sensible expostulations, to give attentive
consideration to a subject of such consequence to young
people entering life. That they became the firm and
cordial friends of myself and my sisters to the end of
their lives is proof that their thoughtful interposition
between me and ill-fortune was not without some result.
It was during the Newcastle season of 1812 that
Macready first met Mrs. Siddons. Here is his own
account of his pleasant relations with that marvellous
actress : —
Mrs. Siddons — a name that even now excites in me
something like a reverential feeling — was on the point of
concluding her engagement at Edinburgh previous to
taking her leave of the stage in London. Her way
lay through Newcastle, and she engaged to act there
two nights. On hearing this some of tier friends in the
town— and she had many — wrote to her (as she afterwards
told my father) requesting she would make Lady Ran-
dolph one of her characters, my years and ardour suiting
so well the part of Norval. The plays she fixed on were
"The Gamester" and " Douglas." Norval was a favourite
character with me, but Beverley I had to study, and with
the appalling information that I was to act it with Mrs.
Siddons ! With doubt, anxiety, and trepidation, I set
about my work, but with my accustomed resolution to do
my very best. The language of the play is prose, and
sufficiently prosaic ; but I went to work at it with a de-
termined though agitated spirit, and sought out in every
sentence the expressions that would most clearly illustrate
the varying emotions of the character. The words of the
part I was soon perfect in, but the thought of standing by
the side of this great mistress of her art hung over me
in terrorem. After several rehearsals, the dreaded day of
her arrival came, and I was ordered by my father to go
to the Queen's Head Hotel to rehearse my scenes with
her. The impression the first sight of her made on me
recalled the page's description of the effect on him of
•Tane de Montfort's appearance in Joanna Baillie's tragedy
of "De Montfort." It was :—
So queenly, so commanding, and so noble,
I shrunk at first in awe ; but when she smiled,
For so she did to see me thus abashed,
Methought I could have compassed sea and land
To do her bidding.
The words might have been written for this interview,
for my nervousness must have been apparent to her on
my introduction, and in her grand, but good-natured
manner she received me saying, " I hope, Mr. Macseady,
you have brought some hartshorn and water with you,
as I am told you are terribly frightened at me," and she
made some remarks about my being a very young
husband. Her daughter, Miss Cecilia Siddons, went
smiling out of the room, and left us to the business of the
morning. Her instructions were vividly impressed on
my memory, and I took my leave with fear and trembling
to steady my nerves for the coming night. The audience
was as usual encouraging, and my first scene passed with
applause ; but in the next — my first with Mrs. Beverley —
my fear overcame me to that degree that for a minute
my presence of mind forsook me, my memory seemed
to have gone, and I stood bewildered. She kindly
whispered the word to me (which I never could
take from the prompter), and the scene pro-
ceeded. On that evening I was engaged to a ball,
"where all the beauties," not of Verona, but of New-
castle, were to meet. Mrs. Siddons, after the play, sent
to me to say, when I was dressed, she would be glad to
see me in her room. On going in, she "wished," she
said, " to give me a few words of advice before taking
leave of me." " You are in the right way," she said, " but
remember what I say : study, study, study, and do not
marry until you are thirty. I remember what it was to
be obliged to study at your age with a young family about
me. Beware of that. Keep your mind on your art, do
not remit your study, and you are certain to succeed. I
know you are expected at a ball to-night, BO I will not
detain you ; but do not forget my words. Study well,
and God bless you." Her words lived with me, and often,
in moments of despondency, have come to cheer me. Her
acting was a revelation which ever had its influence on me
in the study of my art. Ease, grace, untiring energy
through all the variations of human passion, blended into
that grand and massive style. On first witnessing her
wonderful impersonations, I may say with the poet —
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken.
An irritating occurrence happened to Macready in
Newcastle on the occasion of his benefit in 1813, when he
was announced to play the part of Marc Antony. It is
thus described by himself : —
The partiality that was invariably manifested towards
me in Newcastle, where I was to mv latest appearance
spoken of as William Macready, or Mr. William, never
failed to display itself on the occasion of my "benefit
nights." Every place in the boxes had been taken some
days before, and from the demand for tickets, an over-
flowing house was, as usual, looked for. But on the morn-
ing of the day, the box-keeper, with a very rueful
countenance, came up to our lodgings, some distance from
the theatre, to inform my father that in the night there
had been affixed on the box entrance door a paper with
dogfrrel rhymes to the effect that I had " shame-
fully misused and even kicked " a Miss Sulivan,
a very pretty girl, an actress in the theatre,
who was that night to perform Cleopatra. Al-
though it was not an infrequent practice of country
actresses to endeavour to advance their interests by
representing themselves as ill-used by the manager, and
creating a party feeling against him, I think Miss Suli-
van was perfectly innocent of any participation in this
attempt to damage me in public opinion. My atten-
tions at that time were addressed more pointedly to
another frequenter of the green-room than to her, and
this could have been the only ground of dissatisfaction,
if any existed, for the "manager's son" was of no little
consideration in the limits of a green-room circle. The
paper had attracted crowds before it had been removed,
and the excitement was as great in the town as if the
theatre had been blown up, but the general feeling was
one of indignation at the calumny and the dastardly
means adopted to circulate it. When informed of it, I
determined not to hold conversation of any kind nor to
exchange one word with Miss Sulivan until I appeared
with her on the stage at night. Friends, and persons not
known before, thronged to the box office in the morning
to express their abhorrence of this infamous libel, and
many stopped me in the street to testify the friendly sen-
timent towards me that pervaded the town on the subject.
So monstrous an accusation, and its base intention, natur-
ally agitated me ; but, in the consciousness of freedom
December 1
189L |
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
549
from all violation of gentlemanlike deportment toward
the actresses, my mind was clear and resolved on tl>«
course to pursue. The night came ; "every hole and
corner," to use the common phrase, was filled long before
the curtain rose. Upon my entrance with Cleopatra
(Miss Sulivan) in my hand, the applause and shouting
were deafening. When silence was obtained, I went for-
ward, and, addressing the audience, observed that, in-
debted to them as I was for many proofs -.if their favour, I
was more obliged to them for the confidence in me
they showed that night than for all their pre-
vious indulgence ; and, alluding to " the paper, I
stated that I had designedly not spoken to Miss
Sulivan since I had heard of it, but that I would
now request her to answer before them some questions.
"Have I ever been guilty of any injustice of any kind to
you since you have been in the theatre ?" Her answer,
" No, sir, was received with shouts. " Have I ever be-
haved to you in an ungentlemanlike manner?" "No,
sir." Loud shouts repeated. " It is unnecessary to ask,
but to satisfy the writer of the anonymous libel, have I
ever kicked you?" Her answer of "Oh, no, sir, "was
given amid the hearty acclamations and laughter of the ex-
cited crowds of box, pit. and gallery ; and the play pro-
ceeded, but with little effect, for Antony, the voluptuary
and doting spoiled child of fortune, was not within the
compass of a tyro, as I then was. This was the first at-
tempt I had to encounter of this sort of stabbing in the
dark. I lament to add I became more familiarised to it
as my experience extended. The object of my assailant
was nothing less than my ruin. In one instance my life
was aimed at, but that was not in England.
The 16th of December, 1814, was rendered memorable
to Macready by a fearful storm and accident that hap-
pened on that day. The Macready family — father, son,
and two daughters — occupied a suite of rooms on the
first floor of a house in Pilgrim Street, next door to the
Queeu's Head Hotel, now the Liberal Club. What hap-
pened is thus described by the great tragedian : —
One afternoon — it was a Saturday— my elder sister had
retired to her bedroom to lie down for relief from a dis
tracting headache. My father and self were seated after
dinner at table, writing letters. The streets were empty,
fora storm such as I have rarely seen was tearing through
them with hurricane violence. With a bright fire in the
grate and a decanter of port wine before us, we
might well have supposed ourselves secure from
any inconveniences of tempest, though the pavement
was actually flooded with the torrents pouring down,
and tiles and slates were hurled through the air by
the fury of the gale. A twofold evidence was this day
given of our lives' uncertainty. A tremendous crash that
shook the whole house as if it were tumbling in ruin,
startled us from our seats ; the room was instantly filled
with dust and smoke, out of which we lost no time in es-
caping. I rushed into my sister's room, and, lifting her
from her bed, hurried her downstairs into the hall passage,
where all the inmates of the house, servants, &c., pale
and out of breath, were assembled in fearful consterna-
tion. Hurried questions were passed : "What is it?"
"Arewesafe?" " The roof has given way!" "Areall
here?" At once the mistress of the house shrieked out
" My bairns ! my bairns ! " and darted with me up the
stairs to the room above, that in which my father and I had
been sitting. We flung open the door ; the chimney had
fallen ic, breaking down the roof, crushing into the room
below one whole side of the flooring of the attic,
and dividing the room into two triangular spaces ;
in the one nearest the door was a large old
mahogany table with two flaps reaching nearly to
the ground. Beneath the table, in the midst of all
the wreck and rubbish, were the two children. The
innocent little creatures, ignorant of the danger they had
escaped, were playing together. Their mother seized one
and I the other, and with hearts full we carried them
down to the lower storey. I can never forget the emotion
of that poor mother. Some friendly neighbours accom-
modated our unhoused hosts for the night, and we took
refuge in the hotel next door until we could find a homn
in more private apartments.
The elder Macready appears to have been a gentleman
of somewhat wayward spirit, if we may judge from u:i
adventure at Berwick in 1814 which his son records :—
I went to Berwick, where, to my dismay, I found the
theatre in the iiin yard and up a very long flight of steps.
The upper part of an old malt-house had been con-
verted into the temple of the drama, and, saving the
awkwardness of the approach, had been fashioned
into a very respectable one. Here I acted some
of my principal characters to very good audiences, and
ended the season with very satisfactory results. It was
in this season that a general illumination had been
ordered for the triumph of the allies over Napoleon. To
my surprise, my father gave directions for a performance
on that evening. It was in vain that I reasoned witli
him, stating my conviction that there would not be one
person present. He was pertinacious in his resolution,
but I could not believe he would persist until I saw tlio
play bills advertising " Laugh when You Can " (the title
a satire on the proceeding) and "The Poor Soldier." My
father took the part of Gossamer. The players could
hardly be persuaded that he was in earnest; but the night)
arrived, and they were obliged to dress for their parts.
At seven o'clock the prompter went to mv father's
dressing-room, knocked, and inquired, "Sir, shall I ring
in the music? There is no one in the house." "Certainly,
sir, ring in the music," was his answer. The mus'io
was rung, the musicians went into the orchestra, and
began to play. I went into my father's room and in-
formed him that there were two boys in the gallery and
one man in the pit, and I would go into the boxes that
there might be an appearance in all. Accordingly, I took
my place in the centre box, and, with difficulty preserving,
a demure countenance, saw my father very gravely, and
indeed sternly, begin the part of the laughter-loving
Gossamer, indignant with the performers, who had diffi-
culty in restraining their disposition to make a joke of
the whole affair. A scene or two was quite sufficient,
and I left the remaining three-quarters of the audience tu
their amusement, preferring a walk round the walls of
"our good town " on a lovely summer evening, until the
inhabitants should begin to light up. About nine o'clock
I thought I would look in again to see whether the farce
was really going on. The play had just concluded, and the
pit audience went out. The two boys remained in the
gallery, evidently tired out with the dulness of their
evening. But when the musicians reappeared in the
orchestra, and began the overture of the after piece, it
seemed as if their power of endurance was exhausted,
and, leaning over ths gallery balustrade, one of them,
with a violent gesture of his own, called out, " Oh ! dang
it, give over," and both walked out, leaving the players to
undress themselves, and go out in their own clothes to
see the illuminations.
A few further fragmentary passages from Macready's
journal, written long after his early triumphs on the
stacre, introduce us to some of the people with whom he
was on familiar terms in Newcastle and the neighbour-
hood : —
Tynemouth, March 28, 1841.— Intended to post from
Xorthallerton to South Shields, and cross the ferry to
Tynemouth, but stopped and turned the post-boy, and
made him go to Newcastle, from thence to take the
railway. Was half an hour before the train started ;
lunched, and wrote a note for Miss Martinean." Saw
Hedley Vicars, who called, and received a note from him.
Went by railway to North Shields. Walked to Tyne-
mouth, and inquired at the post office for Miss Martineau's
address ; called on her, sending up my note. She wan
* See 3Ionthly Chronicle, 1887, p. 414.
550
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
very glad to see me. We talked over many things and
^•ersons. She is a heroine, or, to speak more truly, her
fine sense and her lofty principles, with the sincerest
religion, give her & fortitude that is noble to the best
height of heroism.
Newcastle, March 29.— Mr. Ternan called, and I walked
with him to the theatre, where I rehearsed "Macbeth,"
rehearsed it well, so well that I felt myself not quite hors
<le la tragedie. 1 feared I should not act it so well.
Acted Macbeth with all the spirit I could press into it.
Considering my rust, not having acted it since 1839. I
did not make so bad an effort. Was called for, and very
cordially greeted.
March 30. — Peregrine Ellison called twice upon me,
»n<l walked with me up to Hedley Vicars, showing me
the New Exchange Room by the way. He was most kind.
There is, however, a melancholy at my heart, which often
rises to my eyes, in thinking of and feeling these marks
of kindness and respect, these tributes to the feelings cf
younger and blither days, which I receive from the
remaining individuals of families that once took a
friendly interest in me.
March 31.— Peregrine Ellison called, and walked with
me over the new streets, pointing out to me the old map
by sundry relics, such as the school where Lord Eldon
was brought up. the Forth, Waldie's house, &c. The
Market, the Philosophical Instiution — open to everybody
— (bravissimo !) — and the general appearance interested
and pleased me very much ; but I was sorry, too, to see
the old streets, which used to look so handsome and lively,
neglected, squalid, and forsaken.
Another reminiscence of Macready's connection with
Newcastle may be quoted from a series of papers which
Mr. Alfred Davis, son of the late Mr. E. D. Davis, lessee
of the Theatre Royal, contributed to the Newcastle Weekly
Chronicle a few months ago. The theatre was to open for
the winter season of 1850, when Mr. Macready was
announced to appear for a short engagement. Mr.
Davis's recollections of the great actor are humorously
set down in the following passage : —
I had never met this gentleman, but had been duly
cautioned against him as being haughty, supercilious,
tyrannical, and overbearing to a terrible degree. " All
right," said I; "I'm on my guard." I had to play
Laertes to his Hamlet, and of course we did not meet till
ihe fifth act. In the fencing scene Mr. Macready of
i ourse told me what passes he wished to have made. "In
the first bout," said he, "you will please do so-and-so."
I bowed, and did so-and-so. " In the second encounter,
kindly make such-and-such pasfes." I bowed, and made
such-and-such. "For the third sally, you will be good
enough to," &c., &c. I bowed, and duly etceteraed. ''Sup
pose we try the three encounters again?" I bowed, and
:>gained. After the rehearsal — "Will you kindly try the
encounters once more?" I bowed, and once mored— not
liaviug spoken a word. He looked at me rather inquir-
ingly, said "thank you," and we parted.
At night, just before the fifth act, a valet addressed
me, " Mr. Macready will feel obliged if you will come to
his dressing-room." Of course I went. " Will you oblige
me by once more running through the three encounters? "
I bowed, took a foil from the valet, and went seriatim
through the business. " Thank you— quite right ! ''
Bow ; door opened by valet ; exit.
Play over, Mr. Macready said, " I am much obliged to
you, s,ir, for your very careful attentien." I bowed, and
went to iny room. After the play, my father took
Macready the night's returns. "Tne gentleman who
played Laertes — your son, is he not?" "Yes. Mr.
Macready." "Er — he has some talent — I think— but —
«?r — is he not — er — rather conceited ? "
However, when I got to the theatre next day, Mr.
Macready spotted me at the wings, and, beckoning me
to him, shook hands very cordially with me, inquired
why I had taken to such an unsatisfactory profession as
the stage, evinced great interest in my future, gave me
orood readings of what I was going to play, and, making
himself as thoroughly pleasant as he well knew how.
bound me to him once and for always as a devoted
admirer and disciple.
I have seen him very hard and stern with others, but
only in self-defence. He was never aggressive, as far as
my experience goes, and I met him very often after-
wards. His face was naturally of a stern cast, with a
hard grey eye, but such an eye ! As he talked with me,
I have seen it gradually darken to black, and as he
warmed it seemed to blaze ; while his mouth was capable
of such a rare smile, that I used to think it would be a
very stony-hearted female who could resist him should he
think it worth his while to plead. Undoubtedly a great
actor. In Lear, Wolsey, lago, Richelieu, and many
other parts I deem him unapproached— or unapproach-
able.
ot <9ttn-fcuvw.
flHERE appears to be as much doubt con
cerning the exact position of the Battle-
field, at Otterburn, as there is with respect
to the date and details of the tight. Frois-
sart has assured us— on the authority of men belonging
to the victorious party — that the struggle occurred
between Newcastle and the ban&s of the Otter, and
that the rear of the Scottish force was defended by a
tract of marshland. This view is sustained by other
authorities, as well as by the marking in Speed's map
of Northumberland. It is therein clearly indicated
that the Battle of Otterburn was fought on the
east side of the stream, in the Davysbiel
district, and at only a short distance from the
ancient trackway from Newcastle, through Elsdon,
into Scotland. If it was so fought, and the retreat
extended as far as is generally supposed, it would
be fair to assume that the camp occupied by the Scots
was at Fawdon, and that the thousand skulls subse-
quently unearthed at Elsdon may have belonged to the
victims of the carnage. As to the site, at least, such was
the opinion of Mr. Robert Ellis, a Newcastle solicitor,
who, after changing his residence to Girsonsfield, had
many opportunities for weighing the whole of the
probabilities. In a letter to Walter Scott, dated 1812, he
gave many reasons for the faith that possessed him, and,
after a personal inspection by the author of "Rokeby,"
his views were unhesitatingly accepted.
But, though the evidence in favour of Fawdon
seems fairly strong, it was not sufficiently so to satisfy
Mr. Robert White. He was long a resident in the
locality, knew every foot of the ground, and enjoyed the
friendship of Mr. Ellis. Though in accord on all other
subjects, the two gentlemen disagreed about the battle.
In some respects, indeed, Mr. White was rather too dog-
matic, for he not only asserted that the fray began in
the camp of the Scots, at Greenchesters, but that
the main struggle took place and terminated at Town-
head. His arguments are far from conclusive on either
December!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
551
point — being largely based on conjecture. If, however,
we glance at the present state of the ground,
as he has done, and ignore the changes that 500
years have wrought, there can be little doubt that the
westerly site could be more easily defended than its
neighbour en the other side of the burn. This is an ad-
The "Battle Stone," as shown in our sketch, was
nothing more than a roughly carved boulder that
stood — or rather lay in an oblique direction — in a socket
considerably too large for it. Whether this block,
indicated on Armstrong's map in 1769, was the successor
of some previous erection, it is impossible to say with
vantage which the Soots were not likely to overlook.
They had much booty to protect, a dashing foe to engage,
and they were certain to pitch on the stronghold which
best supplied the double requirements of a shelter and an
outlook. The camp, of course, was ready to their hands.
Like many others in the locality, it had done duty in
British or Saxon days ; and as it was found by the Scots,
or as we see it now, we have an earthwork that was well
calculated to answer the purpose for which it was
originally designed. It not only stands at the end
of a promontory, but commands a good stretch of
country to the south-east — the direction whence
the approach of Douglas's foe might reasonably
be expected. A weakness to the north was guarded
against by an additional line of entrenchments ; while
the entrance was further strengthened by a bulwark of
stakes and brushwood. To the south-west, however,
there was a natural barrier formed by a dense growth of
birch, cedar, hazel, and other trees.
But, in addition to the situation and character of the
camp, Mr. White is helped to a judgment by the position
of certain memorial stones. When the first of them was
erected it would be difficult to say ; but that one was
standing in the early part of last century is undoubted.
certainty ; but all the probabilities teem to point to such
a conclusion. In 1777, however, the Battle Stone was
removed. A new turnpike was then in course of con-
struction by the banks of the river Rede, and Mr. Henry
Ellison, the owner of the property, was anxious that the
^y <AV*V ^"'BH&i <3
§r «__i *' • .4
ffj1 V ^'"o.
652
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
/December
I 1891.
Otterburn trophy should be reared in a more conspicuous
place. He accordingly took down the old memento, and
decided that a new one should stand 180 yards nearer
the highway. Though the idea was commendable
enough, it was carried out with a somewhat niggard
hand. At the top of a circular mound of rough
masonry, five feet in height, was placed the
ancient socket, and springing from this, in two pieces,
was a tapering shaft of something like 9£ feet in height.
About this "cross," as about so many other phases of
the Otterburn Battle, there is doubt and uncertainty.
If you turn to Hodgson's history, you will find that the
shaft of this new trophy was got from Davyshiel Crags,
and that the parish clerk of Whelpington was one of
the men who helped to put it up. But if Mr. Robert
White is to be credited on the point, the lower part of
the upright on "Percy's Cross" is composed of an old
architrave, that has, at some time, been removed from
the kitchen fireplace at Otterburn Hall. How it got
into its present position nobody knows. When, how-
ever, the circumstance was brought to the attention
of Mr. Hodgson, he made a suggestion that may
not unlikely be near the truth — namely, that the
parish clerk must have been mistaken about the use
to which the Davyshiel stone was put; or else that
some later occupant of the hall must have appropriated
December \
1891. f
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
553
the new column for his cooking apparatus, and re-
placed it by a discarded piece of stonework from above
the kitchen grate. Let us hope, at all events, that the
exchange was made before the Davyshiel stone was
reared on the battlefield, because, on any other supposi-
tion, the transaction might almost be compared to the
desecration of a graveyard.
Though the present village of Otterburn bears no
resemblance to the hamlet that occupied its site in
1388— the supposed date of the battle— our sketch
of the locality can hardly fail to be of general
interest. In the scene, near the bridge, we have a view
that is at once a tribute to the ability of the artist as
well as to the picturesque beauty of a Border landscape.
The place now abounds with comfort, happiness, and
prosperity. In the olden time, it was occupied by hovels,
in which there were neither glass for the windows, grates
for the fires, nor chimneys for the smoke. There was no
" inside gear" to speak of— such, for example, as beds or
furniture— as all the wealth of the settlers was in cattle
that could be easily driven away on the first sign of the
raiders. This is very clearly shown in the "last woll and
testyment" of Clement Reyde, made in 1582 ; for,
although his stock comprised no fewer than 24 " oxson,
ky, stotys, and young novt's," his household gods were
valued at only ten shillings.
WILLIAM LONGSTAFK.
Butrtrmt
river Duddon runs southward on the
boundary between Cumberland and Lanca-
shire to the Irish Sea. Rising in the mountain
known as Wrynose, situate on the edge of the group of
Scawfell heights, it flows some dozen miles as a beck or
stream ; but at Broughton it ex-
pands into an estuary some nine
miles in length and about a couple
of miles wide, though only covered
with water at high tide. The
scenery of the valley of the Duddon
is highly picturesque. Around
the head waters the vale is bare
and wild ; at Cockley Beck the
landscape is harsh and craggy ;
but soon we reach the pastoral glen
where the stream's course is flanked
by meadow, and occasionally
narrowed by bulwarks of natural
rock. Near the hamlet of Seath-
waite (where a century ago dwelt
in patriarchal simplicity the Rev.
Robert Walker, the " Wonderful
Walker, " whose character has been
described in immortal lines by
Wordsworth), theDuddon is joined by the stream that flows
from Seathwaite Tarn. In this locality the finest scenery
of the Duddon is to be seen. One of the moat striking
combinations of river, rock, and mountain is near the
gorge through which the Duddon makes its way into
Dunnerdale, as the lower part of the vale is called. Here
is Wordsworth's description of the scene : —
From this deep chasm, where quivering sunbeams play
Upon its loftiest crags, mine eyes behold
A gloomy niche, capacious, blank, and cold ;
A concave free from shrubs and mosses gray ;
In semblance fresh, as if, with dire affray,
Some statue, placed amid these regions old
For tutelary service, thence had rolled
Startling the flight of timid yesterday.
Our drawing, (reproduced from a sketch by Mr. Arthur
Tucker) shows the upper portion of the Duddon Valley.
antt Cftalera tit tfte
ii.
| HE first intimation in the Newcastle Chronicle
of the return of cholera after its disappear-
ance in 1832 was under date of 26th January,
1849, when a statement appeared to the
effect that in Newcastle up to that time there had been 19
deaths since the beginning of the year. In August
Barnard Castle was stricken, and during the prevalence
of the disease 146 persons died. In North Shields the
deaths numbered 137 in a single week— altogether that
year the two towns at the mouth of the Tyne lost 1,174
persons by cholera. Sunderland lost 435 ; Newcastle, 414 ;
Durham, 232 ; Alnwicb, 142 ; Hartlepool, 161. The total
for the county of Durham was 2,022, and for Northumber-
land 1,680. Gateshead appears to have suffered, but not
VALLEY OF THE DUDDON.
554
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f December
BO severely as on the first visit. The story of its sufferings
as told in Mr. Clephan's pamphlet, previously quoted, is
both affecting and instructive :—
On Thursday, the 4th of January, 1849, a tramp,
said to be from Edinburgh, arrived at Gateshead, and
tarried at Williams's lodging-house, Pipewellgate, then
containing 24 beds, with two persons to each bed.
The stranger manifested symptoms of diarrhoea, and
Williams himself was subsequently attacked. Both died
on the 8th. On the morning of the 9th, when Dr. Barkus,
then medical officer, called at the lodging-house at five
o'clock, he found the two men dead. A third person was
ill in the house, but the fact was not named to the doctor ;
and by eight o'clock the same morning there was a third
death. Dr. Barkus's recollection of the matter is, that
the stranger was his first patient, though Williams was the
first who died. The disease spread rapidly in Pipewell-
gate. The number of deaths was 18 by the 23rd of the
month, up to which day there had been no cholera mor-
tality in any other part of Gateshead. Deaths then began
to occur elsewhere ; and, with longer or shorter intervals,
the mortality continued until nearly the end of the year.
It was not until August that the rural district of Gates-
head was visited by the epidemic. Its first victim in
Wrekenton was Edward Aims, aged 15, the son of a
piper, who died on the llth of that month. The total
number of deaths in the year, in all Gateshead, from
cholera and diarrhoea, was 186, the mortality closing, as
it had begun, in Pipewellgate. The village of Wreken-
ton, lying on both sides of the boundary line between
Gateshead and Lamesley. and its neighbour, Eighton
Bank, were well nigh decimated. The epidemic of 1849
was mainly fed by Pipewellgate, the Union Workhouse,
and Wrekenton — these three contributing two-thirds of
the mortality. The southern or rural district of Gates-
head, wherein lie the Fell and Wrekenton, was prin-
cipally unenclosed until the present century, sprinkled
over with thatched cottages, studded with pit and quarry
heaps, and a common receptacle for all kinds of vagrants.
The range of houses where the cholera was most fatal is
not more than a quarter of a mile in length. In the 158
houses occurred 110 deaths. The Lunatic Asylum, wherein
20 men and women died, was closely beset on either side
by crowded and infected lodging-houses ; and the keeper
and his son-in-law were of the number that perished.
The settled inhabitants of the Fell quarter rose up at
last, in a body, and drove the tinkers and other vagrants
out of the village. Wilkinson, a pitman, who lived
in a clean cottage surrounded by Irish tinkers, was over-
powered every morning by the stench which issued from
his neighbours' hovels on the opening of the doors.
James and Robert Wilkinson, father and son, both died.
The total number of fatal cases in 1849 for Gateshead
district was 186.
When in 1853 cholera suddenly re-appeared in New-
castle, the town was very ill- prepared to undergo the ordeal
of attack from such an enemy. The drainage was, to put
it very mildly, in a most imperfect state ; the dead were
interred in old and over-crowded graveyards situated in
the midst of the most densely-populated neighbourhoods :
much of th« recently-built new property, as well as
the large majority of bouses in ancient parts of the
borough was lamentably deficient in the necessary
appliances for securing cleanliness and public decency ;
and, worse than all, for two months the Whittle Dene
Water Company had been pumping the daily supply of
what should have been aqua pura from the sewage-con-
taminated Tyne at Elswick. It is 'not surprising that
Newcastle was scourged with pestilence as never within
living memory has any town in Britain been scourged.
During the summer months of 1853, it was well known
that cholera of a bad type was raging in Poland and
Northern Germany, and the Central Board of Health in
London had directed its attention specially to the nature
and treatment of the disease and to its progress towards
these islands. But whilst the authorities were taking
note of its ravages upon the Continent, the malignant
blight suddenly swept across the narrow seas and swooped
down upon Tyneside. During the last days of the month
of August, it was whispered about that a seaman had died
of cholera on board one of the foreign vessels moored in
the river near Dent's Hole, and that isolated cases had
immediately afterwards broken out on shore. But before
these alarming rumours received official confirmation all
doubts upon the subject were resolved by the outbreak of
the disease in Newcastle itself.
On the 31st of August, the first cases of the visitation
occurred within the borough, the locality being Forth
Street, in which a virulent case ran its course rapidly and
ended in death that day. The succeeding day four
persons were attacked, and one died, and there was
another death on the 2nd of September, all the three
occurring in the same neighbourhood. At first the disease
seemed to progress with halting and uncertain steps.
The seizures were not numerous, and the deaths up to the
8th of September did not exceed seven per diem. That
number was reported on September 6th, and two days
afterwards the fatal seizures recorded had fallen to five.
But on Friday, September 9th, the fire that had only been
smouldering all at once leaped into a flame. Few who
lived in Newcastle at the time can possibly forget that
"cholera fortnight," and its many trials and horrors.
On the 9th the deaths from cholera and choleraic
diarrhoea suddenly increased from 5 to 21, and about that
number of victims were stricken each day until the 12th
of the month, when, the disease having got a firm footing
in the western end of the town, the deaths during the
twenty-four hours rose to 31. In the early part of the week
commencing Sunday, September 11, an appalling change
of the weather took place. A plague of darkness and
a plague of flies descended upon the town. The summer
had previously been dry, bright, and warm ; but now grey
clouds hung low in the sky, day after day ; not a breath
of wind was stirring ; a thin haze lay upon the ground
during the day time, and in the evenings thickened into a
dank fog, which clung heavily about the river and all the
low-lying parts of the town. And then as to the flies. It
was afterwards proven to the satisfaction of all the sur-
vivors worth convincing that the little pests were only the
common harvest fly of the country, developed in abnormal
numbers and into abnormal activity by the dryness of the
season. On the other hand, it is certain that they came
with the epidemic, and that they disappeared when its
Decpmber\
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
555
virulence began to abate. For about a fortnight they
hung about the town in countless millions — small fluttering
insects that did not bite, but that literally filled the air.
Coincidently with the deepening gloom of the atmo-
sphere and the increase of the plague of flies, the cholera
spread and waxed more deadly every day. The pro-
portion of deaths to the numbers seized with the
disease was at first something appalling. The cholera,
fiend had a horrible habit of sweeping off whole families.
It was as if the demon stood for a time at the entrances
of the filthy alleys of the town, and fatally smote all
that passed him, or broke into the foetid dens where the
poor herded together, and tore all to pieces within the four
walls. In one house at Arthur's Hill, father, mother, five
children, and grandmother were all slain within the space
of a few days ; out of thirteen houses in Mackford's Entry
there were eight deaths ; in Rosemary Lane one person in
every twelve of the inhabitants perished ; of the 70 people
living in dogger's Entry, the cholera slaughtered 10.
But the most plague-stricken spot in Newcastle was JV1 onk
Square, behind Low Friar Street. Here an ancient water-
course had been stopped up in making the drains, and the
obstructed stream, having overflowed amongst the sur-
rounding soil, had mixed with the refuse and garbage
lying about and created abominations unspeakable. The
cholera demon struck right and left in this congenial spot,
and brought down a proportion of rather more than one in
every six of its wretched inhabitants ; out of 119 human
beings resident in Monk Square, 20 died. Three cottages
at the head of Tuthill Stairs were inhabited by six people,
of whom four were stricken to death. From the spot in
Forth Street where it was first developed the epidemic
spread westward and northward, searching Blandford
Street, Churchill Street, Blenheim Street, the Westgate,
Villa Place, Arthur's Hill, and then quickly moved east-
ward to Sandgate, Pandon, the Wall Knoll, the New
Road, and the Ouseburn, in all of which localities it was
very fatal. One of the extraordinary features of the
visitation was the course of the disease at the Barracks,
where a squadron of cavalry and the depdt of the 6tb
Regiment were in garrison, numbering in all 591 men.
The cases of diarrhoea amongst this force were no fewer
than 451, but not a single death trom cholera resulted.
The Board of Health sent down two of its inspectors,
Dr. Grainger and Dr. Gavin, as early as the 9th September,
and in three or four days the whole machinery devised by
the Board of Guardians, of extra dispensaries, and medical
officers, and house to house visitation, was in working
order. Then it dawned upon somebody that the poor
wanted something else at such a time besides medicine,
and £600 was raised in a few hours, and gratuitous distri-
butions were made of beef and tea and rice and blankets,
and other such comforts as the sick indigent might need.
Free medicine and free brandy were to be had in every
quarter of the town by those requiring them, and the
amount of aromatic chalk, calomel, and alcohol that were
swallowed by people not suffering from any disease
whatever no doubt laid firm the foundations for extended
general practice for the profession long after the epidemic
ceased. But in the meantime the pestilence continued to
increase both in the numbers attacked and in the number
of deaths.
On the 13th of September, 27 deaths were registered, but
on the Uth the mortality more than doubled, 59 being
returned as victims of the disease, whilst on the day
following the official return showed another frightful
increase, 101 persons being reported as dead within the
twenty-four hours. Considering that the population of the
borough was at the time no more than 90,000, and that the
number of persons seized with cholera might be reckoned
at about three times the number of deaths, it was plain
that a very short period of such severity would suffice to
lay prostrate the entire population of the town. Each day
the returns were scanned with overwhelming anxiety, but
still the increase continued. Business came almost to a
standstill, for no one came to the markets that could
avoid it. Labouring men found their occupations gone,
and, with no wages earning, distress soon began to show
itself among the poorer sort. So long as it was possible,
decency was observed in the interment of the victims of
the disease ; but when the mortality rose from fifty to one
hundred per day, ordinary arrangements altogether broke
down, and it was with the utmost difficulty that the
horrible scenes of days gone by could be avoided.
Before the epidemic reached its height, a great outcry
arose against burying the victims of cholera in the reeking
graveyards in the centre of the town, and afterwards the
great mass of the slain were interred in Jesmond Ceme-
tery, and in the burial grounds of St. Ann's, New Road,
and St. Paul's, Westgate Hill. The scenes enacted day
after day for about a week, at all three places, may be
imagined. We will only mention that at Jesmond,
particularly, " confusion and disorder " were terms which
mildly described the state of things prevailing. The
sad processions trooping to the place found too often that
no grave had been dug to receive the mortal remains
of the friend or relative struck down by the fell
disease, and sorrowing mourners had themselves to set
to work with pick and shovel and dig the grave. Then
funerals, each with its band of weeping and often excited
followers, would accumulate within the gates towards
the close of the afternoon until two or three coffins were
put into one shallow grave, and upon one disgraceful
occasion the bodies were piled up in the hole until they
reached the level of the ground.
The difficulties of the case were aggravated by the
trouble experienced in procuring the means of decent inter-
ment. Funeral furnishers, under- bearers, and coffin-
makers were struck down in the first days of the epidemic,
and it was well nigh impossible to supply their places.
Previously to this cholera visitation the mourners at
funerals used to be wrapped up in hideous black cloaks
556
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f December
I 1891.
which descended almost to the feet, and only the pall-
bearers and the bidders wore scarves; but whilst the
epidemic was raging an impression got abroad that the
cloaks carried the cholera infection about with them, and
they were laid aside never more to be resumed at Northern
funeral ceremonies. In the absence of the regular service
of under-bearers the relatives of the deceased had to carry
their own friends to the suburban cemeteries, and in very
many case they had even to make the coffins.
For six days the cholera in Newcastle remained in high
crisis— namely, from Thursday, Sept. 15, to Tuesday,
Sept. 20. On the first-named date the deaths were 101 ;
Sept. 16, 105 ; Sept. 17, 110 ; Sept. 18, 100; Sept. 19, 100;
and on Sept. 20, 118 deaths were recorded, beine the
highest number returned in one day during the prevalence
of the epidemic. But on Sept. 21 there was a great drop
in the returns to 84 ; there was a further decrease to 60
deaths on Sept. 22 ; and the steady and rapid decadence
of the epidemic continued until the second week of
October, when the daily mortality from this cause began
to be reckoned by units. The first day since the outbreak
upon which no death from cholera occurred in Newcastle
was Oct. 25, and, although there were a few deaths occur-
ing at short intervals afterwards, that date has been
accepted as marking the close of the visitation of the
epidemic. The total number of deaths recorded from
cholera and choleraic diarrhoea from the outbreak of the
pestilence on Aug. 31 to its close on Oct. 24, was 1,522.
The pestilence visited Gateshead the same day as New-
castle, August 31. It hung about, as it were, in a linger-
ing form for nine or ten days, when it broke out with
awful fury, and committed frightful ravages amongst the
poorer part of the population. The greatest number of
deaths was on Sept. 15, when 39 persons succumbed.
The epidemic extended over 73 days, during which period
the deaths from cholera and choleraic diarrhoea numbered
433.
at
j]NE evening, in the summer of 1802, a hand-
some, well appointed travelling carriage
drove up to the door of the Royal Oak,
the principal inn in Keswick. No little
interest and excitement were felt in the little town
when it became known that the dashing-looking
gentleman who descended from the equipage had
announced his intention to take up his residence in the
hotel, as he wished to examine at his leisure the
picturesque scenery of ths surrounding neighbourhood.
The stranger was not only well dressed, but spent his
money freely — lived like a gentleman, and gave himself
out to be the Hon. Augustus Hope, member for
Linlithgow and brother to the Earl of Hopetoun.
As this name was engraved on the stranger's visiting
cards, and he received letters addressed to him by
the same designation, nobody presumed to question his
pretensions ; and, as tourists of distinction were rara avcs
in those days, the hospitality of the district was put on its
mettle. Boats, boatmen, fishing, and shooting were freely
placed at his disposal by the resident gentry, and he was
treated everywhere with all the consideration and respect
due to a man of acknowledged birth and position. Some
very critical persons did suggest that he was coarse and
vulgar, but the majority were perfectly satisfied, and
admired all that the soi-disant son of an earl said or did,
any suspicion that still lingered being allayed by the fact
that he constantly " franked " letters in the name and
character of a member of Parliament. Now, to forge a
frank was then a capital offence, as it was not only a
forgery, but a forgery on the Post Office ; and it was con-
sidered quite a certainty that no impostor would openly
court the speedy prosecution sure to follow the discovery
of such a serious offence.
Nine miles from Keswick lies the Lake of Buttermere.
The margin is overhung by some of the loftiest and
steepest of the Cumbrian mountains, which exclude
the rays of the sun during the greater part of the day.
In consequence of the want of light, the waters are
dark and sullen, and the gloomy valley is characterised
by a wild, weird scenery peculiarly its own. Almost un-
known and unvisited, the only signs of human habita-
tion in 1802 were to be found in a cluster of cottages
which stood on the verge of some fields at the foot of the
lake. The principal house in this little hamlet belonged
to a small proprietor (in local parlance termed a states-
man) named Robinson, who, possibly more for the sake of
a little society than with a view to pecuniary profit, offered
the accommodation of an inn to the few travellers who
passed by the lonely lake. Rare, indeed, was it for a
stranger to visit this sequestered valley. Hither, how-
ever, in an evil hour, attracted by the char fishing — a
sport which can only be enjoyed in the deep waters of
Windermere, Crummock, and Buttermere — came the
very smart gentleman from Keswick. He took up his
abode in the little inn, but though char fishing might be
his object at first, it was speedily forgotten for something
more deeply interesting.
Mary Robinson, a fine young woman of eighteen, acted
as waitress on the few wayfarers that came to her father's
house. The Honourable Augustus was struck with her
beauty. He had unlimited facilities for winning her
affections, and the inexperienced shepherd girl, bred in
one of the sternest solitudes England has to show, ig-
norant of the world and thinking no evil, was, in a few
weeks, induced to become the wife of the fascinating
fisherman. No doubt as to his being the man of
honour and gentleman he professed to be ever entered
the minds of either Mary or her parents, and
the wedding was duly celebrated in the parish
church of Lorton to the great satisfaction of
December 1
1891. )
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
557
the bride's father and mother, who proudly rejoiced
in their daughter's good fortune in securing a real
gentleman for a husband. A romantic account of the
marriage appeared in a local newspaper, which accident-
ally fell under the notice of some individuals in Scot-
land who knew that the Colonel Augustus Hope, who
was reported to have married the Beauty of Butter-
mere, had been abroad for more than a year, and was
then resident at Vienna, Suspicions were aroused,
inquiries made, the bubble burst, and, in a few weeks,
officers of justice appeared, arrested Hope, to the great
astonishment of the mountaineers, and born him away
to Carlisle, where he was committed for trial at the
next assizes on a charge of forgery and bigamy.
In prison, Hope — whose real name was Hatfield —
conducted himself with great propriety, affecting to
consider himself an injured individual, and representing
that, in the alliance with Mary Robinson, he had been
more sinned against than sinning. Mary, on the con-
trary, though deeply distressed, with true womanly
delicacy, refused to become accessory to the prosecution
of the man to whom so recently she had, in all good faith,
plighted her troth, and the utmost she could be per-
suaded to do was to address the following letter to Sir
Richard Ford : — " The man whom I had the misfortune
to marry, and who has ruined me and my aged parents,
always told me he was the Hon. Augustus Hope, the next
brother to the Earl of Hopetoun.— Your grateful and un-
fortunate servant, MARY ROBINSON."
This letter was read, at the fourth examination of the
impostor, and its simplicity and uncomplaining spirit
raised a great amount of sympathy for the sorrows of the
poor girl who had been so wantonly betrayed. During
the trial many letters were received from sorrowine
women whom Hatfield had injured in the same way and
by the same impostures he had practised in Cumber-
land. Mary herself, while searching his luxurious and
silver-fitted travelling bag, had found a number
of letters addressed to him by his wife and children
whom he had deserted and left to starve. The
trial lasted a whole day. Abundant evidence of
forgery and bigamy was forthcoming, and general
satisfaction was felt when the jury found him guilty, and
he was condemned to death. The heartlessness of his
conduct drew upon him this severe sentence. The
Cumberland jurors frankly declared their unwillingness
to hang him for having forged a frank, but they were
reconciled to the harshness of the verdict by what they
heard of his conduct to their young fellow-daleswoman.
It is needless to thoroughly examine the history
of this cold-blooded culprit. Suffice it to say, how-
ever, that he was a man of low origin, and that his whole
life was one long tale of fraud and imposture. Coleridge,
who investigated his career, said in looking back on the
frightful exposure of human guilt and misery, that a man
who could find it possible to enjoy the calm pleasures of a
Lake tourist, when pursued by a litany of anguish
from despairing women and famishing children, must
have been a fiend of an order which, fortunately,
does not often emerge from among men. Probably
the strangest thing in all hie strange career was the
manner in which he met his sentence and death.
From the moment the jury found him guilty, he
behaved with the utmost calmness and cheerfulness,
talking on all the topics of the day with the greatest
interest. He could not be brought to speak of his
own case, and never either blamed the verdict or admitted
his guilt. On the afternoon of bis execution he dined
heartily, ordered some coffee to be made, drank a cup,
then read a chapter from the second book of Corinthians,
and marked out some passages in the^Bible for the chap-
lain. When he came in sight of the gibbet, which was
erected on an island formed by the river Eden, he
exclaimed : " Oh ! a happy sight. I see it with plea-
sure. " On taking leave of the gaoler and sheriff, he
patiently murmured, " My spirit is willing, but my body
is weak, "and after carefully assisting the executioner
to adjust the rope, he, with unfaltering voice, com-
mended the bystanders to the care of the Almighty,
ascended the scaffold with unshaken fortitude, gave the
hangman a signal with his handkerchief, and was
launched into eternity without a struggle. No Christian
martyr could have met death in a happier or more con-
tented state of mind. The only conclusion to be come to
after reading an account of his trial and execution is
that Hatfield was insane, and that his crime and his
calmness were alike the result of his mental and moral
infirmity.
But enough of such a gruesome subject. Let us return
to the Beauty of Buttermere, who, in the meantime, had
become an object of interest and sympathy to all Eng-
land. Dramas were written on her story, poets sang her
praises, and universal commiseration was felt for her
sorrows. Wordsworth, in his "Prelude." alludes to—
A story drawn
From our own eround ; the Maid of Buttermere,
And how, unfaithful to a virtuous wife,
Deserted and deceived, the spoiler came
And woo'd the artless daughter of the hills,
And wedded her in cruel mockery
Of love and marriage bonds.
He also tells us how he and bis friend
Beheld her serving at the cottage inn.
Both stricken, as she entered or withdrew,
With admiration of her modest mien,
And carriage marked by unaffected grace.
Indeed, all the Lake poets admired her immensely. She
was none of your evanescent, wasp-waisted, sentimental
looking beauties. On the contrary, she was tall, and pro-
portionately broad. Contemporary critics assert that bar
arms were very fine, her figure statuesque, her com-
plexion fair, and her hair abundant. But the disap-
pointment and vexation consequent on her mock mar-
riage soured her temper, and imparted a most unhappy
558
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/December
\ 1891.
expression to her countenance. Time, however, soothed
her sorrow. After no long interval, she returned to her
early home, where the few simple neighbours, who had wit-
nessed her temporary elevation without envy, were ready
to show every kindness to one who had undeservedly
suffered so much. In time she even came to feel a certain
pride in the knowledge that she was the magnet that
attracted the shoala of tourists who crowded to the little
cabaret (the Fish Inn) which had been the scene of her
sad romance. After awhile, other interests arose. An
honest farmer from Caldbeck, who loved her for the
sorrows she had passed, won her affections, and in real
truth made her his lawful wife. Henceforth her life ran
on like a placid stream. Free from trouble, and sur-
rounded by comfort, the erstwhile unfortunate beauty
not only recovered her sweet temper (at least we hope so),
but, on good authority, waxed "fat and well looking,"
bore her worthy spouse a large family, and lived happy
and honoured to a green old age.
M. S. HAHDCASTLE.
ii.
DEARTH AND DKABNESS.
[HE year 1587, as Sir Cuthbett Sharp's
volume attests, was one of plague and
want. The registers of St. Nicholas and
St. Oswald, in the city of Durham, place
on record the high prices of grain.
St. Nicholas' : — 1587, " Mem., that in this yeare there
was a great derth of corne in the realme of England. In
so much that wheate was sold for tenne shillings and
sixe pence a bushel!, rie at nine shillings and six pence a
bushell, pease at seven shillings a bushell." In the
summer, before the time of harvest, prices were still
higher ; and a second entry occurs : — " That the 29th
day of July, in the year above written, being Satterday,
wheat was at 15s. a bushell, rie at 14s. a bushell, bigge
at 8s. a bushell, and haver [oats] at 19s. a loade."
St. Oswald's:— "Thys year, anno 1587, the pryce of
corne was as followeth, and ye greatest parts of last yeare
before goinge, so yt [that] manye poore people weare sup-
posed to die for lacke of bredde, notw'thstandyng greatte
store in the handes of hard harted carles, yt styll raysed
the p'ce untyll harvest ; at the wyche tyme ye p'ce of corne
begane to fall. The p'ce of rye 13s, 3d. the bushell, wheat
at 16s. 4d. the b'shell, haver at 5s. 9d. ye bushell, grotes
at 4s. ye pecke, pese at 12s. ye bushell, byg at 6s. ye
bushell, halfe malte at 5s. 6d. ye bushell. But the next
somer wheate was at 3s. 4d. the bushell, rye and pays at
4s. ye bushell, otes 2s. ye bushell, byg at 3s. 4d. ye
bushell." "Byg," which gives its name to one of the
Newcastle markets, was in common use in past centuries,
but is so no longer.
STOEMS.
Remarkable phases of the weather were not overlooked
by the old registrars. There is a " memorandum " in the
Hesleden register, showing "that in the year of our
Lord God, 1607, the snow and frost fell at or about the
feast of Allhallows, and contynued for the most p'te
till Shrovetide, in so much that the first Wednesday in
cleane Leate, being the 17 day of February," (Shrove
Tuesday having fallen on the 17th), " was the first fresh
morning without frost." Frost and snow from the first of
November till past St. Valentine's !
In 1614, there was another bitter storm in February.
The Whickham registrar had to record that "Michael
Newton p'ished in the snowe" on the 8th, "and
Eleanor Wilson also." "Isabel Maud, Hester Maul-
lowes ; these two perished in the snowe, on the xth of
February, aud were not found till nowe " (February
14th).
The month of November, 1703, was marked by one of
the fiercest and most protracted storms of wind in our
national history, attaining its greatest fury on the 27th.
The register of St. Oswald's, Durham, has a note of it : —
"Memorandum, — That on ye 27th of November, 1703,
was ye greatest hurricane and storm that ever was known
in England. Many churches and houses were extreamly
shattered, and thousands of trees blown down. Thirteen
or more of Her Maj'tyes men-of-war were cast away,
and above two thousand seamen perished in them."
Hailstorms also make their mark in parish registers.
On the 28th July, 1792, the Belford registrar writes : —
"Hailstones, or rather pieces of ice, some of them
weighing ten ounces, and filling a beer glass when dis-
solved, were said to have fallen this day at Newcastle. A
few days before, at Trimdon, Durham, hailstones, four
inches by three in circumference, fell during a thunder-
storm, and destroyed a large field of wheat, broke 200
panes of glass in one house, killed poultry, and knocked
down pidgeons on the wing."
VOCATIONS.
The pariah clerk not unfrequently gives us the voca-
tions of those whom he had met at the font, the altar, and
the grave.
At the Cathedral in Durham : — "1611, 4 February,
Edward Smith, organist, buried." "1627, 12 April,
Robert Grin well, lutenist, buried." "1764, 26 Septem-
ber, Mr. Robert Doudesley, stationer, London, buried."
Apprenticed in his early youth to a stocking weaver,
Dodeley disliked sitting in a frame, and went into service
in preference. " The Muse in Livery, or the Footman's
Miscellany," was his first venture in literature. His
next, a play called "The Toy Shop," enabled him, by its
favourable reception on the stage and in the press, to begin
business as a bookseller. Other plays he also published,
and with like success ; and his once well-known work,
December!
1891. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
559
" The Economy of Human Life," had a lone run of popu-
larity. He died in Durham, Sunday, September 23.
" A child of the dancing-master of West Rainton "
was interred at Houghton-le-Spring, June 3, 1727; and
there was buried, a dozen years later, in the church-
yard of St. Nicholas, Newcastle, "Sebaster le Sac,"
described as of the same profession.
" A boy of the Tinklers of Byers Green " had inter-
ment at St. Andrew's Auckland in the year 1609 ; and
at Lanchester, in 1564, "William, the sen of an
Egiptian." " Simson, Arington, Fetherstone, Fen-
wicke, and Lancaster, were hanged, being Egyptians,
8 August, 1592," and buried at St. Nicholas', Durham —
hanged, apparently, for the sole crime of being
Egyptians.
"Margaret, the Washer," was buried at St. Mary-
le-Bow, Durham, in 1642 ; " Brian Pearson, the Abbey
dog whipper," in 1722; and in 1725 was baptised
"Jane, daughter of Thomas Barret, prizefighter."
in the stoxe at Crofte, and was whipt out of the towne, 8
day of June, 1672.
Heretofore we have given numerous extracts under
general heads. The selections which now remain are of
a more miscellaneous nature, and we make no attempt
to reduce them to classification.
Berwick register : — Buried, 16 July, 1691, William
Cleugb, bewitched to death.
St. Andrew's register, Newcastle :— 1695, April 24,
were buried, James Archer and his son Stephen, who
in the month of May, 1658, were drowned in a coalpit
in the Gallaflat, by the breaking in of water from an old
waste. The bodys were found intire, after they had lyen
in the water 36 years and 11 months.
St. Nicholas' register, Durham : — 1568. — Mem., that a
certaine Italian brought into the cittie of Durham, the
llth day of June, in the year above sayd, a very great,
strange, and monstrous serpent, in length sixxtaene feete,
in quantitie and dimentions greater than a great horse ;
which was taken and killed by speciall pollicie in
-Ethiopia, within the Turke's dominions ; but before it
was killed it had devoured (as it is credibly thought) more
than 1,000 p'sons, and destroyed a whole country.
Jarrow register: — John Lucker and his wife, being
burnt almost to ashes, buried 8 May, 1723.-- Philip Carr,
buried 9 May, 1723, the above said persons being at bis
lake wake.
Hesleden register : — The xi daie of Maie at vi of ye
cloke in the morninge, being ful water, Mr. Henrie Mit-
ford, of Hoolam, died at Newcastel, and was buried the
xvi daie, being Sondaie, at eaveninge prayer. The hired
preacher maid the sermon.— The xvii daie Maye, 1595, at
xii of ye cloke at noone, being lowe water, Mrs. Barbarie
Metford died, & was buried the xviii daie of May, at ix of
the cloke in ye morninge. Mr. Holsworth maid the
sermon. (In each of the foregoing records the tide is
associated with the death.)
Croft register :— Jane Buttrey, of Darlington, was seet
JIHE "ancient and worthy family of the
Widdringtons," so designated by local
historians, derive their surname from an
old tower, replaced in modern times by a
fantastic castellated building, which stands on an
eminence about a mile from the German Ocean, some
nine miles north by east from Morpeth. Various
members of the family signalised their valour in the
wars against the Scots, while several of them held the
office of High Sheriff of Northumberland, and also repre-
sented the county in Parliament during the fourteenth,
fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. They
intermarried with some of the foremost families in the
land, and flourished in high repute till civil dissension —
in which they took the losing side — brought them low.
Sir Henry Widdrington, who was High Sheriff of
Northumberland in the reigns of Elizabeth and James
I., and M.P. for the county in the latter reign, was
succeeded by his son William, who held the former office
in the twelfth year of Charles I., and sat in Parliament
in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth years of the
same reign, representing Northumberland along with Sir
Henry Percy. He and Sir William Carnaby and Sir
Patricius Curwen were three of the fifty-one members
who voted, in 1641, for saving the life of the unfortunate
Earl of Strafford. In August of the following year he
was expelled the House for refusing to attend it, and for
raising forcns in defence of the king. He was present
and did good service in most of the battles between the
Royalists and Parliamentarians, from that of Worcester,
gained by Prince Rupert on the 23rd September, 1642,
to that of Marston Moor, where the Prince was signally
defeated by Cromwell on the 2nd July, 1644. After this
latter engagement, from the blow received in which the
Royalists never recovered, Sir William, who had been
created Baron Widdrington of Blankney in the preced-
ing November, retired beyond seas with the Marquis of
Newcastle and others, and his estate was sequestered
by Parliament.
Lord Widdrington returned to Britain along with
Prince Charles in the summer of 1650, and accompanied
him on his march southward from Edinburgh to Carlisle,
where he was proclaimed King of England. On arriving
at Wigan, in Lancashire, however, he was left behind
with the Earl of Derby, and several other loyal gentle-
men, with about two hundred horse. But Lord Derby
and his associates were surprised one morning at day-
break by a greatly superior force of Parliamentarians,
560
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/December
\ 1891.
under Major-General Lilburne, a Puritan officer of merit
and distinction, brother of the more famous "Freeborn
John " ; and, after a gallant display of valour, they were
all either slain or taken prisoners. Among the slain
was Lord Widdrington, who disdained to take quarter.
The Karl of Derby, who fell into the hands of the enemy,
was shortly afterwards beheaded at Bolton.
Clarendon tells lis that .Lord Widdrington "was one of
the goodliest persons of that age, being near the head
higher than most tall men, and a gentleman of the best
and most ancient extraction of the county of Northumber-
land, and of a very fair fortune, and one of the four which
the king made choice of to be about the person of his son
the prince, as gentlemen of the privy chamber, when he
first settled his family."
Lord Widdrington married Mary, the daughter and
sole heir of Sir Anthony Thorold, of Blankney, in
Lincolnshire, whence he took his baronial title ; and
by this lady he had a son, William Lord Widdrington,
who was one of the Council of State formally
entrusted with the executive power by the "Hump
Parliament" previous to its dissolution by General
Monk, on the eve of the Restoration, in 1660.
This nobleman was succeeded by his son, William,
third and last Lord Widdrington, who by marriage
acquired an additional estate of £12,000 per annum,
and of whom a portrait, representing him in bis
twenty-eighth year, copied from a painting now in
Stella Hall, is here given. Like most of his relations,
and particularly his grandfather, he was a de-
voted adherent of the exiled house of Stuart. When
the first Jacobite rebellion broke out in 1715, he
joined the young Earl of Derwentwater and Mr.
Forster of Bamborough at Corbridge with thirty
horse, which raised their united force to somewhat
short of a hundred, afterwards augmented to about
thrice the number. With these troops, the three
leaders marched up and down Northumberland, an far
as the gates of Newcastle, which they found closed
against them ; thence into Scotland, as far as Kelso ;
afterwards into North Lancashire, where their career
was brought to a close at "proud Preston," as already
recorded in the volume for 1890, pp. 1, 49, 97. Lord
Widdrington was taken prisoner, as were likewise
Lords Nithsdale, Wintoun, Carnwath, Nairn, Derwent-
water, and Kemnure, besides many members of the
ancient North of England families of Ord, Beaumont,
Thornton, Patten, Gascoigne, Standish, Swinburne,
and Shafto.
The prisons of Lancaster, Liverpool, Chester, and other
towns were forthwith crowded by the inferior class of
prisoners; some half-pay officers were singled out as
deserters, and shot by order of a court-martial ; and five
hundred of the ordinary soldiers were left to perish of cold
and starvation in filthy dungeons. The leaders were con-
ducted to London, where they arrived on the 9th of De-
cember. On reaching Higbgate Hill, they were met by a
strong detachment of foot guards, who tied them back to
back and placed two on each horse ; and in this ignoble
manner, with the beating of drums, blowing of trumpets,
piping of fifes, and all the accessories of a grand national
triumph, the seven noblemen were conducted to the
Tower, while the rest, some three hundred in number,
were distributed among the four common gaols.
About a month after their arrival, they were severally
impeached of high treason. The articles of impeachment
having been sent in due course by the Commons, the
House of Lords sat in judgment, Earl Cowper, the Lord
Chancellor, being constituted Lord High Steward. All
the peers who were charged, except the Earl of Wintoun,
pleaded guilty to the indictment, but offered pleas of ex-
tenuation for their guilt in hopes of obtaining mercy. On
Lord Widdrington being asked what he had to say why
judgment should not be passed upon him according to law,
he replied : —
My lords, I have abandoned all manner of defence ever
since I first surrendered myself to his Majesty's royal
December \
1891. J
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
561
clemency, and only now beg leave to repeat to your lord-
ships some circumstances of my unhappy case. You see
before you an unfortunate man, who, after leading a
wivate and retired life for many years, has, by one rash
and inconsiderate action, exposed himself and his family
to the greatest calamity and misery, and is now upon the
point of receiving the severest sentence directed by any of
our English laws. I do protest to your lordships that I
was never privy to any concerted measures against his
Majesty's royal person or the established government. As
to the insurrection in Northumberland, I only heard of it
accidentally the night before it happened : and being soon
after informed that all my neighbours and acquaintances
had met in arms, a crowd of confused and mistaken notions
hurried me at once into a precipitate resolution of joining
them— a resolution which, I must own, I could never
since calmly reflect upon without part of that confusion
I find myself under in the public acknowledgment of so
much rashness and folly. After thus plunging out of
my depth, as unprepared for such an enterprise as the
action was unpremeditated, I cannot for my own particu-
lar, upon the strictest recollection, charge myself with
any violation of the properties of my fellow-subjects ; but,
on the contrary, I always endeavoured to encourage
humanity and moderation during the whole course of our
miserable expedition ; and, in order to make the best
atonement in my power for the great fault I have been
guilty of, I can justly say that I was in no small degree
instrumental in procuring a general submission to his
Majesty. But, my lords, however willing or desirous
either I or any others might be to put a speedy end
to these unfortunate troubles, self-preservation — the
first and most powerful law of nature — would have
rendered the proposal vain and fruitless, had not the
officers who commanded the royal forces given us hopes
of mercy, and assured us we submitted to a
prince of the greatest clemency in the world. These
hopes and this assurance answered the strongest ob-
jections, overcame all remaining difficulties, and gave
the finishing stroke to a general surrender, whereby the
further effusion of British blood was prevented, and
a perfect tranquillity restored to these parts of
his Majesty's dominions. My lords, as this my first
attempt was rash and unpremeditated, as I always used
and prompted moderation and humanity towards, my
fellow-subjects, and as I did not obstinately persist in my
fault, but was the first who proposed an early submission
to his Majesty, I humbly hope my unhappy case, and
the deplorable condition of my unfortunate children,
already deprived of their tender mother, will raise a
generous compassion in your lordships and the honourable
House of Commons, and I most earnestly entreat both
your lordships' and that honourable House to become in-
tercessors with his Majesty, in my behalf, for that mercy
which I was encouraged to hope for when I first sur
rendered, and which I have ever since with the utmost
confidence relied on. I have only to add my most solemn
assurance, before this august assembly, that no future
time will ever find me wanting in the most inviolable
duty and gratitude to that merciful prince who gives me
my life, and restores a father to five miserable and dis-
tressed orphans : and I shall always retain the highest
esteem and veneration for your lordships and the honour-
able House of Commons.
After having detailed the circumstances attending the
impeachment, and answered, with technical coolness, the
argumentative matter contained in the several pleas,
Earl Cowper proceeded to sentence the prisoners in
the old barbarous fashion — that they should be taken
to the place of execution; that they should be hanged
562
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
< December
\ 1891.
by the neck, and cut down alive ; that their bowels
should be taken out and burnt before their faces ; and
that their heads should be severed from their bodies, and
then divided into four quarters ! The sentence being
thus passed, the prisoners were remanded to the Tower.
But out of the seven noblemen impeached, tried, and
sentenced to death, only two — Lord Derwentwater and
Lord Kenmure— were brought to the block. Two others
— Lord Nithsdale and Lord Wintoun— escaped, while the
remaining three were reprieved.
Lord Widdrington, whose rash adventure had, as by a
stroke of lightning, blasted and withered a family that
had for seven centuries flourished in affluence and honour,
and dissipated a fortune that had taken the labours and
the prudence of the same period to accumulate and keep
together, died at Bath in 1745, the year of the second
and last Jacobite rebellion. The real and personal
estate, which was valued at £100,000 in 1715, was for-
feited to the Crown ; but he managed eventually, about
the year 1733, to get back the estates of Stella and
Stanley, which he had obtained in marriage.
Lord Widdnngton's two younger brothers, Charles and
Peregrine, who had joined the insurrection along with
him, were likewise captured at Preston. They were
finally pardoned, however, after the alarm had blown
over. Charles is said to have died at St. Omer, in
France, in 1756 ; and Peregrine, who had acted as aide-de-
camp to General Forster, and who, while in prison, had
the dangerous disease then common in gaols called the
spotted fever, but recovered of it, married Mary,
Duchess of Norfolk, widow of Thomas, eighth Duke of
Norfolk, daughter and heir of Sir Nicholas Shireburn,
of Stonyhurst, in Lancashire, and by his will, dated in
1747, gave his estates to his nephew, William Tempest
Widdrington, in tail male, with remainder to his nephew,
John Towneley.
The Widdrington estate, worth £100,000, was first sold
to the York Building Company, who for some time paid
annual interest for the principal, which they could not
afterwards raise ; in consequence of which it was after-
wards recovered by Government, and sold to Sir George
Revel. This gentleman left it to his only daughter, who
married Sir George Borlase Warren, who also left an
only daughter. Miss Warren married George Charles,
fourth Lord Vernon, whose grandson, the sixth Lord
Vernon, sold it to Hugh Taylor, Esq., of Chipchase
Castle.
The eldest son of the attainted Lord Widdrington,
Henry Francis Widdrington, succeeded to the estates of
Stella and Stanley, which were his mother's inheritance.
Deprived of his paternal estate and of his hereditary
honours, but commonly known as Lord Widdrington, he
led a long life of peace and obscurity, and, dying at
Turnham Green, in the year 1772, was buried in St.
Pancras, London. He was the last of the Widdrington
family. By his will he left the Stella estate, first to
Thomas Eyre, of Hassop, Esq., and his heirs male. But
Thomas Eyre died without heirs male on March 26, 1792,
and in virtue of the aforesaid will, the estate became the
property of Edward T. S. Standish, of Standish, Esq.,
who also died without heirs on March 27, 1807, when
Stella, by the above will, fell to Jotiu Towneley, of
Towneley, Esq., who died on May 14, 1813, and was suc-
ceeded by his son. Peregrine Towneley, Esq., who died
on Dec. 31, 1846. Charles Towneley, the eldest son of
Peregrine, held the estates till his death on Nov. 4, 1876.
He was succeeded by his brother John, who died on Feb.
21, 1878, and the property at Stella and Stanley is now
held by his widow and her four daughters.
The Widdrington family were always as staunch
Catholics as they were Loyalists. The marriage of the
third Lord Widdrington with Miss Tempest, of Stella,
confirmed the religious and political connections of
the family. A branch of the Nunnery of St. Bartholo-
mew was established at Stella in the reign of Edward the
Confessor. The Nunnery continued uninterruptedly
until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. In Fairfax's
Views a description and engraving of the old chapel and
nunnery are to be found, and in the Monthly Chronicle
for 1888, p. 469, there is also an account of it. At the
Dissolution the property passed into the hands of the
Tempests, who appropriated a portion of the building to
a Catholic church, and worship was conducted there
regularly until the year 1831, when the new chapel (see
page 561) was built a short distance to the west. The
difficulties attending the preaching of the Catholic
religion at that time will be appreciated by the following
extracts which, through the kindness and courtesy of the
Rev. Canon Wrennal, we have been able to take from the
register kept in the Chapel at Stella : —
LIST OF CATHOLIC CLERGYMEN AT STELLA SIN'CE THE
TEAR 1700.
The Rev. John Wilson, O.S.B., served the mission about
Stella, under the patronage of the Tempest and Widdring-
ton family, in the beginning of this century. In the year
1715. he was seized for being a Roman Catholic priest,
and hurried to Uurham Gaol, to which place he is re-
membered to have passed through Winlaton on horseback
with his feet tied under the horse's belly. Being after-
wards set at liberty, he returned to the assistance of the
Catholics heretofore entrusted to his care, whom he never
more quitted until he was called to the reward of his
labours on Friday, the 22nd June, the day he died, at
Blaydon Staiths, in the year 1725.
Mr. Wilson was succeeded by Rev. N. Witham, O.S.B.,
advanced in years, and therefore unable to undergo the
fatigues of this mission. Accordingly, he presently (1726)
made room for Rev. N. Rogers, O.S.B., who, after three
or four years' residence, quitted this station to attend Sir
Ed. Gascoigne's family at Parlington, Yorkshire.
Upon Rev, N. Rogers's departure (1730), Rev. N.
Huttan, O.S.B., was appointed to this charge, which,
however, he is supposed to have resigned within the space
of a few months.
Whilst this incumbency became once more vacant, it
was occasionally supplied by Rev. N. Boomer, O.S.B., of
Lumley Castle, near Chester-le-Street, and Rev. Jo.
Barlow, of Newhouse, until the arrival of Rev. Luke
Wilson, e clero Sec., some time in the year
1732, who, after a few years remaining in this station,
was presented to the living at Stockton B'pric.
December 1
1891. j
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
563
About the year 1737, Rev. Thos. Greenwell, e clero Sec.,
from the college of SS. Peter and Paul at Lisbon, was
called to the assistance of this flock, which he alone
governed and directed until about the year 1750, when
Lord Widdrington thought proper to appoint Rev. J.
Turner, Soc. Jesu, to this incumbency. Whereupon Rev.
T. Greenwell was obliged to retire to Blaydon, where he
still continued to devote himself to the service of his
neighbour, and mostly depended for a maintenance upon
the temporary contributions of his friend and his flock,
until the year 1753, when, called to attend one John
Cook, of Winlaton, lying ill of a fever, he himself caught
the infection, and died, after a few days' illness, on Thurs-
day, August 23.
Thus Rev. J. Turner remained the sole pastor of
this large congregation until October, 1775, when
Thomas Eyre, Esq., of Hassop, being become owner of
Stella estate, invited from Douai College his kinsman and
namesake, Rev. Thomas Eyre, C.A.D.A. He accord-
ingly first entered here upon his missionary functions
llth October, 1775, which he endeavoured to discharge
until the 15th October, 1792, when he undertook a new
mission at Wooler, Northumberland.
During the few months' interval before a successor was
appointed, Rev. T. Story, of Hexham, altogether supplied
the vacancy until llth March, 1793, when their new
pastor, Rev. Wm. Hull, arrived, who endeavoured to
comply with the duties of his situation thirty-six years
and ten months, and then resigned this incumbency to
the Rev. Thomas Witham, January 11, 1830.
The foundation stone of the new chapel and house at
Stella was laid on the llth day of June, 1830, by the
Rev. Wm. Hull. The chapel was dedicated to St.
Thomas of Aquin, and opened on the 12th day of Octo-
ber, 1831, by Bishop Penswick, attended by twenty-nine
of his clergy wfco were present on the occasion.
1840. Rev. Vincent Joseph Eyre.
1845. Rev. Thomas Parker, died July 22, 1847.
1847. Rev. Ralph Platt, removed to Durham, July,
1857.
1857. Rev. Aisenius Watson, died Oct. 11, 1865.
1865. Rev. Henry Wrennall.
at tftc
j]HEN the Rev. James Murray had won him-
self a name in Silver Street, Newcastle, his
adherents erected a new meeting-house —
securing for themselves a site in the High
Bridge, a thoroughfare deriving its title from the viaduct
that spanned the Lort Burn, and gave our forefathers a
communication between the eastern and western districts
of the town. A native of Roxburghshire, and a member of
a Covenanting family, Murray, born about the year 1732,
was a student of Edinburgh University. In his early
manhood he came into Northumberland as a private
tutor. But he was afterwards a Dissenting pastor in
Alnwick ; and some little time subsequent to the estab-
lishment of the Newcastle Chronicle in 1764, to which he
was a frequent contributor, the High Bridge Meeting
House was built. In this place, from Sunday to Sunday,
he ministered to his flock for a period not far short of
twenty years, down to his death in 1782. His fertile
mind made incessant use of the pulpit and the press.
Sermons were preached and printed ; numerous were the
works he published ; and amongst the best known were
his Sermons to Asses, to Doctors of Divinity, and to
Ministers of State. His "Travels of the Imagination,"
first appearing in 1773, was reprinted in 1828, with
a memoir. In thn month of August, 1781, when
he was living down Tabernacle Entry in Northum-
berland Street (a covered passage-way afterwards
"used in forming Lisle Street," his house standing
"in the scite of Queen Street "), he announced his
intention to begin an academy, in conjunction with his
son, on the first Monday in September, "for teaching
young gentlemen and ladies the English and French
languages grammatically; also Latin and Greek, writing,
arithmetic, accounts, &c., according to the most approved
methods, all for half-a-guinea a quarter, and half-a-guinea
entrance." But the purpose of this laborious divine was
frustrated by the progress of a malady that caused his
death on the 28th of January, 1782, in hi.- fiftieth year.
"His memory," remarked an obituary notice at the time,
"will be long revered for his impartial inquiries after
truth, and undaunted declaration of it from the pulpit and
the press ; for his warm zeal for the liberties of mankind
in general, and the Protestant cause in particular; and
his many valuable works which he has published." In
the Newcastle Chronicle was inserted, from the pen of a
South Shields correspondent, a tributary verse :—
Is Murray gone? Alas, too true !
Ye Tory priests, rejoice !
Far more that lettered champion knew
Than half the foes of vice.
Ye High Bridge Protestants, beware
Who in his place ye choose ;
Lest all his learning, all his care,
In simple choice ye lose.
"The Congregation of Protestant Dissenters assembled
at the High Bridge" reared a memorial of their minister
564
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
/ December
V 1891
in the churchyard of St. Andrew ; and Thomas Bewick,
the famous artist and engraver, has left behind him the
eulogy, that "he was a cheerful, facetious, sensible,
pleasant man ; a most agreeable companion ; full of anec-
dote and information ; keen in his remarks, but carefully
kept off hurting the feelings of any of the company."
Perhaps, however, he rather touched the sensibilities of
some of his flock on the occasion when, in the days of
hair-powder and pigtails, a Scotch drover dropped into
the High Bridge Meeting House, "and, leaning on the
edge of a pew, stood listening." No seat being offered to
the stranger, the preacher at last paused, and caused a
pew door to be opened, with a rebuke to the regular
hearers :— " If that man had had a powdered head, and a
fine coat on his back, you would have thrown open twenty
pews to receive him."
From his " Travels of the Imagination, a True Journey
from Newcastle to London," some extracts may be made.
They will serve to show how different from our own was
the condition ot the 'world at the time the work was
written. Tyne Bridge had been washed away in 1771 ;
a temporary viaduct was in course of erection in 1772,
when Mr. Murray's excursion was made ; and, till its
opening in the autumn, travellers must cross the river
by ferry. Listen to the characteristic beginning of
the minister's book : — " It is a disagreeable consider-
ation when a person is enjoying sweet repose in his
bed, to be suddenly awakened by the rude blus-
tering noise of a vociferous hostler. There is no help
for it, provided a man intends to travel in a stage-
coach. This evil, like many others, must be suffered
with patience. Patience renders all burdens three-fourths
lighter than they would be without it. The morning
was very fine when we entered the coach. Nature
smiled around us. It is a pity, thought I, that we
are not to ride on horseback : we should then enjoy
the pleasures of the morning, snuff the perfumes of
the fields, hear the music of the grove and the con-
cert of the wood. In crossing the river Tyne from
Newcastle to London, there is one mconveni»ncy :
you must wait the pleasure of a little arbitrary bashaw,
who will not move one foot beyond the rules of his own
authority, or mitigate the sentence passed upon those
who are condemned to travel in a stage-coach within
a ferry-boat. As I hate every idea of slavery and
oppression, I was not a little offended at the expressions
of authority which were exercised upon this occasion by
the legislator of the ferry. We were now in the boat, and
obliged to sit till this little tyrant gave orders for our
departure. The vehicle for carrying passengers across the
river is the most tiresome and heavy method that ever
was invented. Four rowers in a small boat drag the
ponderous ferry across the river very slowly. From the
time we entered the boat, before we landed on the
opposite side, an hour was almost spent. We had time
to reflect upon what might happen to us by the way, and
an opportunity to put up a few ejaculations to Heaven to
preserve us from the danger of ferry boats and tyrants.
This was the best use we could make of our time while we
continued in this floating chariot. Some of the ladies who
were in the coach were so hurried in the morning that
they scarcely had time to say their prayers. This was a
good opportunity."
Perhaps they prayed for the patience of the preacher's
aphorism. Hurried out of bed— dragged over the river-
he chafed under his sufferings from "ferry boats and
tyrants," but recovered his equanimity on reaching the
County Palatine. On the Gateshead shore, where the
ring of the hammer is now heard, he was "saluted by a
blackbird." "It seemed to take pleasure to see us fairly
out of the domains of Charon, and whistled cheerfully
upon our arrival. Nature, said I to myself, is the
mistress of real pleasure. This same blackbird cannot
suffer us to pass by without contributing to our happiness.
'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' I wish that
all men understood this maxim as well by reason and
tutorage as this whistler in a hedge does by instinct.
The blackbird is free, and sings from a sense of liberty.
It is under no control. Were it in a cage, it might sing,
but not half so sweetly. Liberty appears to be the
first principle of music. Slaves never sing from the
heart. "
So chants the traveller. Freed from the ferry, he
moralises on wheels; makes melody in his heart as the
coaches roll onward. As he ascended the Fell (not then
enclosed, but lying waste and common), "the whins
and the briar sent forth a fragrance exceedingly delight-
fuL" "The pleasures of the morning now increased upon
us." "On every of side of the coach, peerless drops of
dew dangling upon the blossoms of the thorns helped to
add to the perfume." The passengers had made an early
start ; and not till now " Aurora began to streak the
eastern sky, and the spangled heavens announced the
approach of the king of day." The sun is rising, and the
minister moralizes on the lark, " carolling upward to the
sky," and " serenading his dame with mirthful glee and
pleasure." " He sings to make her toil easy, while she is
employed about their mutual concerns. Ah ! little do
those about the courts of monarchs know " We
need not complete the reflections, but climb with the
coach to the "Long Bank," where a more sombre text
offers itself anon. Hazlett, the highwayman, had been
gibbeted by the roadside in 1770 ; and the ghastly
sight was still there, as a terror to evil-doers, in
1772. " Unfortunate and infatuated Hazlett!" exclaims
the moralist, " hadst thou robbed the nation of millions,
instead of robbing the mail and pilfering a few shillings
from a testy old maid, thou hadst not been banging a
spectacle to passengers and a prey to crows. Thy case
was pitiable, but there was no mercy : thou wast poor,
and thy sin unpardonable," &c. The " testiness" of the
"old maid" was probably a flight of "the imagination":
December!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
565
and yet, she might well be out of temper, and take it
amiss at the moment, when the mounted marauder thrust
his pistol in at her chaise window, and gave her the choice
of her money or her life \ Murray, who could lose his
patience under the control of Charon, might possibly have
lost his balance with a muzzle and a mosstrooper at the
coacb door.
" The place where Hazlett hangs is the finest place in
the world for the walk of a ghost. At the foot of a wild,
romantic mountain, near the side of a small lake, are his
remains. His shadow appears in the water, and suggests
the idea of two malefactors. The imagination may easily
conjure up his ghost." Yes '. the imagination is a great
wonder-worker. But in the present day, when everybody
steams over Loch Lomond and rambles among " The
Lakes," the tourist will be disposed to smile over the
" wild romantic mountain " and the " lake " on Gates-
head Fell ! The lake is now gone ; the gibbet and the
stage-coach are no more ; and the highwayman and his
blunderbuss are but apparitions of history.
At Chester-le-Street the coach stopped, and there was
breakfast. Then on to Durham, which " would be a very
fine place were it not for the swarms of priests that are in
it." The cathedral has "a famous clock, said to be the
workmanship of a man who was convicted of counter-
feiting the king's coin," and thus expiated his offence — a
tale for travellers. Locomotion was not "express" in
those days. There was time to listen to legends, to
perambulate the city, to criticise the tombstones in the
churchyards, and to visit "the New Inn," a "very fine,
spacious building," which "might serve the Bishop."
But at the sound of the horn, the High Bridge minister
must cease "marking down the observations " suggested
by his "walk through the town," take leave of the land-
lord, and be off; he and the military officer, and their
four fair fellow-travellers.
It was about seven o'clock in the evening when the
coach reached drantham. Supper over, the passengers
repaired to "an old thatched house in the corner of the
town," where "some of Mr. Garrick's servants were that
night to exhibit." The entertainments were "The West
Indian" and "The Jubilee." At two in the morning
the journey was resumed. Murray falls asleep, and his
nap consumes a whole chapter of the book. " What is
sleep," and "what the cause of it," gives occupation for
a dozen pages : and the discursive inquirer does not so far
settle the question as to get rid of the necessity of some-
body saying more.
To London and the top of St. Paul's, we do not follow
him. Enough has been given from his ' ' Travels " to show
the contrast between the transit of to-day and a hundred
years ago. One thing, however, we must add ; and a
most important item it is, namely, the cost. The cost in
time was great. There was also board and lodging. And
what was the fare ? Mr. Murray tells us that he paid
JS3 8s. 6d. ! The distance may now be done both ways
for the money. Nay, if you will travel third-class, you
may have a pound to spare.
Dauntless was the spirit of James Murray, and devoted
his attachment to his convictions and principles ; »nd we
may all copy with advantage his steadfastness to freedom
and duty. j Q
Mnnbn-3 at tfte
jjF this delightful family of birds three mem-
bers are figured in Mr. John Duncan's
drawings here given. One of them is a
common visitor to the North of England,
another is oftener heard than seen, and a specimen of
the third was once captured near Newcastle.
The sedge warbler (Sylvia phragmitia) is a common
summer visitor to the Northern Counties. It has a sweet
and varied song, and as it sings at night it is occasionally
mistaken for the nightingale. "Some years ago," says
Mr. John Hancock, "a nightingale escaped from con-
finement in Jesmond Dene ; it was almost immediately
recaptured. It got, however, bruited abroad that a
nightingale had been heard singing in the dene ; and a
crowd of people went night after night to hear it. Many
came away quite satisfied that they had heard the
songster, the sedge warbler having raised his voice as if
on purpose to gratify the multitude or to have his joke ;
and proud would the little merry fellow have been could
he have known how well he had succeeded."
The bird is plentiful in Northumberland and Durham,
and may be found in most places where there are proper
shelter and water. Its nest may be found in overgrown
566
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f December
\ 1891.
hedges on country roads, but never far from water. It
arrives in its breeding haunts about the middle or end of
April, according to the season.
Morris aptly describes its habits thus : — " I watched one
for some time playing at hide and seek with me, in some
large hawthorn bushes which covered the steep bank of a
stream, overhanging it almost to the water's edge ;
beyond all doubt the nest was there. Now it would fly a
tew yards off; now, if thinking itself unobserved, slyly
return to its place ; now sing lustily from some hidden
covert, and on a sudden emerge and show itself ; then
again descend to the recesses of the thick brake, and so
quickly re-appear at a little distance that it would almost
seem as if it had flown straight without hindrance
through the tangled underwood ; once more it would set
up its ringing note, like a watchman springing his rattle
to alarm his household, for such in its small way it closely
resembles, and finally disappear from view and from
hearing together, unless again disturbed."
The ordinary note of the bird is a faint, sharp cheep,
but its chattering song is lively and pleasing. Sometimes
it sings from a branch or spray, but more frequently the
song is heard from the interior of some leafy bush or
shrub, often causing the uninitiated to wonder what kind
of bird the unseen warbler can be. On fine summer
nights it often carols into the "small hours," and has on
this account been mistaken for the nightingale, the
sweetest of all our warblers. Even if it has gone to roost,
a stone thrown into a thick bush will often set the sedge-
warbler into song. Most naturalists give the bird the
credit of considerable mimetic power.
The adult male in summer is, above, olive-brown,
yellowish-rufous on rump ; four longitudinal, dark -brown
stripes on head ; well defined eye-stripe whitish, broader
towards nape ; centres of upper back feathers shaded with
dark brown ; wings and tail brown, with pale margins ;
beneath, creamy white, shaded, especially on flanks, with
yello.vish-brown ; legs, brown; irides, brown; length,
about five inches. The female resembles the male.
The sedge-warbler feeds on insects of various kinds,
some of which are captured on the wing, as well as worms
and slugs.
The grasshopper warbler (Sylvia locustella), called also
the cricket bird, is more elegant in form than the
sedge-warbler. Like others of the family, it is of retir-
ing habits. "The grasshopper warbler," Mr. Hancock
says, " though seldom seen, on account of its skulking
habits, is not by any means rare ; it is local, however,
preferring low brushy scrub in secluded situations. I
have found it breeding in various places in the neighbour-
hood of Newcastle ; but it is nowhere so plentiful as on
the banks of the Derwent, a few miles west of Newcastle.
It is a spring and autumn migrant." The bird derives its
name from its peculiansong, which is not unlike theory of
the grasshopper or the field cricket.
The grasshopper warbler arrives in this country in
April or early May, according to the weather and the
locality, and leaves in September.
Tiie general colour of the plumage is a rich greenish
brown above, and as each feather has crescent-shaped
spots of dark brown in the centre, from the base of
the bill above to the root of the tail, it appears to
be beautifully marked. The male is nearly five inches
and three-quarters long. The chin and throat are yel-
lowish white; and the breast and part of the throat
yellowish brown, merging into an olive tint at the sides.
The wings are short and have a spread of seven and a
half inches, which makes the handsome rounded tail
appear longer than it really is. The tail, extending
an inch and a half beyond the wings, is brown, and
marked with numerous transverse lines, each feather
being edged with a darker colour than at the centre.
The food of the bird consists chiefly of flies, gnats,
beetles, and other insects, grasshoppers, small snails, and
slugs.
Seebohm says> that the range <A the icterine warbler
( Hypolais ioterinaj is a very peculiar one. The bird is a
common summer visitor to the North of France, Belgium,
December!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
567
Holland, Germany, Italy, and Sicily, but is very rare in
the South of France, and entirely absent from Spain. It
is common in Denmark, the Baltic Provinces, and South
Scandinavia, but becomes much rarer further north.
The first example of thia bird taken in the British
Islands was killed on June 15, 1848, at Eyethorne, near
Dover; the second was shot on June 8, 1856, atDunsinea,
on the banks of the river Tolka, in the county of Dublin ;
and another was procured near Newcastle-on-Tyne, in the
summer of 1889, and is now in the possession of a local
collector.
The adult male is about five inches in length. In
its spring plumage, the general colour of the upper
parts, including the lores, ear coverts, and the sides of
the neck, is olive-green ; a somewhat indistinct greenish
yellow eye-stripe extends from the base of the bill, losing
itself behind the eye ; the quills are brown, narrowly edged
with brownish white ; the tail feathers are brown, with very
narrow pale edges, and generally with indistinct traces of
transverse bars; the underparts, including the auxiliaries,
are uniform greenish yellow, many of the feathers on the
thighs and under wing-coverts having brown centres.
The female scarcely differs from the male.
stretch of sea at high water. When the tide is out, how-
ever, the intervening sands are quite dry, BO that some of
the beautiful caves which penetrate the Rock on all sides
may be closely examined. The top of the Rock can be
reached by a series of rather hazardous ladders and stairs
that were constructed for the purpose by Peter Allan and
later members of his family.
Caotlc 0f tfte
OME account of Marsden Rock, with many
particulars of Peter Allan, the remarkable
man who hewed Marsden Grotto out of the
solid cliff, will be found in the first volume of the Monthly
Chronicle, 1S87, page 126. The Rock, which is situated
on the coast of Durham, between South Shields and
Sunderland, is, as may be seen from the accompanying
engraving, detached from the mainland by a narrow
MARSDEN BOCK.
MONG the innumerable Arthurian legends
which have been spun and woven in the course
of the last eight or ten centuries out of the
scanty materials furnished by Nennius, Ordericus,
Vitalis, and William of Malmesbury, there is one of an
interesting nature connected with Northumberland. It is
that of the Castle of the Seven Shields.
This fortress, now in utter and almost undistinguish-
able ruin, was situated on the sheep farm of Sewing-
shields, a short distance northward from the Roman Wall,
and in the immediate neighbourhood of the Northumber-
land Lakes. It is most likely in this case, as in others,
that the legend was originally invented to account for the
name of the place, and that the seven shields, now said
to have been those borne by an equal number of gallant
Knights of the Round Table, were in reality nothing
more nor less than seven herdsmen's or watchers' huts
(shiels), built on that convenient spot to command the ex-
tensive prospect from it. But the love of the marvellous
ever prevails. Hence, Sewingshields now is, and will
remain to the latest generation, one of the scenes of King
Arthur's fabulous history.
Hodgson's " History of Northumberland" contains the
following account of an adventure which is said to have
brought to light, more than a century since,
some of the marvels that lie concealed
under Sewingshields Crags : —
Immemorial tradition has asserted that
King Arthur, his Queen Guenever, his court
of lords and ladies, and his hounds were
enchanted in some cave of the crags, or in a
hall below the castle of Sewincrshields, and
would continue entranced there till some
one should first blow a bugle-horn that lay
on a table near the entrance of the hall, and
then with " the sword of the stone" cut a
garter also placed there beside it. But
none had ever heard where the entrance to
this enchanted hall was, till the farmer of
Sewingshields, about fifty years since, was
sitting knitting on the ruins of the castle,
and bis clew fell, and ran downwards
through a rush of briars and nettles, as he
supposed, into a deep subterranean passage.
Full in the faith that the entrance into
King Arthur's hall was now discovered, he
cleared the briary portal of its weeds and
rubbish, and, entering the vaulted passage,
followed, in his darkling way, the thread of
his clew. The floor was infested with toads
and lizards ; and the dark wings of bats,
568
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
f December
1 1891.
disturbed by his unhallowed intrusion, flitted fear-
fully around . him. At length his sinking courage was
strengthened by a dim, distant light, which, as he
advanced, grew gradually brighter, till all at once he
entered a vast and vaulted hall, in the centre of which a
fire without fuel, from a broad crevice in the floor, blazed
with a high and lambent flame, that showed all the
carved walls and fretted roof, and the monarch and his
queen and court reposing around in a theatre of thrones
and costly couches. On the floor, beyond the fire, lay the
faithful and deep toned pack of thirty couple of hounds ;
and on a table before it, the spell-dissolving horn, sword,
and garter. The shepherd reverently but firmly grasped the
sword, and as he drew it leisurely from its rusty scabbard,
the eyes of the monarch and his courtiers began to open,
and they rose till they sat upright. He cut the earter ;
and as the sword was being slowly sheathed, the spell
assumed its ancient power, and they all gradually sunk
to rest ; but not before the monarch had lifted up his eyes
and hands, and exclaimed : —
O woe betide that evil day_,
On which this witless wight was born,
Who drew the aword — the garter cut,
But never blew the bugle-horn.
Terror brought on loss of memory, and the shepherd was
unable to give any correct account of his adventure, or to
find again the entrance to the enchanted hall.
Sir Walter Scott's version of the Sewingshields legend
differs essentially from that which we have quoted from
Hodgson.
HE massive old pele tower at Longhorsley is
one of the striking landmarks which the pedes-
trian encounters on his way from Morpeth
to Rothbury. Longhorsloy is situated some six and-a-
half miles north of Morpeth, and the fortalice occupies a
commanding position to the west of the village. When
and by whom this tower was erected, Hodgson and other
historians of Northumberland do not say, asserting that
they had come across no record, hint, or tradition respect-
ing it. Hodgson himself believed that it belonged to Sir
John Horsley in the time of Henry VIII. But, however
distant may have been the date of its erection, there is
apparently little change to be observed, as regards its
outward features at least, since the time it was built.
There is no mention of Longhorsley Tower in the list of
Border towers which existed in the county of North-
December!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
569
umberland at the beginning of the reign of Henry VI.
Robert Horsley, who died in 1445, occupied the tower of
Thernham, now called Farnham, in Coquetdale. This
tower remained in the possession of that line of the
Horsier family until the reign of Henry VIII.. when it
was carried to the Carnabys by their heiress. The edifice
is now in the possession of the Riddell family, who have
converted it into a manse for a Catholic priest.
The surroundings of the tower are not specially in-
teresting. There is the wide expanse of moorland, known
as Longhorsley Moor, which, during the summer months,
is much traversed by cyclists. Thouph the road across
it, with its sandy surface and very steep gradients, may
not exactly suit the tastes of wheelmen, many of these
will doubtless enjoy the landscape, for Longhorsley Moor,
notwithstanding its wild and desolate aspect, is not with-
out its charms.
i]R. RALPH HEDLEY'3 sketch, which appears
on this page, was drawn to illustrate an actual
incident that occurred in the tap-room of a
public-house on Tyneside. A couple of pitmen had there
met, with the usual result that one or both had got " half-
seas ovtr." It was then that plain truths began to be
toid one about the other. " Aa'll tell thoo whaat it is,
Isaac." said the toner sittintr at the table: "aadivvent
haaf like thoo." " Wey," asked the other, " whaat's the
mettor noo?" "Dis thoo not knaa ?" returned his com-
panion. "Well, aa'll tell thoo. Last Newcassel Races,
when we wor tegethor, thoo won a haaf-croon on the
Plate, and thoo waak'd off hyem wiv't \ That's not fair
doos, is't?" The character and habits of the Northern
miner are admirably hit off both in the story and the
picture.
THE TWO PITMEN.
?&i0t0rtfftt trf Dttrftam.
URTEES'S " History of Durham " is univer-
sally acknowledged to be, in point of original
research, comprehensiveness, execution, and
general accuracy, inferior to none of our
great English county histories. Its author — Robert
Surtees, of Mainsforth — was one of the most remarkable
men the North has produced, though he never made
any great figure before the public while he lived.
His parents had been nearly 18 years married, and
had had two children (both of whom died in in-
fancy), when he was born at Durham, in the South
Bailey, on the 1st of April, 1779. His childhood was
passed with his parents, in the retirement of their
family scat at Mainsforth, near Sedgefield, "of which,"
as his biographer, Mr. Taylor (father of Sir Henry
Taylor) says, " the pleasant scenes were thus associated
with his earliest impressions, and laid the foundation
A that taste for sequestered, quiet, and rural ele-
gance which his after life was spent in cultivating
there." This retirement, however, was frequently
-dried by a winter visit to York, at that time 1.
kind of metropolis for the northern gentry of mode-
rate fortune.
The future historian was sent first of all tu the
Kepier School at Houghton-le-Spring, where he
gained, among other things, a well-grounded ac-
quaintance with the Latin and Greek languages,
Then he went to Oxford, where in 1796 he entered
as a commoner at Christ Cnurch. At college his
habits were studious, but his application to his
books was not so intense as to interfere with his
hours of exercise and moderate social enjoyment.
"He was beloved by those who knew him well,
esteemed by those who knew him less intimately,
and sought by all who became acquainted with his
powers of conversation." So writes one of his
fellow-collegians, Mr. William Ward Jackson, of
Normanby, Yorkshire. He took the degree of
Bachelor of Arts in November, 1800, removed to
London, and became a member of the Middle
Temple. But on the death of his father in 1802,
before he was of standing to be called to the bar, he
retired to Mainsforth, relinquishing his connection
570
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
I December
X 1891.
with the legal profession, and almost immediately com-
menced the compilation of his history.
The first volume of this great work was published in
1816, the second in 1820, and the third in 1823, while the
fourth and last volume, not having been wholly arranged
at the time of his death, waa not given to the world until
1840. The work occupied him so exclusively as to leave
but few incidents for his biographer to commemorate.
But he carried on an extensive literary correspondence
with Sir Walter Scott and other celebrities of the time,
principally on subjects connected with archEeology, folk
lore, and old ballads.
It was in the course of this correspondence that he
became the perpetrator of one of the most daring and
dexterous literary impostures of modern times. Scott
had published three editions of his " Border Minstrelsy, "
when, in 1806, he received a letter from Surtees (then a
stranger to him), containing remarks upon some of the
ballads composing that work. Scott sent a cordial
answer, and by-and-by there came from Surtees a pro-
fessedly old ballad, "On a Feud between the Ridleys
and the Featherstonehaughs, " which he professed to have
talcen down from the recitation of an old woman of Alston
Moor. It is a production as coarse as it is wild and in-
coherent, and therefore characteristic enough of the bar-
barous old mosstrooper time ; and it was accompanied by
historical notes, calculated to authenticate it as a narrative
of actual events. So the author of the "Lay of the Last
Minstrel," who was then full of excitement about ballads
in general, at once accepted it as a genuine relic of
antiquity, introduced a passage of it in Marmion, and
inserted it entire in his next edition of the "Minstrelsy."
The forgery was not discovered till after the death of
Surtees in 1835 ; and Scott, on whom the hoax had been
practised, having died three jears earlier, left the world
without being aware of the deception.
So little, however, did Surtees regard as a breach of
honesty what critics of every school art now united in
stigmatising as such, that the very next year L? passed off
another ballad of his own making upon his enthusiastic
and unsuspicious friend. In a letter dated Hendou, near
Sunderland, 28th February, 1807, he proceeds to say :—
"I add a ballad of Lord Eure, apparently a song of gratu-
lation on his elevation to the peerage, which I took by
recitation from a very aged person, Rose Smith, of Bishop
Middleham, ast. 91, whose husband's father and two
brothers were killed in the Rebellion of 1715. I was in-
terrogating her for Jacobite songs, and, instead, acquired
Lord Eure." As in the former case, he added a num-
ber of historical notes to support the deception, and
Scott did not hesitate to put Lord Eure in a false
character before the world in the next edition of his
"Minstrelsy."
This, however, was not all. Tempted, apparently, by
the very faith which Scott had in his veracity, he played
off yet a third imposture. There is, in the later editions
of the "Minstrelsy," a ballad of very vigorous action,
entitled "Barthrum's Dirge," beginning —
They shot him dead on the Nine-stone Rig,
Beside the Headless Cross ;
And they left him lying in his blood,
Upon the moor and moss.
The editor states that it was obtained from the recitation
of an old woman by his "obliging friend," Mr. Surtees,
who communicated it to him, with only a few missing
lines replaced by himself, as indicated by brackets. In
reality, this ballad was also Surtees's own. The missing
lines, supplied within brackets, were merely designed as
a piece of apparent candour, the better to blind the editor
to the general falsehood of the story. When we turn to
the letter in which Surtees sent the ballad to Scott, we
obtain a notion of the plausible way in which these tricks
were framed : —
The following romantic fragment, dated Nov. 9, 1809,
(which I have no further meddled with than to fill up a
hemistitch, and complete rhyme and metre), I have from
the imperfect recitation of Ann Douglass, a withered
crone who weeded in my garden.
"They shot him dead on the Nine-stone Rip," &c.
I have no local reference to the above. The name of
Bartram bids fair for a Northumbrian hero ; but the style
is, I think, superior to our Northumbrian ditties, and
more like the Scotch. There is a place called Headless
Cross, I think, in old maps, near Klsilun in Northumber-
land ; but this is too vague to found an idea upon.
Mr. Surtees was married in June, 1807, to Miss Anne
Robinson, daughter of Ralph Robinson, of Middle Har-
rington, in the county of Durham ; and we are told by
his biographer, Mr. Taylor, that " perhaps few marriages
have more entirely realised the anticipations of the
parties." Instead of the depressing solitude to which his
leisure hours had been condemned (and those hours, also,
often abridged, from the want of inducement to quit his
study), he found in his wife a companion fully competent
to appreciate his character and enjoy his society. His
plan of life was now fixed as it continued to the end.
Mainsforth became the centre of a select literary circle,
whose tastes and studies were congenial with the more
peculiar pursuits of their host. To persons who rendered
him assistance in his work, Surtees was extremely liberal
in his invitations to visit him at " his home," as he called
it, and "if ever there was a roof under which the pro-
duction and encouragement of knowledge were combined
with the diffusion of cheerful ease and happiness to every
guest, ic wus at Mainsforth."
Of Surtees's kindly character the Rev. James Raine
gives the following description : —
His attachment to dogs (not only his own, but those
of others) was very extraordinary. He had a personal
acquaintance with almost every dog in Durham ; and
he would frequently say that man was the deity of the
dog, and that it was imperative upon him to treat with
kindness the poor creature who so devoutly worshipped
hi,m. Indeed, to all dumb animals he was kindness itself.
He never sold his old horses, but took off their shoes, gave
them a good pasture, and let them die in peace. Even a
worm or a fly was never passed if he cjuid render them
assistance.
From Mainsforth he was always very reluctant to be
December!
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
571
drawn, and most gladly returned to it. Sometimes he
would set out on some short tour, repent before the first
day was ended, and come home again. His devoted
attachment to the seclusion of his quiet country residence
and his happy domestic life, was doubtless the motive for
declining offers that had been made to him of a seat in
Parliament, and of a prebendal stall in Durham which
Bishop Barrington had promised him if he would take
orders in the Church. A tour in Scotland and a short ex-
cursion on the Continent were about the extent of his
.travelling. "God," as he said, "had placed him in
paradise, and he had everything that could make a man
happy."
Yet, eminently calculated as he was to enjoy such
blessings, and nervous as his constitution was, he met the
approach of death with composure and resignation. A
gleam of his characteristic humour, in affectionate ap-
preciation of his wife's character, appeared only a night
or two before his death. He was lying in an inner
chamber, and, at his own request, alone and in darkness,
when a timepiece, which marked the half hours by a
single stroke on the bell, struck, as he thought, one
o'clock, and he rapped on the partition for the medicine
which was to be taken at that hour. Mrs. Surtees, who
was watching iu the outer apartment, came to him, and
said, "Surtees, it is not one yet." "Yes, it is, hn
replied." "You are mistaken," she answered; "it
cannot be." "Nay, then, Annie," said he, "what is to
become of the world if you are beginning to lie ?" A few
days later — on Feb. 11, 1834— he breathed his last.
[R. THOMAS ARNOLD, one of the most
enlightened schoolmasters of the present
century, was born at East Cowes on June 13,
1795. The seat of his family was not, however, in the
Isle of Wight, but at Lowestoft. Educated at War-
minster and Winchester, he was introduced by some of
his college chums to the poets of the Lake School ; but it
was not until many years had flown that he was brought
into immediate contact with them in their own delightful
district. He prepared himself for the Church, but he did
not take priest's orders until 1828. For some half-dozen
years previous to that date he resided at Laleham, where
he trained pupils for the universities. In August. 1828,
at the earnest solicitation of Dr. Whately, he undertook
the duties of headmaster of Rugby School, then less
famous than it is now. Dr. Arnold set himself the
onerous task of perfecting the institution, and all the
world knows that he was eminently successful. In 1833
he purchased a small estate near Ambleside, Westmore-
land, called Fox Howe (see vol. for 1889, p. 368), where
he built a villa residence within a few yards of the
Rothay, which at this point moves silently along towards
Windermere after a wild course amongst the hills. Here
he enjoyed his school vacations in the society of Words-
worth, Colonel Hamilton (author of " Cyril Thornton "),
Sir Thomas Pasley, and occasionally Southoy. It was at
Fox Howe that Dr. Arnold found time to write his
From Harpfr'a Magazine.— Copyright, 1831, by Harper A Brothers.
DH. ARNOLD.
Roman history, and to collect materials for a work on
Church and State, which, however, he was not destined
to complete. This eminent man died on the 12th of
June, 1842.
j]R. ROBERT BUCHANAN, the novelist and
playwright, writing in a London newspaper,
-_^_ records the following reminiscences of a
gentleman once well known in the North of England, the
late Mr. Lloyd Jones :—
Another friend of my father, and a constant visitor at
our house, was Lloyd Jones, lecturer, debater, and
iournalist. An Irishman with the mellowest of voices, he
delighted my young soul with snatches of jovial song-
the" Widow Maehree," "The Leather Bottel and the
modern burlesque of that royal ballad, the "P?wter
Quart"— written, I think, by Maguire, and originally
published in Blackwood :
Here, boy, take this handful of brass,
Across to the Goose and the Gridiron pass,
Pay the coin on the counter out,
And brin? me a pint of foaminj? stout
Put it not into bottle or juc,
Cannikin, rumkin, fla<;on, or mug,
Into nothing at all, in short,
Except the natural PEWTER QOART !
572
MONTHLY CHRONICLE.
{December
1891.
Jones " troll'd" rather than sang, with robust strength
and humour. I found out, when I was a year or two
older, that he knew and loved the obscurer early poets,
and could recite whole passages from their works by
heart. George Wither was a great favourite of his, and
he had a fine collection of that poet's works, many of
them very scarce. It was a treat to hear him sins;
Wither's charming ballad — .
Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman's fair?
If she be not fair for we,
What care 1 how fair she be ?
or to hear him recite the same poet's naive, yet lively,
invocation to the Muse, written in prison —
By a Daisy whose leaves spread,
Shut when Titan goes to bed,
By a lush upon a tree,
She r-ould more infuse in me
Than all Nature's wonders can
In some other wiser man !
I owe Lloyd Jones this debt, that he first taught me to
love old songs and homespun English poetry. He was a
large-hearted, genial man, not to be forgotten in any
chronicle of the Socialistic cause.
THE COMMANDMENTS.
A scripture reader waited on a good wo.nan in a
Durham colliery village. Not satisfied of the woman's
spiritual condition, the visitor remarked that he was
afraid she did not keep the commandments. "Keep the
commandments !" she exclaimed, " Wiv aall tl.ese
bairns, we've enough te de te keep worsels !"
A CANDID CRITIC.
The other evening, several passengers in a railway
carriage were disturbed by the noisy singing of several
people in the next compartment. A Quayside labourer,
referring to one of the unruly ones whose voice was very
harsh, exclaimed : — "Begox, if that chep wes hanged for
singing he wad dee innocent !"
MARROWS.
One of the pit shoes of a miner residing in the Bed-
lington district happened an accideut some time ago.
The following morning the pitman appeared before his
fellow-workmen shod in a shoe and a clog. This fact
soon attracted the attention of an acquaintance, who ex-
claimed : — " Wey, Tom, thy shoes isn't marrahs !" " No,
hinny, they're not," replied Tom ; " but it myeks ne
matter — they hev te work tegithor just the syem !"
LET GO THERE !
A Scotchman was down on Newcastle Quay one morn-
ing. Stopping for a short time at a wharf, he saw two
keelmen come alongside to unmoor their boat. Being in
a hurry, they shouted out to the Scotchman, who was
standing by, " Aa say, hey, let go that rope thor." Not
understanding what they meant, the stranger at once
jumped out of the road, and said, " Mon, aw'm no touch-
in' your rope !"
THE MUSIC STOOL.
A miner of the old school once bought a music stool at a,
sale in Newcastle. Next day he brought it back to the
auctioneer. " Ye caall this a music stool ! " said he.
" Wey, aa'vn torned it roond and roond aalways, and aa
cannot get a tune oot on't !"
DATE OP BIRTH.
At a village in Durham, a few years ago, a miner's wife
having been confined, the Registrar of Births received the
usual notice from the colliery doctor ; and made a call
shortly afterwards, when the following colloquy took
place: — Miner's wife: "Gud mornin', sor. Are ye cumin'
in te get yor pipe ?" Registrar: "No; I have called to
see what date your child was born." Miner's wife:
" Wey, aa's shoor, sor, aa cannot tell, but it was the day
Jack Bell killed his greet fat pig !"
GOOD WORKS.
On the Castle Garth Stairs there once lived an old
clogger, who did not believe in keeping his religion to
himself. One day, on a customer coming into his shop, the
old man began to talk about "people's good works follow-
ing them." After he had been preaching for a short space
of time to little effect, his customer said. " Wey, noo, aa'll
tell thoo whaat ; if thy good works hes te follow thoo,
they '11 make a divil of a clatter gannen down the Castle
Garth Stairs !"
DISCOUNT.
A miner, belonging to one of the Northumbrian
collieries, who had suffered, in common with the miners
generally, various reductions of so much per cent, in his
wages, called one day at the shop of a well-known clothier
in Newcastle, and inquired the price of a coat he thought
would suit him. The price (£3) was mentioned by the
shopkeeper. " Three poond !" exclaims the customer ;
" that's ower much." "Well, but," said the tradesman,
" ws allow 5 per cent off." " Five per cent, be d d !
We've hed enough per cents taken off wor wages !"
A QUACK DOCTOR'S ELOU.UENCE.
One of the quack doctors who usually frequent the
Bigg Market, Newcastle, was holding forth there one
Saturday evening on the constituent parts and ailments of
the human body. "The human body," said he, "con-
sists of three parts — the head, the thorax, and the
abdomen. The head," he continued, "contains the
brains— if there are any ; the thorax contains the lungs,
lights, and liver ; and the abdomen contains the bowels,
of which there are five, a, e, i, o, u, and sometimes w
and y ! "
THE PITMAN AND THE RAILWAY OFFICIAL.
A number of pitmen, who were returning from a
miners' annual picnic, had been for some little time
awaiting the arrival of the train that was to convey them
from Durham to their destination. At last an engine
and some carriages appeared in sight. " Is that wor
December 1
1891. /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
573
train, mistor ?" shouted a pitman to a porter. " No ; it
belangs the railway company," was the reply. " Weel,
onnyway, it's a dorty yen. Ye'd better tell 'em te tyek
hor away an" pent hor afresh. Thor's a lot o' Brance-
peth cokeyard men behint here. If they see that train,
they'll think it's Monday morning, and begin filling !"
A GOOD MASTER.
A glassmaker, who worked in a factory not a hundred
miles from Gateshead railway station, asked his master
if he could have a week's holiday. He obtained the
desired permission, but stayed away for a fortnight. On
the Monday, when Jack returned, his master was looking
round the works, and noticed that Jack had resumed
his employment ; he, thereupon, ordered him to leave the
place. Jack did not go. He merely turned to his master
and said : " Noo, sor, aa's an aad warkman, an' ye're a
young maistor. Aa wes heor afore ye wor. If ye divvent
knaa when ye've getten a good sarvant, wey, aa knaa
when aa've getten a good maistor, and be beggored if
aa'Il gan ! " And Jack was allowed to remain.
At the age of 63 years, Mr. John Wright Alcock, a
former member of the Sunderland Town Council, died at
his residence, Fernville, Monkwearmouth, on the 10th of
October.
Louisa, Marchioness of Ailesbury, widow of the third
Marquis, and a daughter of the second Baron Decies, of
Bolam, Northumberland, died on the 16th of October.
On the 20th of October, Mr. William Milburn Henzell,
grocer, and for many
years a member of the
Newcastle Council,
died at his residence
in Belgrave Terrace,
Newcastle. The de-
ceased gentleman, who
was a descendant of a
Huguenot family, took
a keen and sympa-
thetic interest in
several public and
philanthropic move-
ments. He was 66
years of age. The
funeral, which took
s place in Els wick Ceme-
, I tery on the 23rd, was
attended by the Mayor
and several members
of the Corporation.
On the 20th of Octo-
ber, also, Mr. Robert
Jackson, a merchant
MB. w. M. HENZELL. carrying on business
on the Quayside, died
suddenly at the Manors Railway Station, Newcastle.
Mr. William Scott, fitter for Messrs. Joseph Cowen
and Company's collieries at Blaydon Burn and Rowland's
Gill, and also a general merchant, died very suddenly at
Felling on the 21st of October.
The Kev, Joseph Hudson, Vicar of Chillingham, North-
umberland, who was reputed to be the oldest clergyman
in the Church of England, died on the 31st of October.
Born on the 5th of January, 1793, Mr. Hudson was conse-
quently in his 99th year. Up to within a few days of his
death he had taken part in the services of the church.
On the4th of November, Mr. John Thornhill Harrison,
one of the engineering inspectors under the Local Govern-
ment, died at Baling. The deceased gentleman, a native
of the North of England, having been born at Thornhill
in 1815, was a brother of the late Mr. T. E. Harrison,
head of the engineering department of the North-Eastern
Railway.
Mr. Stephen Varey, an old shipmaster and shipowner,
died at Seaham Harbour, on the 6th of November,
aged 73.
SUrortt at C fonts'*
OCTOBER.
12. — A new theatre was opened in the city of Durham.
— At the Michaelmas Guild of Newcastle Freemen, the
chairman (Mr. W. H. Willins) announced that he had
resigned the chairmanship of the Committee of Stewards,
and that Mr. John D. Walker had been appointed his
successor.
— The Lord Bishop of London (Dr. Temple) was pre-
sent and spoke at the annual meeting of the Church of
England Temperance Society, in the Town Hall, New-
castle.
—A young man named William Spence, a miner, 21 years
of age, died at Mount Pleasant, near Crook, from injuries
alleged to have been inflicted with a knife by his sister.
Ellen Spence, who was subsequently committed for trial
on a charge of manslaughter.
13. — During the prevalence of a severe gale, the roof of
a public-house in Dunning Street, Sunderland, known as
"No. 9" bar, collapsed, and several of the inmates
narrowly escaped with their lives. During the same
storm, the vessel Peggy, of London, was wrecked on the
Black Middens at the mouth of the Tyne. The crew
were saved by the aid of the rocket apparatus, one of the
men being gallantly rescued by Coastguardsman Hoare.
—Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, M.P., President of the
Board of Trade, addressed a political meeting in the
Exchange Hall, Stockton ; and on the following day he
made a visit of inspection to the river Tees.
]4. — A conference of ministers, for the consideration of
social questions, was held in the Central Hall, Hood
Street, Newcastle, under the presidency of Mr. George
Luckley ; and among those who were present and took
part in the proceedings was Mr W. T. Stead, editor of
the Remew of Reviews, and a native of Tyneside. Mr.
Stead again spoke at the twenty-fourth anniversary of
the Newcastle, Gateshead, and District Band of Hope
Union, held in the evening in the Town Hall, Newcastle.
16. — It was announced that the Rev. John Wilkinson,
curate of Benwell, had been appointed vicar of St.
Peter's, Newcastle, in the room of the Rev. Canon C. A.
Baines, resigned. Mr. Raines, on the occasion of his
574
MONTHLY CHRONICLE
I December
\ 189L
retirement, after an incumbency of 18 years, was
presented by his parishioners and friends with a cheque
for £400.
17.— It was officially reported that, as the result of a
ballot among the workmen in the employment of Sir W.
G. Armstrong and Co., at Elswick, rendered necessary
by the passing of the Free Education Act, 4,721 had
voted in favour of carrying on the Schools and Mechanics'
Institute, by the men subscribing one penny per week,
boys and apprentices one-halfpenny per week ; while the
number of votes for the abolition of the Schools and
Mechanics' Institute was 2,661. There was thus a large
majority in favour of the retention of both institutions,
— A conversazione given by the president of the North-
East Coatt Institution of Engineers and Shipbuilders
(Mr. Wigham Richardson) was held in the Assembly
Rooms, Westgate Road, Newcastle, for the double pur-
pose of inaugurating the winter session and of giving a
welcome to Professor Weighton, who has been appointed
to the chair of naval engineering at the College of
Science.
19.— A monumental cross erected by public subscrip-
tion, under the auspices of the Tablet Memorial Society,
of which Mr. John Robinson is secretary, to the memory
of William Shield, musician and composer, was unveiled
in Whickham Churchyard. The unveiling ceremony was
performed by Dr. T. Hodgkin, and an address, prepared
and forwarded for the occasion by Mr. Joseph Cowen,
was read by Mr. Robinson.
— The winter session of the Newcastle Parliamentary
Debating Society was inaugurated in the Lovaine Hall,
under the presidency of Sir M. W. Ridley, M.P.
20. — A meeting, in advocacy of the ': direct popular
veto " in the matter of public-houses, was held in the
Victoria Hall, Sunderland. On the evening of the 22nd
a similar meeting was held in the Town Hall, Newcastle.
21. — Madame Albani, the celebrated vocalist, was the
chief performer at the annual Police Concert held in the
Town Hall, Newcastle.
—A Liberal Unionist Conference in connection with
the counties of Durham, Northumberland, Cumberland,
and Westmoreland was held in the Co-operative Hall,
Sunderland, the chair being occupied by Mr. Powell
Williams, M.P., chairman of the Executive of the
National Liberal Union. In the evening, under the
auspices of the same body, a public meeting was held in
the Victoria Hall. The Earl of Durham presided, and a
political address was delivered by the Right Hon. Joseph
Chamberlain, M.P.
22. — Sidney Old, formerly secretary to the Tyne Pon-
toons and Dry Docks Company, was, at the Northumber-
land Quarter Sessions in Newcastle, sentenced to twelve
months' imprisonment for embezzlement.
— The foundation stone of the new Home for Incur-
ables, which is being built by the Newcastle Corporation
as truscees of the Hospital of St. Mary Magdalene, was
laid in the grounds at Moor Lodge, Spital Tongues, by
Mrs. Richardson, wife of Mr. Alderman Richardson. The
structure is designed on the pavilion principle, and is
estimated to cost about £15,000, the architect being Mr.
Edward Shewbrooks.
23. — Senor Sarasate, the famous Basque violinist, gave
a performance in the Town Hall, Newcastle.
24. — A formal inspection was made of the handsome
new Church of St. Michael and Holy Angels, erected for
the Roman Catholic body in Westmoreland Road, New-
castle. On the following day preliminary services were
held, the celebrant being the Bishop of Hexham and
Newcastle, while the sermon was preached by Bishop
Riddell, of Northampton. The opening ceremony took
place on the 28th, the sermons being preached by the
Rev, Father Humphrey, S.J. The total cost of the
edifice was about £20,000.
25. — Hospital Sunday was observed in the majority of
the churches and chapels in Newcastle and district. The
highest collection made was that taken in Jesmond
Parish Church, the amount being £115 5s. Id. The col-
lections in the workshops and factories, under the
designation of Hospital Saturday, were made on the 7th
of November.
— The first lecture of the ninth session in connection with
the Tyneside Sunday Lecture Society was delivered in
the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle, by Professor Hubert
Herkomer, the subject being "Portrait Painting." The
second lecture was delivered on the 1st of November by
Mr. J. Scott Keltie, Librarian of the Royal Geographi-
cal Society, on " What's to be done with Africa ?" On
the 8th, Sir James Crichton-Browne lectured on
"Handicraft."
26. — Mr. Henry Irving and Miss Ellen Terry entered
upon a week's engagement at the Theatre Royal, New-
castle.
— The Rev. Allen D. Jeffery was ordained to the
pastorship of Bath Lane Church, Newcastle, in succession
to the late Dr. Rutherford.
28, — In the presence of a large company of spectators,
Mr. Utrick A. Ritsou unveiled and handed over to
the Corporation a
granite drinking foun-
tain, which he has
defrayed the cost of
erecting, in the Milk
Market, Newcastle, as
a centenary memorial
to John Wesley. The
Mayor received the
gift in the name of the
city. One of the in-
scriptions on the monu-
ment reads thus : —
" From this spot John
Wesley preached, his
first sermon in
Newcastle-on-Tyne,
Sunday, May 30th,
1742."
30. — A new Higher
Grade School, erected
by - the Gateshead
School Board in
Whitehall Road, was
formally opened by
the Right Hon. A. J.
Mundella, M.P., in
the presence of a large
number of ladies and
gentlemen. In the
evening, in the Town
Hall of the same
borough, Mr. Mun-
della presented the prizes, certificates, and scholarships
gained by the pupils of the school.
December!
189L /
NORTH-COUNTRY LORE AND LEGEND.
575
— In celebration of the old Scottish festival of Hal-
lowe'en, the Mayor of Newcastle (Mr. J. Baxter Ellis)
gave a conversazione and dance to the members of the
Newcastle and Tyneside Burns Club, and a number of
other ladies and gentlemen, in the Town Hall, Newcastle.
31.— In accordance with notices previously received and
given in connection with the engineering works on the
Tyne and Wear, the engagements of several thousands of
artizans terminated to-day. The question in dispute
related to the working of overtime. Deputations trom
the employers and the men's Joint Committee met on the
4th of November, when terms were agreed upon, subject
to ratification by the general body of employers on the
one side and the men on the other. The central fact of
the agreement was that no man should be required to
work for more than 65 hours in any one week, nor more
than 230 hours in any four weeks, and that overtime should
be discountenanced as much as possible. On a ballot being
taken the men accepted those terms by a majority of 591,
there being for the proposals 3,511, and against them
2,920. Work was resumed on the 9th of November.
—At Hetton-le-Hole, William Johnson, a labouring
man, fatally shot a widow named Mary Addison, with
whom he had lodged for a number of years, but by whom
he had been requested to leave, owing to some family
dispute. On perpetrating the horrible deed, Johnson
coolly walked to the police station and gave himself into
custody, Mrs. Cartwright, in the absence of her husband,
Sergeant Cartwright, locking him up in a cell. Both the
murderer and his victim were about 48 years of age.
Johnson was afterwards committed for trial on the charge
of wilful murder.
NOVEMBER.
2. — The 1st of November having fallen on a Sunday, the
municipal elections took place to-day. There were three
contests in Newcastle, a working man having come for-
ward in each of the wards of Elswick East, Arthur's Hill,
and All Saints' East. In only one instance, however,
was the opposition successful, Mr. Joseph John Harris,
secretary to the Newcastle Trades Council, having dis-
placed the retiring representative, Dr. Henry Evers. A
labour candidate was also successful at Gateshead, Mr.
Flynn having been elected for South-East Ward, unseating
the sitting member, Mr. George Lawson, by a majority of
only one vote.
— The operative shipbuilders on the Tyne and Tees
consented to accept a reduction of 5 per cent, in piecework
wages, to come into operation on the first full pay in
January, 1892.
— Mr. J. H. Blackburne. the British chess master, com-
menced a short playing engagement in connection with
the N«wcastle Chess Club and at the Art Gallery.
3.— Two new fire and police stations were opened in
Newcastle — one at Arthur's Hill by the Mayor, and the
other in Elwick's Lane by Mr. Alderman Potter, chair-
man of the Watch Committee.
5. — A half-day holiday was observed at several of the
public and private schools in Newcastle in commemora-
tion of "Gunpowder Plot."
— A destructive fire broke out in the joinery and pattern
shed of the works of Messrs. John Spencer and Sons,
Limited, Newburn.
—The Mayor and Sheriff of Newcastle were enter-
tained to a complimentary dinner at the Crown Hotel,
Newcastle.
6.— The first annualmeeting of the company incorporated
by the Board of Trade in connection with the Tyneside
Geographical Society was held in the Lovaine Hall, New-
castle—Mr. J. J. Gurney presiding. It was intimated that
the conveyance of the premises to the society had been com-
pleted. The annual general meeting of the society was
subsequently held, and the report of the committee disclosed
a very satisfactory state of affairs.
9.— According to legal enactment, the election of
Mayors and other officers in the various municipal
boroughs took place to-day. In Newcastle, the gentle-
man unanimously chosen as chief magistrate was Mr.
William Sutton, draper, who had acted as Sheriff during
the year 1888-89. (See Monthly Chronicle, 1889, p. 45.)
Mr. Benjamin John Sutherland, merchant, and a native
of Newcastle, waa unanimously appointed Sheriff. Mr.
Sutherland was born
on the 26th of July,
1833, and entered the
Council as one of
the members for St.
Nicholas' Ward on the
1st of November, 1887.
The Mayors elected
in the other local
boroughs were — Gates-
head, Mr. Walter
Willson ; Jarrow, Mr.
L. Harris ; Tyne-
inouth, Mr, Alderman
John Forster Spence ;
South Shields, Mr.
Joseph Rennoldson ;
Sunderland, Mr. S.
Richardson ; Morpeth,
Mr. Alderman Win.
Duncan ; Durham, Mr.
George Blagdon ; Dar-
lington, Mr. Henry
Thompson ; Hartle-
pool, Mr. Nizey ; West Hartlepool, Mr. Alderman Thos.
Furness ; Stockton, Mr John Burn ; Middlesbrough, Mr.
Charles Ephgrave ; Berwick, Mr. William Young, with
Mr. Joseph Weatherston as Sheriff.
10.— Park Hall, Gateshead, connected with the foundry
and electric lighting works of Messrs, Clarke, Chapman,
and Co., and formerly the residence of the Ellison family,
was destroyed by fire. Park Hall is mentioned in the
earlier chapters of Charlotte Bronte's " Jane Eyre."
MB. E. J. SUTHERLAND.
Printed by WAITER SCOTT, Fellinsr-on-Tyne.
|JHE present series of the Monthly Chronicle closes
with the present volume, Vol. V.
The Monthly Chronicle was commenced five
years ago with the object of collecting and pre-
serving the great wealth of history and tradition, legend and
story, poetry and song, dialect and folk-lore, which abounds
in the "ancient kingdom of Northumbria." Its readers will
be able to say how far this purpose has been carried out.
We have extracted from our local lore and legend all, or
nearly all, the best stories that history and tradition have
preserved to us, and the publication in its present form will
therefore be discontinued.
It would have been possible to continue it longer ; but the
material in that case would have been of a quality inferior to
that which will be found in the pages already published.
There is appended to the present volume a general index —
comprehensive and as nearly complete as possible — to the
entire work. This will enable the purchaser of the five
volumes to turn up at once a record of any of the legends and
romances that form so large a part of North-Country history.
It will enable him, too, to find biographical sketches of some of
the people who have made the district memorable.
With these five volumes in his possession, the native of
the Northern Counties will have at his command by far the
best collection of North-Country literature that has ever
been got together, besides portraits of many distinguished
men and women of the North-Country, as well as pictorial
sketches of notable places and scenes in the district.
The Editor proposes to issue monthly a series of volumes deal-
ing with North-Country subjects, modern as well as antiquarian.
These volumes will be supplemental to the Monthly Chronicle.
It only remains to add that the production of the Monthly
Chronicle has been for the Editor a labour of love— a labour only
now relinquished with regret, and because he is convinced that
the work, in its present form, will be more useful to the public
than it would have been if he had indefinitely extended it.
-GO
A,
Abbes, George Cooper, 1338. 1. 392.
Abbey Junction, near Carlisle, 1389, 464.
Abigail (Featherstonehaugh), 1388, 561.
Absent-Mindedness, 1887, 366.
Academy of Arts, Newcastle, 1889, 90, 104.
413.
Acca, St., 1887, 75.
Acton Richard, 1387, 101; William, 101;
William, jun., 102 ; Lawrence, 103.
Ada, the Thoughtful, and Harald, Lord of
War, 1891, 433,
Adams, Private, 1891, 430.
Adams, W. E., on " Candyman," 1889, 6 ;
Lord Tennyson's Letter, 1890, 526 ; the
Contributors' Gathering, 1891, 311.
Adamson, Daniel, Death of, 1890, 139 ; John,
1887, 53 ; Lieut, R.N., Memorial to, 1889,
186.
Addison, Rev. Berkeley, 1887, 7; Thomas
(Addison of Guy's), 7.
Advocate, Temperance (Wm. Peel), 1890, 570.
-•Kneas Sylvius (Pope Pius II.) in the North.
1890,261.
Aelred, St., 1887, 76.
Aerial Annies, 1891, 388.
Affleck, Alderman, Death of, 1390, 141.
Aidan, St., 1887, 77.
Ailsa Crag, 1891, 304.
Ainsley, Thomas L., Death of, 1890, 141
Aira Force, 1891, 473.
Airey, Jos., Thos., and Sir Geo., 1887, 54.
Akenbead, John, 1887, 146 ; Robert, 414.
Akenside, Mark, 1887, 4 : 1888, 257 ; 1890, 330.
Albert Victor. Prince, 1839, 279.
Alohmund, St.,1888, 132.
Alcock, Thomas, 1889, 319.
Aldam, William, Death of, 1890, 428.
Alder, Cuddy, and the Goose Pies, 1887,
469 ; Joshua, 1887, 103.
Alderson. Hut, Durham Bellman, 1889, 301.
Alexander, James, M.D., 1887, 193.
Alexander, Robert, 1891, 46&
Alefounder, James, Newcastle's First Post-
man, 1890, 398.
All Saints' Church, Newcastle, 1891, 521.
Allan, Dame, School at Newcastle, 1889. 159.
Allan. James, the Piper, 1887, 145.
Allan, Peter, and Marsden Grotto, 1887,
126; Peter's Raven, 378.
Allan, William, Sunderland Poet, 1891, 221.
Allen, Lieut, and the Hexham Riots, 1889,
558.
Allendale, Lucy Grey of, 1888, 510.
Allgood, Sir Launcelot, 1837, 147.
All Hallows' Church, 1888, 79.
Allhusen, O., Death of, 1890, 139; Will, 191 ;
Mrs., Death of, 1339, 524.
Allies, the Grand, 1890, 170.
Alnmouth, 1889, 392,
Alnwick :— William of, 1887, 194; Castle,
311 ; Described, with view, 1888. 128 ;
Buffaloes at, 378 ; Lion Bridge, 1889. 41 ;
Corporation of, 139 ; Freeman's Well Day
at, 253; Bull Baiting, 366; Discovery
of a Statue of Henrv VI., 525; Church,
1890, 8 ; Monument to William the Lion,
181 ; Castle, 303 ; American Poem, 309 ;
Abbey, 344 ; Stables in Sixteenth Cen-
tury, 389; Brislee Tower, 440; Bond-
cate Tower. 496 ; Sir Walter Scott at the
Castle, 1891. 391 ; John Brown Patterson,
Scholar and Essa3'ist, 271 ; Relics found
at, 284.
Altar. Roman, at Binchester, 1891, 334.
Alston, 1887, 473 ; 1389, 475.
Alvey, Yeldard, 1837, 194 ; 1888, 451.
Ambleside, Sundial at, 1889, 293 ; Fox How,
368 ; 1891, 263, 264.
Araboyna, Massacre of, 1891, 195.
Amburgh, Van, Lion Tamer, 1887, 245.
Amen Corner, Newcastle, 1889, 401.
Amers, John H., 1890, 335.
Amphitrite, the, 1888, 131 ; 1891, 222.
1887—1891.
Anchorites at Gateshead, 1887, 276.
Anderson, Bertram, Francis, 1887, 243 ; Sir
Francis. 244 ; Henry, 289 ; Sir Henry,
291; Major, 337; 1889, 218; James,
D.D., 1887, 339; Robert, Cumbrian
Poet, 1888, 510; James R., Tragedian,
in Newcastle, 1889, 241; Charles H.,
Q.C., Death of, 1389, 480 ; Police-
Inspector, Drowning of, 1890, 142.
Anderson Place, Newcastle, 1887, 337.
Andrews, Mrs., and "the Outlandish
Knight," 1889, 198.
Andrassy, Count Julius, Death of, 1890, 192.
Angas, George Fife, 1887, 385.
Angel Inn, Corbridge, 1891, 219.
" Angelus," Millet's, 1889, 384, 432 ; 1890, 576.
Angus, Henrv, 1887. 387 ; Jonathan, 388 ;
George, Death of, 1891, 44.
Animals in the North, Extinct Wild, 1889, 49.
Ankarstroera, Assassin of Gustavus of
Sweden, 1890, 319.
" Apothecarie, Ye, his Booke," 1891, 230.
Apprentices, Newcastle, 1889, 435 ; Protests
against a Surfeit of Salmon Dinners,
1888, 85, 138.
Archbishops of York : Death of Dr. Thomson,
1891, 89 ; Dr. Magee, 283, 288.
Archer, John Wykeham, 1837, 451; on
George Balmer, the Artist, 1888, 157.
Arctic and Antarctic Navigation, 1891, 29.
Arctic Expedition and a Newcastle Election,
1390. 498.
Arkwrisrht, Mrs. (Fanny Kemble) in the
North, 1883, 215 ; 1891, 411.
Armies, Aerial, 1891, 388.
Armstrong, James, Song by, 1837, 70 ; Lord,
Birthplace fit, 286 ; Career and Portrait
of. 1889. 1; Johnnie, 1888, 215, 213;
1890, 438 ; C., on the Solway Moss, 1883,
229; Dr. Luke, Death of, 1888, 477;
Memorial Scholarship, 525 ; Robert
Lamb, Death of, 1889, 524.
Armstrong Park, Newcastle, 1888, 311.
" Armstrong's Last Good Night," 1888, 218.
Armstrongs and Elliotts, 1890, 529.
Arnold. Dr. Thomas, 1889, 368 ; 1891. 571.
Arthur, King, on the Derwent, 1888, 220 ;
Castle of Seven Shields, 1891, 567.
Arthur's Hill, Newcastle, and King Arthur,
1889, 41.
Artists :— John Martin, K.L., 1337, 433;
1889, 318 ; John Wykeham Archer, 1887,
461; George Balmer, 1838, 157; Ralph
Beilby, 1888, 261 ; Thomas Bewick, 1887,
298 ; 1888, 13, 39, 138, 214, 261 ; 1890, 7;
John Bewick, 1888, 357; J. W. Car-
michael, 1889, 412 ; H. H. Emmerson,
Robert Jobling, John Surtees, Ralph
Hedley, Thomas Dickinson (see Bewick
Club), 1889, 193; G. F. Robinson,
Arthur H. Marsh, J. Rock Jones,
Stephen Brownlow, 1890, 181; Charles
Napier, Tom M., and Bernaid Benedict
Hemy, 417-8-9 ; Thomas MoKendrick,
573; William Bell Scott, 1891, 40;
Thomas Eyre Maoklin, 373; William
Harvey, 444 ; John W. Brown, 463.
Ascension Day on the Tyne, 1891, 287.
Aske Hall, Yorkshire, 1889, 329.
Askew, Adam, 1887, 452 ; Anthony, 453 ; Sir
Henry, 454.
Assassination of Gustavus of Sweden, 1890,
318.
Asslgnats, the Forged, 1888, 61.
Astell, Wm., 1887,21 ; 1888, 36 ; Mary, 36.
Atherton, Henry, 1888, 37.
Athol, Sir Aymer de, 1887, 454 ; 1890, 503.
Atkins, Thomas, Letter to Fuller, 1887, 11.
Atkinson, George Clayton, 1888, 38, 91;
Henry, 55.
Atkinson and Philipson, 1888, 82.
Atthey, Thomas, 1888, 107.
Attwood, Charles, 1888, 56.
A U Hinny Burd, 1891, 195.
Auckland, Bishop, Bishop's Palace at, 1391,
314 ; St Helen's, 1889, 325.
" Auld Fisher's Farewell," 1887, 79.
"Auld Robin Gray," Author of, 1891, 211.
Austin Friars, 1888, 250.
Avison, Charles, 1888. 109 ; 1839, 570 ; His
Tombstone, 1890,334; First Public Con-
certs in Newcastle, 326.
" Aw Wish Yor Muthor Wad Cum," 1891, 38.
Axe, Jeddart, 1890, 294.
Aydon Castle, 1891, 176 ; Forest, 1890, 37.
Aynsley, Mark, Death of, 1890, 428.
Ayre, Richard, 1889, 326.
a
Babbies, Sunderland, 1889, 16.
Babington, Kate, 1887, 375.
Baccarat Scandal, the, 1891, 336.
Backhouse, James, and the Skeleton of the
Wolf, 1889, 49.
Back Row, Newcastle, 1888, 137.
Badajoz, Storming of, 1888, 126.
Bailey, John, 1888. 156.
Baillie, Mrs. Gordon, the Adventuress, 1888,
576 ; Lady Gnsel, 1891, 246.
Baines, Sir Edward, Death of, 1890, 192.
Baker, Sir George, 1888, 110.
Bakestick, a Northumbrian, 1889, 522.
Baldwin, Prince, Death of, 1891, 144.
Baldwin's Parachute Descent, 1888, 432
Balfour, A. J., in Newcastle, 1890. 573.
Baliols, the, in Newcastle. 1891, 464.
Ball in a Coal Mine, 1890, 171.
Ball, Sir R. S., in Newcastle, 1888, 675.
Ballast Hills on the Tyne, 1890, 276.
Balloon Ascent from Newcastle, Fatal, 1389,
117.
Balmaceda, Ex-President, Suicide of, 1891,
528.
Balmer, George, 1888, 157.
Bamburgh :— Castle, 1888, 510 ; 1890, 193 ;
the Remains of the Forsters, 1890, 282 ;
a Visit to, 1891, 165.
Bancroft, George, Death of, 1891, 144.
Banditti at South Biddick, 1887, 79.
Bank, Failure of the District, 1890, 548.
Banking Premises (Hodgkin, Harriett, and
Co. 's), 1891, 249.
Baptist Church in Newcastle, 1891, 427.
Barber, Joseph, Bookseller, 1888, 158, 455 ;
1890,82.
Barber's News, or Shields in an Uproar, 1890,
52.
Barge Day on the Tyne, 1891, 275, 287.
Barkas, Alderman, on the Bigg Market, 1888,
497 ; Presentation to, 1890, 479 ; Death
and Reminiscences of, 1891, 398, 428.
Barker, Robert, Printer, 1887, 315.
Barksby, John, Death of, 1889, 239, 282.
Harlow. Joseph, 1839, S3.
Barnard Castle :— 1889, 74 ; Tragedies, 76 ;
Sir George Bowes, 421 ; Church, 1890,
57 ; Bowes Museum, 256.
Harriett, John, Death of, 1890,288.
Barnes, Ambrose, 1888, 258 ; 1889. 436.
Barnum, P. T., in Newcastle, 1889, 475;
Portrait, 569 ; Death of, 1891, 240.
Barrett, Elizabeth (Mrs. Browning), 1889,
305, 37a
Barrington, George, in Newcastle, 1891, 36.
Barron. G. C., Death of, 1891, 380.
Bartholomew, St, 1888, 133.
Bartleman, David, aTyneside Hero, 1889, 545.
Barttelot, Major, Murder of, 1838, 4£0.
Basire, Isaac, 1888, 193.
Bastie, De la, Murder of, 1890, 405.
Bass Rock. North Berwick, 1838, 545.
Bates, C. J., and King John's Palace, 1887,
sa
Bath House, Newcastle, 1890, 571.
Bath Lane Church and Schools, 1891, 85, 86.
Battle of Carham, 1889, 298 ; of Homildon Hill,
1891, 65 ; of the Low Lights, 619 ; of Ot-
terburn, 362, 402, 450 ; 550.
II.
INDEX.
Battle of Arrah, Northumberland Fusiliers
at the, 1888, 127.
Battle Stones, Otterburn, 1891. 552.
Battlefield, Newcastle, 1891, 379.
Batty, Thomas Wilson, Death of, 1889, 128.
Baty, Isaac, Death of, 1888, 572.
" Baubleshire, the Duke of," 1890, 163.
Baydale Banks Tragedy, 1888, 46L
Bazaine, Marshal, Death of, 1388, 528.
Beacon, Penrith, 1891, 135.
Beacons in Northumberland, 1890, 44.
Beads, St Cuthbert's, 1891, 41.
Bear Baiting, 1889, 406.
Bearpark, Durham, Ruins at,1891, 318.
Beaumont, Thomas Wentworth, 1888, 194 ;
Thomas Richard, 196 ; Lady Margaret,
Death of, 238 ; Miss Alma, parachutist,
1889, 479, 525, 574 ; Lewis, Bishop of
Durham, 1890. 324 ; Wentworth, C.B.,
Marriage of, 1890, 46.
Beckwith, Thomas, Death of 1890, 235 :
John, Death of, 1891. 283.
Bede, the Venerable, 1888, 133 ; Birthplace
of, 311 ; 1889, 259.
Bede's, St, Jarrow, 1888, 247.
Bedford, Death of the Duke of, 1891, 144.
Bedingfleld, Thomas, 1888, 197.
Bedlington, Northumberland, and Sir Daniel
Oooch, 1889, 568 ; its Legends, 1890, 278 ;
the Leakee, 393.
Bee, Jacob, on Ponteland, 1890, 503 : Aydon
Castle, 1891, 176 ; Corbridge, 214.
Beeswing and Lanercost, 18:0, 270.
Begg, William, Death of, 1888, 429.
Beilby, Ralph, 1888, 260.
Belany Poisoning Case, the, 1887, 356.
Belk, Thomas, Death of, 1890, 37a
Bell, George, of Hexham, 1887, 478 ; George
J., on verses about "Jessamond Mill,"
1891, 235; John, Bookseller (1), 1887,
415 ; (2), 1888, 307 ; John, of Cleveland,
1838, 140; Sir Isaac Lowthian, Bart.,
1889, 516 ; Matthew, of Wolsington,
1888, 306 ; Rev. Patrick, Invention of
Reaping Machine, 1887, 373 ; Thomas,
Bibliophile, 1888, 309 ; Thomas, Per-
secutor of William Veitch, Covenanter,
1889, 15* ; Aid. Thos, 1890, 89; and H.
M. Stanley, 1891, 287 ; and the King of
Sweden, 336 ; elected an Alderman of
Newcastle, 430 ; William T., Death of,
477 ; Towers, Berwick, 1890, 458 ; Mor-
peth, 1889, 474.
Bellfngham, a Week End at, 1891, 326.
Bellister Castle, 1887. 352 ; 1890, 545.
Belsay, Castle, 1888, 439; Castle, Village,
and Hall, 1890, 399.
Belt. Thomas, 1888, 262.
•• Belted Will Howard," 1888, 622.
Bennet, Benjamin, 1888, 354 ; John, 506.
Bentzon, Captain, 1891, 285.
Benwell, Billy Oliver's Ramble, 1891. 83;
Board Schools, 1890, 528; Tower, 1887,
20L
Berkeley, Lady Henrietta, and Forde, Lord
Grey, 1890, 241.
Bertram, Roger, 1888, 356.
Bertram, Sir, and the Hermit of Wark-
worth, 1890, 346.
Berwick, Characters, 1887, 400 ; Bridge,
1890, 454 ; Bell Tower, 458 ; Macready
at, 1891, 549.
Berwick, North, 1888, 544.
Betsy Caine, Wreck of, 1887, 31 ; 1883, 13L
Beverleys and Roxbys, 1889, 327.
Beverley, William Roxbv, 1889, 328, 332.
Bewcastle Cross, the, 1387, 470.
Bewick Club and its Founders, 1839, 193.
Bewick Family, 1890, 7.
Bewick, Bishop, 1888, 557 ; Elizabeth, Death
of, 1889, 380 ; John, 1888. 357 ; Thomas,
1887, 298 ; 1888, 13, 39, 138, 214, 261 ;
1E90, 7.
Bewicke, Dorothy, Murder of, 1888, 252;
Robert, 418; William, of Threepwood,
1889, 315, 331 ; 1890, 141.
Bibliophile, A North-Countrv, 1891, 13L
Biddick, Banditti at, 1387, 79 ; a Pitman of
and the Earldom of Perth, 1889, 145, 426.
Bigamist, Taylor the, 1890, 481.
Bigg Market, 1888, 494 ; 1891, 23.
Biggar, Joseph Gillis, Death of, 1890, 192.
Bigge, Charles William, 1888, 419.
•' Billy Fine Day," 1891, 136.
Billy Mill, near North Shields, 1891, 534.
Billy Purvis, 1891, 259.
Binchester, Roman Altar, at, 1891. 334.
Binney, Thomas, 1887, 44 ; 1888. 42L
"Binnorie ; or the Cruel Sister," 1889, 374.
Birckholtz, Captain, the Murder of, 1891,
123.
Bird, John, Mathematician, 1890, 90.
Bird Life on the Fame Islands, 1890, 463.
Birds :— Starling, 1888, 319 ; Thrush, Black-
bird, Fieldfare, and Redwing, 367;
Pallas's Sand Grouse, 413; Crossbill
469 ; Ring Ousel, 493 ; Stonechats,
Whinchats, and Wheatears, 568 ; Robin,
1889, 32 ; House and Hedge Sparrows,
86 ; Skylark, 129 ; Cuckoo, 181 ; Rook
and Jackdaw, 232 ; Magpie, 277 ; Chaf-
finch, 324 ; Greenfinch, 358 ; Chifl Chaff,
405 ; Chimney Swallow and Swift, 470 ;
House Martin and Sand Martin, 514 ;
Wagtails, 565; Wren, 1890, 16; Tit-
mouse Family, 86 ; Pipits, 124 ; Brown
Linnet and Lesser Redpole, 163 ; Raven,
Carrion, and Hooded Crow, 221; Shrike
or Butcher Bird, 247 ; Hawfinch, Bull-
finch, and Goldfinch, 296 ; Jay, Chough,
and the Nutcracker, 375 ; The Buntings,
419 ; Herring Gull, 466 ; Great Auk,
466 ; Common Guillemot, 467 ; Puffin,
467; Warblers, 515; Redstarts, 554;
Nightingale, Blackcap, 1891. 5 ; Golden
Warbler, 6 ; Flycatchers. 87 ; Snowflake
and Lapland Bunting, 103: Kingfisher
and Dipper, 158 ; Arctic Redpole, Mealr
Redpole, and Mountain Linnet, 232,
233; Wood Pigeon, Rock Dove, 280;
Stock Dove, Turtle Dove, 281 : Green
Woodpecker, Spotted Woodpecker, Great
Spotted Woodpecker, 320, 321; Corn-
crake, 364 ; Water Rail, Spotted Crake,
365 ; Little Crake, 366 ; Partridge, Red-
Legged Partridge, 424 ; Quail, Virginian
Partridge, 425 ; Pheasant, Red and Black
Grouse, 453 ; Sedge Warbler, 565 ; Grass-
hopper and Ictenne Warbler, 566.
Birmingham, Tynesiders in. 1891. 142.
Birnie, Alexander, the case of, 1890, 13.
Birtley Fell Murder, 1388. E26, 573.
Birtwhistle Wicht, the, 1887, 74.
Biscop, Benedict, 1888, 245.
Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle, Consecra-
tion of, 1888, 141.
Bishop's Palace, Bishop Auckland, 1891, 314.
Bishopwearmouth, and Dr. Paley, 1887, 422 ;
Old Bishopwearmouth, 1888, 279.
Bismarck, Prince, Resignation of. 1890, 240 ;
Count Herbert at Wynyard 1890, 532.
Black Gate, 1887, 72, 73
Black Horse Inn, Newcastle, 1889, 220.
Black, Rev. John, Death of, 1888, 571.
Blackbirds, 1888, 366.
Blackburn, Henry, in Newcastle, 1889, 143.
Blackburne, J. II., in Newcastle, 1891, 576.
Blackcap, 1891, 5.
Black Cook of Whickham, 1891, 4.
Blackett. John Erasmus, 1888. 498; John
FenwicU Burgoyne, 499: Sir William (1),
442 ; (2) 443 ; (3)1887, 98, 399; 1888, 444 ;
Sir Walter Calverley, 445 ; Joseph, Shoe-
maker and Poet, 1887, 229 ; 1890, 42 ;
1891, 135.
Blackett Street, Newcastle, 1389, 102.
Blackett-Ord, Mrs., Death of, 1890, 476.
Blackfriars, Newcastle, 1891, 505.
Blackie, Professor, in Newcastle, 1889, 143.
Blacksmith and Clergyman, Blythe Hurst,
1891, 193.
Blackstart, 1890, 555.
Blackwell, John, 1888, 500.
Blagdon Hall, View of, 1887, 287 ; and Gates,
1890, 311.
Blair, Rev. James S., Death of, 1890, 380.
Blair, Robert, on Catherine Babington, 1887,
375 ; on Sand Desks, 1891, 233.
Blake Family Romance, the, 1890, 441
Blakiston, John, 1888, 539.
Blanchland, 1889, 500.
Blea Tarn, 1889, 128.
Blenkards, 1887, 188.
Blenkinsop, John. 1883, 541.
Blenkinsopp, Family, 1888, 104 ; 1889, 499.
Blenkinsopp, The White Lady of, 1888, 104.
Blind Asylum, Newcastle, 1889, 159.
Blind Jimmy (James Tearney), Death of,
1890, 523.
Blind Willie, 1888, 80, 516, 570.
Bloodhounds. 1889, 36.
" Blow the Winds I-ho," 1890, 109.
Blue Stockings, 1887, 135.
Blyth, Alex., the Grave of, 1891, 189.
Blyth Folly, 1887, 33L
Blyth Theatre, Fire at the, 1888, 144.
Blythe, David, 1891, 165.
Blyth Romance, the, 1891, 207.
Boat Race on theTyne, 1889, 95.
" Bob Cranky's Adieu," 1889, 252 ; " 'Size
Sunday," 1888, 316.
Body-Snatching, 1888. 92, 111, 115, 186
Bogie Engines, 1887, 140.
Bolam, Archibald, and the Savings Bank
Tragedy, 1890, 76.
Bolam, Village of, 1890, 39L
Bold, Thomas John, 1888, 54Z
Bold Archy. 1887, 39 ; 1890, 165.
11 Boldon Buke," About, 1891, 14S
Bolron, Robert, the Spy, 1889, 420.
Bolton on the Aln, 1889, 544.
Bonar, Dr. Horatius, Death of, 1889, ^31.
Bondgate Tower, Alnwick, 1890, 496.
Bonefires, 1887, 404.
Bonner, Alderman Thomas, and Katy'a
Coffee House, Newcastle, 1889. 369.
Bonnet, Blue the Shilbottle, 1890, 244.
Book, the Northumberland Household, 1891,
278.
Book with a History, a, 1887, 172.
Books, Household, Naworth Castle. 1890, 257.
Booksellers, Old Newcastle, 1887, 68 ; On the
Tyne. 1887, 362, 412.
Bookselling in Newcastle in 18th Century,
1887, 415.
Booth, William, "General," 1891, 137.
Borders, the :— Thieves, 1887, 405 ; Border Life
in the Olden Time, 1888, 215; Surtees's
Tricks in Border Ballads, 389 ; Tales of,
1889, 563 ; Trance, 494 ; a Nook of, 1890,
363 ; Olans, 404 ; Gipsies of, 1891, 54, 163,
205 : a Heroine of, 246 ; Two Poetesses
of, 340.
Berries, Christian, Death of, 1889, 573.
Boruwlaski, the Polish Dwarf, 1887, 173.
Bothal Castle, 1889, 257 ; Village, 537.
Bothwell Castle, Haddington, 1891, 64.
Bothwell, Earl of, and Hermitage Castle,
1889, 554.
Boulanger, General. Suicide of, 1891, 528.
Bourne, Charles, Printer, 1887, 461 ; Henry,
1888, 111, 542 ; 1889, 314.
Bousfield, John, on Bishop van Mildert's
Entry into Durham, 1891, 289.
Boutflower. Robinson, 1888, 378 ; John, Death
of, 1889, 236.
Bover, Captain, 1889, 136.
Boverick. S., Watchmaker, 1891, 234.
Bowes, Stoney, and Lady Strathmore, 1887,
134, 196; Charles, of Streatlam and
Gibslde, 1888, 466; Sir George, and
Barnard Castle, 1889. 74, 421 ; John and
George, and Gibside, 1889, 390, 391 ;
Marjory, wife of John Knox, 1890, 60.
Bowes Museum, 1890, 256.
Bowes Castle, its Tragedy, 1887, 41 ; Ruins
of, 293.
Bowey, William, Death of, 1390. 525, 574.
" Bowld Airchey Droon'd," 1890, 165.
Bowman, Rev. E. L., Death of, 1890, 140.
Boy Bishops, 1888, 396.
" Boys at Play," Sketch by Dorothy Tennant
(Mrs. H. M. Stanley), 1890, 432.
Boyd, R. W., Sculler, Death of,. 1887, 284.
Boyle, J. R., on Hylton and the Hyltons,
1888, 86 ; the Pitman of Biddick. 1889,
145 ; Coming and Going of the Judges,
222; SU Nicholas' Church and the
Scottish Prisoners, 235 ; Sweden-
borgianism, 275 ; Sanctuary at Durham
Cathedral, 289 ; Norton Church, 345 ;
Katy'a Coffee House, Newcastle, 369;
Castle Garth, Newcastle, 406; St.
Nicholas', Newcastle, 408 ; St
Giles's Church, Durham, 448; Halt-
whistle Church, 497 ; Kepier Hos-
pital, 535 ; Alnwick Church, 1890, 8 ;
St. Hilda's Church, East Hartlepool, 65 ;
Barnard Castle Church, 57; Durham
Cathedra*. 117 ; Mitford Church, 150 ;
St. Oswald's Church, Durham, 152 ;
Durham Castle, 166 ; Durham City, 207 ;
a Roman Traveller in the North-
Country, 261 ; John Leland in Durham
and Northumberland, 289 ; Kirkwhelp-
INDEX.
in.
ington Church, 350 ; Egglescliffe Church,
367 ; Harrison's Description of the
North, 373 ; Camden's Account of the
Northern Counties, 387 ; Town and Port
of Sunderland, 406 ; Michael Drayton's
Description of the Northern Counties,
446 ; Haughton-le-Skerne Church, 470 ;
Toad Mugs, 474 ; John Taylor, Water
Poet, 485 ; Kirkharle Church, 49b ;
Three Norwich Soldiers, 533 ; Red-
marshal! Church, 543; on Sir William
Brereton's Visit to the North. 1891, 161 ;
Woodhorn Church, Northumberland,
256 ; North-Country Slogans, 470 ; Monk-
wearmouth, 503; Blackfriars, New-
castle. 505 ; Walls of Newcastle, 545.
Brabant, Sir Henry, 1889, 10.
Bradburn, John, Death of, 1890, 573.
Bradley, Rev. Edward (Cuthbert Bede),
Death, 1890, 91 ; Sarah, Death, 428.
Bradlaugh, Charles, in Newcastle, 1889,
141, 524 ; Death of, 1891, 144.
Brady, H. Bowman, Death of, 1891, 94.
Brag, the Picktree, 1891, 407.
Bragg, Hadwen, Newcastle Tradesman,
1887, 35 ; Kinsmen and Descendants, 36.
Brancepeth Castle, 1890, 371 ; the Brawn, 371.
Brand, Rev. John, 1888, 137; 1889, 11, 314.
Brandling, Rev. Ralph, and Jock Milburn,
1887, 477 ; Sir Robert, 1889, 66 ; Robert,
67 : Charles John, 68.
Brandlings, the, of Gosforth, 1890, 170.
Branks, the, 1888, 433.
Brantwood and Coniston. 1890, 511.
Branxbolme Tower. Hawick, 1890, 433.
Brass, John and Margaret, 1887, 65.
Brawn of Brancepeth, 1890, 371.
Breeze, Sergt. -Major, Death of, 1889, 572.
Brereton's, Sir Wm., Visit to the North,
1891, 161.
Brewis. George, 1889, 13 ; Rev. William, 13.
Brigade, Tvnsmouth Volunteer Life, 1890,
319, 527.
Bright (John), his Connection with the
North, 1889, 206; Death of, 240.
Krignal Church and Banks, 1890, 32.
Brignal, William, Death of, 1890, 140.
Brinkburn Priory, 1888, 70 ; 1889. 415.
Brislee Tower, Alnwick, 1890, 4*0.
British Association in Newcastle, 1889, 515,
524. 575.
Broade, Thos., Printer, 1887, 461 ; Alice, 461.
Brockett, John Trotter, 1889, 14, 27a
Brockie, William, on Raymond Lully, 1887,
26 ; Hawks Family, 28 ; the Hawkses,
91 ; Riding the Stang, 122 ; Jingling
Geordie's Hole, 218; Thomas Pigg,
Mathematician, 321 ; William Weallands
Robson, 270; Harriet Martineau at
Tynemouth, 415 ; Peggy Potts, 1888, 175 ;
Benedict Biscop, 245: John Leyden,
275 ; Raid of the Reidswire, 325 ;
Shields Ghost, 347 ; Surtees's Tricks in
Border Ballads, 389 ; Mungo Park, 436 ;
Our Roman Roads, 1889, 38, 51, 114 ;
Football in the North, 54 ; Miser of
Ketton, 84 ; Alnwick Corporation. 139 ;
Scenes and Characters in " GUT Man-
nerinu," 202; Marshal Wade's Road,
245 ; Wearmouth Bridge Lottery, 254 ;
Railway Development, 262 ; Madame
Stole and her Salve, 1890, 33 ; an Eccen-
tric Magistrate (William EttrickX 69;
Tyne Conservancy Contest, 131 ; Moss-
troopers, 354, 402, 435, 500, 529 ; Jin-
gling Geordie's Hole, 349 ; North-
Country Fairies, 1891, 26 ; Arctic and
Antarctic Navigators, 29 : Gipsies of the
Border, 54, 98, 163 ; Brougham's First
Brief, 90 ; North-Country Ohost Stories,
174.
Brookie, William, 1890, 38 ; Death of, 572 ;
Sale of Books of. 1891, 190.
Brogden, Arthur, 1889, 527.
Broomley Lough, Sunken Treasure in the,
1887,325.
Broomshielda, Greenwell of, 1891, 43.
Brotherly Love, the, 1888, 13L
Brough, Jackey, 1890, 51.
Brougham Castle, 1890, 559.
Brougham, Lord, 1888, 281 ; First Brief, 1391,
90.
Brown. Henry (see Countess of Derwent-
water), 1888, 205 ; John, D.D., 1889, 122 ;
Lancelot (Capability). 124, 391 ; and Sir
Walter Scott. 1891, 391; Baron, the
Durham Poet, 1889, 433 ; Giles, of
Seaham, 1890, 199; Wm. ("Butcher
Brown"), Death of, 1891, 283; Lieut -
CoL T. C., Death of, 429 ; John W., 463:
J. G., on Dicky Chilton, 1888, 368;
Death at, 1890, 93 ; Robert U., on the
Birthplace of Bede, 1888, 311.
" Brown, I'm." 1891, 234.
Brown Man of the Moors, 1891, 84.
Browne, Sir B. C., Mayor ol Newcastle, 1887,
95.
Browning, Mrs., her Birthplace, 1889, 383,
378 ; Robert, and Charles Avison, 527.
Brownlow, Stephen, 1890, 185.
Bruce, Dr. J. Collingwood, on the Thorn-
grafton Find, 1888, 481, 529 ; Arthur's
Hill, 1889, 41 ; Marshal Wade's Road,
245 ; Brace's School, 275 ; Society of
Antiquaries, 286 ; " Sair Feyl'd Hinny,"
1890,325; Gainsford, 1889, 47; John, 126;
George Barclay, 128 ; Robert, 1891, 465.
Bryan, Michael, 1889, 125.
Bryant, Miss Ella, and Durham University,
1891, 382.
Bryson, John A., Death of, 1890, 235 :
Thomas, and the Town Moor Explosion,
1888, 148 ; Martin, Bookseller, 1887, 412
Buccleugh, Wat of, 1890, 530.
Buchanan, Robert, on Lloyd Jones, 1891,
571.
Buck's Prospect of Newcastle, 1887, 167.
Buddie, John, 1889, 150. 162 ; William, the
Newcastle Butcher, 1390, 39.
Buddies, The, 1890, 17L
Buffaloes at Alnwick, 1888, 378.
" Buke, About Boldon," 1891, 145.
Bulkley, a, Printer, 1887, 316, 364, 461.
Bull-Baiting in the North, 1889, 365.
Bull-Ring, North Shields, 1890, 232.
Bulmer, Sir Bevis, Knight of the Golden
Mine, 1889, 205 ; William, 1889, 164
Bumler Box, Newcastle, 1891,297.
Bunmng, Theo. Wood, Death of, 1888, 428.
" Burd, A U Hinny," 1891, 195.
Burdett-Coutts. Baroness, and the Dicky
Bird Society, 1890, 239.
Burdikin, John, 1888, 79.
Burdon, Sir Thomas. 1889, 210; William,
212; John, 303.
Burdon, Rowland, and Sunderland Bridge,
1887, 402; 1888, 201; and the Wear-
mouth Bridge Lottery, 1889, 254.
Burial at Cross Roads, 1888, 324.
Burial of Sir John Moore, 1889, 301.
Buried Alive, 1891, 427.
" Burled in Woollen," 1888, 245 ; 1891, 518.
Burn, James, Death of, 1889, 42a
Burnet, Rev. Canon, on Mrs. Barrett
Browning, 1889, 378.
Burnett, John, and the Labour Conference
at Berlin, 1890, 238-9 ; Eleanor, K2.
Burn Hall, County Durham, 1891. 536, 637.
Burns in Northumberland, 1888, 461.
Burnup, Jane, Death of, 1890, 187.
Burr, Northumbrian, 1888, 59.
Burritt, Elihu, in the North, 1887, 462.
Burt, Thomas, and the Labour Conference
at Berlin, 1890, 238 ; Miss Dorothy
Ten'nant, 333 ; Joiners' Strike, 431 ;
Miners' Congress at Paris, 1891, 233 :
Imperial Institute, 287 ; President of
the Trades Union Congress, 480.
Burton, Sir Richard, Death of, 1890, 576.
Bury's (Bishop) Lending Library, 18SO, 517.
Busty Seam, the, 1891. 414.
Butcher Bird, 1890, 247.
Butcher's Dog, the, a Story of the Morpeth
Road, 1890, 39.
Butler, Bishop, at Stanhope, 1889, 358;
Newcastle Infirmary, 511.
Buttermere, Mary of, 1891, 556.
Button, J., Bookseller, 1887, 317 ; Letter to
Defoe. 319.
" Buy Broom Buzzems," and Blind Willie,
1888, 516.
Byker Folly, 188V, 283.
Byron, Lord, at Seaham, 1888, 65 ; Marriage
Signature, 186.
Bywell-on-Tyne, Is91, 272.
Cabbage Hall, 1888, 137.
Cains, Betsy, the. 1887, 31 ; 188B, 131
Calaly Castle, 1889, 295, 378.
Cale Cross, 1889, 314, 354.
Calliope, H.M.S., at Portsmouth, 1890, 240.
Cambridge, Death of Duchess of, 1839, 240.
Camden's (William) Account of the Northern
Counties. 1890. 387.
Cameron, Commander, in Newcastle, 1890, 46.
" Camilla of the White House " (Camilla Col-
ville), 1837, 274 ; 1890, 135.
Campbell, Lieut-Col. J. R., on Nevison the
Highwayman, 1888, 18 ; Scottish Giant,
1887, 478; Supt, Death of. 1890, 428.
Camperdown, Battle of, 1837, 8 ; 1888, 416.
Canal, Newcastle and Carlisle, 1891, 347.
Candle Superstitions, 1887, 421.
Candyman, 1889, 6.
11 Canny," 1889, 183.
Cantelupe, Viscount, Drowning of, 1890, 576.
Capping Well, the, 1888, 4?4.
" Cappy's the Dog," 1887, 31i.
Carey, Robert, Earl of Monmouth, 1889, 266.
Carham, Battle of. 1889, 298.
Carleton, George (Bishop), 1889, 213.
Carliol Tower, Newcastle, 1889, 104.
Carlisle and Newcastle Railway, 1888, 35 ;
Canal, 1891, 347.
Carlisle, Railway Accident at, 1390, 192.
Carlyle, Rev. J. D., 1889, 268; Thomas on
Emerson the Mathematician, 1838, 32 ;
on the Folks o' Shields, 1891, 475.
Carmiohael. J. W., Artist, 1889, 412.
Carnabys of Carnaby, 1889, 8.
Caron, Major le, and the Parnell Commis-
sion, 1889, 144.
Carour House, 1887, 473.
Carr, Willie, the Strong Man of Blyth, 1887,
82, 141; William Cochran, Death of,
1889, 572 ; Andrew, Death of, 1889, 188 ;
Ralph, Sheriff of Northumberland, 223 ;
George, 306 ; Uuthbsrt. 307 ; John, the
Rev. George, 309; William, 310; Leo-
nard, 354 ; Ralph, 355, 377.
Carr-Ellison, Ralph, 1889, 385.
Carrick, Coast of, 1891, 304.
Carter, Robert Y., on Captain Cook, 1387,
283.
Cartington Castle, 1889, 201.
Carville Station, Opening of, 1891, 431.
Cassilis, Lady, and Sir John Faa. 1891, 20j.
Castle Eden Dene, 1883, 473.
Castle Garth, Newcastle, 1889, 406, 471 ;
Stairs, 1887, 40.
Oastle Howard, Vanbrugh at, 1891, 15, 39.
Castle of the Seven Shields. 1891, 567.
Castle Spectre, Haughton Legend, 1891, 133.
Catholic Chapel, Carliol Square, Newcastle,
1883, 113.
Cauld Lad of Hylton, 1888, 83.
Cauldron Snout, 1890, 10a
Cavendish, Lord Edward, Death of, 1891, 336.
Cawthorne Joseph, Sunderland Character,
1889, 295.
Cay, Jonathan, 1891, 473.
Celebrations, St. Crispin's Day, 1891, 309.
Census in Newcastle, 1891, 239; in North-
umberland and Durham, 382; Scotland,
England, Wales, 384.
Centenarians— Mrs. Cooper, 1887, 12 ; Ralph
How, 12; Mrs. Kerr, 13; John Nicholls,
12; James Palmer, 12; John Ramsav,
12; Joseph Saint, 13; Adam Turnbull,
12; Michael Turnbull. 414; Patrick
Makel Wian, 11 ; Mary Wilkinson, 12.
Centenarian, a Newbrough, 1890. 522.
Central Station Hotel, Newcastle, 1889, 464 ;
Station, 510.
Centrif rugal Railway in Newcastle, 1887, 379.
Chadwiok, Bishop, 1889, 269.
Chaffinch, the, 1889, 324.
" Chains of Slavery," Marat's, 1887, 50.
Challoner, John, Death of, 1890, 284.
Chalmers, David W., Death of, 1888, 524;
James, Bookseller, 1887, 414.
Chamberlain, Joseph, M.P., Marriage of,
1889, 48 ; in Newcastle, 526.
Chambers, Sir Robert. 1889, 387.
Chapman, William, 1889, 388 ; Henry, 442.
" Chare " Storv, the, Newcastle, 1887. 18L
Charles I. in Northumberland, 1887, 22.
Charleton, B. J. , on Lambert's Leap, 1887,
16 ; Old Tyne Bridge, 25 ; Black Gate,
72; Newcastle Town's Hutoh, 10S ;
Norman Keep, Newcastle, 120; Tyne-
mouth Priory, 215 ; Alnwick Castle, 311 ;
Cragside, 359 ; St Godrio, of Finchale,
406 ; Lindlsfarne Cathedral, 407.
IV.
INDEX.
Cbarltons, the, in Tynedale, 1887, 476; of
HeBleyside, 1891, 228.
Ch»rlton, Bowrie, 1888, 402; Dr, Edward,
1889, 443 ; Death of John, 93 ; James and
Kirkley Hall Robbery, 1890, 314.
Charms for Venom, 1889, 132.
Charnley, William, 1887, 20, 413; 1888, 158;
Emerson, 1887, 414.
Chartist Spear, 1889, 148.
Chat Moss, 1889, 263.
Chatt, George, Death of, 1890, 573.
Chaytor, Oswald, 1887, 2L
Chesapeake and Shannon, the, 1887, 309.
Cheese, Stilton, 1891, 6a
Cherryburn, 1888, 16.
Chess, Tournament at Manchester, 1890,
480 ; Death of Captain G. H. McKenzie,
1891, 288 ; J. II. Blaokburne in New-
castle, 1891, 575.
Chester-le-Street, 1888, 303; Shrovetide
Football, 1889, 180, 191.
Chesters, The, Residence of John Clayton,
1890, 424, 570.
Chevington, West, Accident at. 1890, 527.
Cheviots, 1888, 130.
Chibburn, Ancient Remains at, 1888, 122.
Chicken, Edward, 1887, 21 ; 1889, 446.
Chifl-Chaff, the, 1889, 404.
Child Stealing, and Child Stripping, 1891,
163.
Childs. George, Death of, 1890, 476.
Chili, Civil War in, 1891, 480.
Chillingham Castle and Cattle, 1887. 272;
1888, 129 ; Flower Garden, 554 ; Chilling-
ham Bull and the Prince of Wales, 1889,
113.
Chilton, Dicky. 1888, 367 ; Tommy and Nicky
Nack, 1890, 37.
Chimney Mills, Newcastle, 1891, 530.
Chipchase Castle, 1889, 119.
Chirton, Ralph Gardener of, 1889, 487.
Cholera in the North, 1891, 481. 553.
Chollerford, 1889, 71.
" Chorographia," Grey's, 1887, 461 ; Author
of, 1891, 253.
Chough, The, 1890, 375.
Christie, Henry, Champion Draughts Player,
1891, 284.
Christmas Carol, an Old, 1888, 562.
Christmas, Twelve Days of, 1888, 41.
" Christmas Day in the Morning," 1889, 546.
Christison, Alexander, Death of, 1890, 476.
Christopher, Captain William, 1891, 31.
"Chronicle," Newcastle, 1890, 223 ; the Old
Offices, 1888, 232 ; Weekly, Contributors'
Gathering, 1891, 311 (see also end of
volume 1891).
Church Schools, Newcastle, 1890, 257, 287.
Churchill. Charles, in Sunderland, 1887, 477;
Lord Randolph, in the North, 1887, 479.
Circuit, Northern, Fifty Years Ago, 1891, 467.
Clanny, Dr., and Mary Jobson, 1887, 369.
Claphams, the, 1888, 111.
Clark. John, 1889. 506 ; Joseph, 607 ; George
Noble, 1890, 428 ; Will, 477.
Clarke, James, Death of, 1888, 188 ; Thomas.
Death of, 1890, 331 ; William, Death of,
428; Charles Cowden, Visits to New-
castle, 1890, 148: Hewson, author of
"The Saunterer," 1891, 149; Thomas,
and the Hallgarth Tragedy, 221.
Clavering, Sir John, 1389, o09 ; James, 509.
Clavering's Cross and the Claverings, 1890,
546.
Clayton, John, and the Thorngrafton Find,
1888, 530; 1890, 422; Death of, 427;
Will of, 429; The Chesters, 670; Anne,
Death of, 572; Rev. Richard, 1889, 538.
Cleadon Village, 1191. 392.
Clement. Mary, the Story of, 1887, 86.
Clements, Mrs., Durham Mustard, 1887, 422.
Clennell, Luke, 1889, 318.
Clephan, James, on St. John's Churchyard,
Newcastle, 1887, 20 ; Jean Paul Marat in
Newcastle, 49 ; Lord Keeper Guildford
in the North, 97 ; Romance of Tyne
Bridge, 202 ; Witchcraft in the North,
211; Rumoured Invasion of 1804, 226;
Thomas Spence, 296 ; Early Printers on
the Tyne, 314 ; Hell Kettles, 353 ; Early
Booksellers on the Tyne, 362, 412 ; Early
Press of York, 459 ; the Toad in the
Hole, 1888, 4 ; the Tradition of Too Much
Salmon, 85 ; Death of, 171, 188 ; on
Crows in Newcastle, 179 ; the English
Homes of the Washingtons, 203 ; Wild
Beast Shows in the North, 241 ; Judge
Jeffreys in Newcastle, 300 ; Battle of
Newburn, 373 ; the Sleuth or Blood-
hound, 1889, 36 ; William Cramlingtpn,
174 ; Racing in the Northern Counties.
394 ; A Mysterious Mail Coach Robbery,
402 ; Newcastle Apprentices, 435 ; Sir
John Fenwick, 481 ; the Invention of the
Lucifer Match, 1890, 145; the Lighting
of Towns, 218 ; the Household Books at
Na worth CM tie, 257 ; a Cleveland
Tragedy and a Cleveland Poet, 385 ;
Arctic Expedition and a Newcastle
Election, 498; Bishop Bury's Lending
Library, 517 ; Bishop Cosin's Public
Library, 532 ; Katterfelto and His
Wonders, 1891, 16 ;" Boldon Buke," 145 ;
Massacre of Amboyna, 195 ; Barge Day,
275 ; First Tyne Steamboat, 306 ; New-
castle and Carlisle Railroad and Canal,
347 ; Joyce's Patent Stove, 455 ; Brass
Crosby, 507 ;
Clerke, Thomas, of Sunderland, Son? attri-
buted to, 1887, 64.
Cleveland Tragedy, a, 1890, 385.
Cleveland, Death of the Duke of, 1891, 476.
Clifford, Anne, High Sheriff of Westmore-
land, 1891, 97 ; George, 97 ; Lord, and
Brougham Castle, 1890, 559; Clifford,
the Shepherd Lord, 1889, 373, 437.
Clifford's Fort, North Shields, 1891, 519,
Clitheroe Abduction Case, 1891, 239.
Clocks— the Mansion House, 1887, 114 ; the
Mayor's, 115 ; Master Humphrey's, 389.
Clock Mill, Miller of the, 1890, 487,
Clock Tower, Bamburgh Castle. 1891. 170.
Clockmakers, Last of Newcastle, 1887, 115.
Close, the, Newcastle, 1889, 350.
Close, Poet, 1891, 42, 185, 188.
Cloth Market, Newcastle, 1888, 554.
Clover, R., a Gateshead Prodigy, 1889, 40.
Clown and his Geese on the Tyne, 1889, 522.
Coal in the North, 1887, 33.
Coal Hewers, Notable, 1887, 111, 236.
Coal Cleugh Village, 1887, 473.
Coal Trade in the Northern Counties, 1890,
170 ; " Success to the Coal Trade." 494.
Cobbett, William, in the North, 1887, 467 ;
Miss Susan, Death of, 1889, 144.
" Cobbler Joe," 1891, 135.
Cook, Alderman Ralph, 1888, 256 ; William,
1889, 540.
Cockburn, Elizabeth, and the Brown Man of
the Moors, 1891. 84.
Cockburn, Piers, 1890, 438.
Gockflghting In Newcastle, 1887, 42; "A
Welsh Main," 1888, 42.
Cocklaw Tower, 1890, 41.
Cockle Park Tower, Northumberland, 1888, 9.
Cockle Park Tragedy, the, 1888, 11.
Coffins, Oak-Tree, of Featherstone, 1890. 185.
Coke, Sir John, and the Newcastle Appren-
tices, 1889, 437.
Coldstream, its Marriages, &c., 1888, 280 ; its
Bridge, 1890, 183.
Cole, Ralph, and Sir Nicholas, 1889, 541.
Coleridge, Hartley, and Nab Cottage, 1890,
272."
College of Medicine, Newcastle, 1888, 45.
College of Science, Newcastle, 1888, 575.
Collier, the First Screw, 1890, 200.
Collieries at Lumley Park in the 17th
oentury, 1887, 98.
Colliery Explosion in Durham 182 years ago,
1891, 3&
Collingwood, Admiral Lord, Birthplace, 1889,
311 ; Memorial Tablet, 336 ; Memoir and
Portrait, 1891, 512,
Collingwood, Edward, 1890, 20.
Collingwood, Squire of Chirton, 1888, 403.
Collingwoods, the, 1887, 22.
Collins, Wilkle, Death of, 1889, 528.
Collinson, the Navigator, 1891. 29.
Colours of a Regiment, Burying the. in
Newcastle, 1889, 4£
Colvill, Miss Caroline S., Presentation of a
Fountain by, 1889, 382.
Colville, Camilla, 1890, 135.
Colwith Force, 1889, 64.
Comet, an Ancient, 1888, 425.
Commons, the, Strong Men, 1890, 234 ; John
Common, 234; John, inventor of the
Reaping Machine, 1887, 373.
Comyn, Wm., and See of Durham. 1889, 520.
Concerts, First Public, in Newcastle, 1890,
326.
Congress, Trades Union, in Newcastle, 1891,
480.
Coniston and Brantwond, 1890, oil.
Consett, Opening of a Park at, 1891, 429.
Conservancy Contest, the Tyne, 1890, 131.
Consitt, Provost, Death of, 1887, 332.
Conspirators, the Muggleswick, 1889, 370.
Contributors' Gathering, the Weekly
Chronicle, 1891, 311. (See also end of
Vol. V.)
Conversion of Northumbria, 1887, 77.
Conyeis, Sir John, 1889, 519.
Conyers Falchion, the, 1891, 291.
Cook, Captain, 1887, 230, 282, 291, 426 ; 1889,
383 ; 1890, 145 ; 1891, 29.
Cook, Eliza, Death of, 1889, 528.
Cooke, George Frederick, 1888, 343 ; Joseph,
Mystic and Communist, 1890, 54.
Cookson, Aide! man, Anecdote of, 1887, 282.
Cooper, Mrs., Centenarian, 1&
Copland, Elijah, on Kichard Ayre, 1889, 326.
Cor, the Giant, 1891, 277.
Corbridge-on-Tyne, 1891, 214.
Corbridge Veteran, William Surtees, 1889.
330.
Cork Cutter, Thomas Dixon, the, 1889, 447.
Corvan, Ned, 1889, 571 ; 1891, 522.
Cosin's (Bishop) Public Library, 1890, 532.
Cosyn, John, 1890, 19 ; House, 19.
Cotherston, Legend of, 1891, 173.
Cotheratone, 1889, 76; Christening the
Calves at, 91 ; and Stilton, 1891, 57.
Cottesloe, Lord, Death of, 1891, 48.
Cotton-Ball Duel, 1887, 466.
Coughron, George, 1890, 22.
Coulson, Samuel, and the Massacre of
Amboyua, 1891, 195.
Countess of Derwentwater, 1888, 165, 205.
Countess's Pillar, 1890, 71.
County Council, Northumberland, 1889, 141;
Durham, 142.
County Palatine of Durham, 1888, 279.
Coupland, John of, 1890, 65 ; Castle, 201.
" Cousin's House " Sun Dial, 1890, 19.
Cowen, Joseph, on Stella Hall, 1888, 469;
and Garibaldi, 1889, 130 ; and Kossuth,
276 ; Cycling Challenge Cup, 1891, 479.
Cowgate Mill, Fenham, 1891, 532.
Cownley, Joseph, 1890, 67.
Coxhoe Hall, 1889, 304, 378.
Coxon. 8. B., Death of, 1888, 93.
Cracknell, Captain, 1891, 381.
Cradock, Dr.,1890, 7a
Craggs, James, 1891, 49.
Cragside, 1887, 359 ; Interior of, 1891, 359.
Craig, James, a Newcastle Hero, 1889, 287,
334,428; Joseph, Rescue hy, 1890, 626;
Presentation to, 1891. 46; William,
Death of, 1891, 380.
Cralgie's Cross, 1891, 102.
Crake Family, Four Members of, 1891, 364.
Cram, Henry, and Pompey's Pillar, 1889, 370.
Cramlington, William, Sheriff of Newcastle,
1889, 174.
" Crankv's (Bob) 'Size Sunday," 1888, 316.
Craster House, Northumberland, 1890, 128.
Crawford, Jack, the Hero of Camperdown,
1887, 8, 91 ; 1888, 96, 414, 431 ; Unveil-
ing of Memorial at Sunderland, 1890,
239 ; William, Death of, 380 ; Toad Mug,
397.
Crawley Tower, 1890, 185.
Crawshay, George, and Ralph Waldo Emer-
son, 1889, 495.
Creagh, Sir William. 1890, 114.
" Creel, the Keach o' the," 1891, 342.
Creighton, Dr. Mandell, 1891, 184. 190.
Cresswell, Sir Cresswell, 1890, 68 ; Judge,
1891, 468 ; Cresswell Village, 1891, 271.
Crewe, Lord, and Blanchland, 1889, 501.
Cries, Old Street, 1891, 41.
Cromwell. Oliver, at Stella. 1888. 470 ; in the
North, 488.
Cronin Trial at Chicago, the, 1890, 96.
Crooke?, St John, on the Cotton Ball Duel,
1887, 466.
Cross, Ancient, at Gosforth, Cumberland,
1890, 473 ; Bewcastle, 1887, 470 ; Claver-
ing's, 1890, 546; Craurie's, 1891, 102;
Dcddington, 1891, 113.
Cross House, Newcastle, 1889, 377.
Cross, Launcelot, on Charles Cowden Clarke's
Visits to Newcastle, 1890, 148.
INDEX.
v.
Cross Roads, Burial at, 1888. 324.
Crossbill, the, 1888, 468.
Crossfell, Cumberland, 1890, 11.
Crow, George Arthur, 1887, 429.
Crow, Jim, 1891, 503.
Orow, the Carrion and Hooded, 1890, 221.
Crow Trees, Barras Bridge, Newcastle, 1888,
335 ; 1889, 190, 275.
Crow, the, in Newcastle, 1888, 179.
Crowdy, 1889, 278.
Crowley, Ambrose, 1890, 536.
Crowley's Crew, 1888, 97 ; 1889, 148 ; 1890,
537.
Crozer. James, Death of, 1888, 379.
Crozier, Margaret, Murder of, 1887, 106;
Captain, 1891, 29.
Crummock Water and Honister Crag, Cum-
berland, 1888, 5«X
Cuckoo Jack (John Wilson), 1890, 110.
Cuckoo, the, 1889, 181.
Cuddy Alder's Goose Pies. 1887, 469.
Cullercoats, Fairy Pipes Found at, 1889, 562.
Culley, Edward, 1890, 89; Matthew and
George, 116.
Culzean Castle, 1891, 304.
Cumberland and Scottish Kings, 1889, 199.
Cumberland, Earl of (Geo. Clifford), 1891, 97.
Cumberland Poet, Joseph Relph of Seberg-
ham, 1890, 468.
Cumberland Statesmen, 1888, 426.
Cumbrian Bidden Wedding, a, 1891, 475.
Gumming. Sir Wm. Gordon, and the Baccarat
Scandal, 1891, 336.
Cunningham, John, 1887, 20, 277, 280; 1888,
4&
Curry, George, of Berwick, 1888, 425.
Curwens, the, of Workington, 1890, 353.
Customs, Curious, of Lake District, 1890, 130.
•'Cuthbert Bede" (Rev. Edward Bradley),
Death of, 1890, 91.
Cuthbert, William, Printer, 1887, 317.
Cuthbert, St., 1887. 410; Burial Place, 411 ;
Native Place, 474 ; His Burial, 477.
Cut-Purse Ordeal, the, 1889, 439.
Cutter, Councillor John, Death of, 1890, 188.
Cuttv Soames, 1887, 269 ; 1890, 214.
Cycling Cup, Weekly Chronicle, Contest,
1891, 47S.
Czar of Russia, Accident to, 1888, 576.
D.
D' Albert, Charles and Eugene, 1890, 105.
Dacres, the, 1888, 534.
Dacre, Lady Elizabeth, 1888, 533 ; Thomas,
Lord, 1890. 154, 436.
Dageett, William, Death of, 1889, 44.
Damas, A., on Madame Babington. 1887, 376;
Tynedale Apprentices, 424.
Dame Allan's School, Newcastle, 1889, 159.
•• Dance to Thy Daddy." 1891, 245.
Dancing Master, Ben Wells, 1891, 523.
Dandie Dmmont, 1889, 202.
Danes in Northumtma, 1889, 260, 450.
Dale. David, at Berlin, 1890, 238.
Darling, Grace and William, 1888, 263.
Darlington and Stockton Railway, 1889, 264.
Darn Crook, Newcastle, 1889. 272.
Darnell, Rev. W. N., 1890, 155.
Davell. Robert, 1890, 156,
Davis, E. D., Death of, 1887, 93: and New-
castle Theatre Royal, 1889, 23.
Davis, Jefferson, Death of, 1890, 48.
Davidson. Aid. Geo.. Death of, 1891, 188.
Davison, Sir Alexander, 1888, 441, 570 ; 1889,
10, 321; 1890, 157; Sir Thomas, 1889,
347; Joseph, Death of, 188; William
(" Billy Fine Day "), 1891, 136.
Davy, Herbert, Death of, 1889, 380.
Dawes, Richard, 1888, 411 ; 1890, 202.
Dawnay, Hon. Ouy, Death of, 1889, 210.
Dawson, Henry, 1890, 203.
De Pledge, Rev. J. P., Death of, 1891, 141.
DeQuincey, on Christopher North, 1889, 472 ;
and Elizabeth Smith, 1891, 637.
Dead House, Newcastle, 1889, 248.
Dean Street, Newcastle, 1888, 342.
Deep Pits, 1888, 393.
Deer Parks in the North, 1890, 36.
Defoe. Daniel, in Oateshead, 1887, 318 ;
Nicks the Highwayman, 1888, 22.
" De'il Stick the Minister," 1889, 78.
Delaval, Sir Ralph, and Lord North, 1887,
98 ; Delavals of Delaral Hall, the, 437 ;
Sir Francis and Miss Roche, 1888. 283 ;
Delaval Papers, 1889, 133; Sir Ralph,
1890, 250 ; Admiral, 251 ; John Hussey,
252 ; Thomas, 254 ; Edward Hussey,
255 ; Delaval Letter, 1891, 39 ; Weighing
Machine, 126.
Delmonico, Ledger, Lion Hunter, 1888, 492.
Deloney, Thomas, 1889, 462.
Dent, John, Death of, 1889, 572.
Denton Chare, Newcastle, 1888, 135, 410.
Denton Hall, 1887, 135.
Denton, John, Mayor of Newcastle, Execu-
tion of, 1888, 410.
Denville, Sir Gosselin, Freebooter, 1891, 436.
Deodands, 1890, 174.
Derbyshire, Watson. Death of, 1890, 236.
Derwent, King Arthur on the, 1888, ZiO.
Derwentwater, "Countess" of, 1888, 165,
205; "Relics," 283; Earl of, 1890, 1;
Insurrection, 1, 49, 97 ; Lake. 1890, 175 ;
Veteran and Recluse, 1891, 385,
"Derwentwater's Farewell," 1888, 404.
Desks, Sand, 1891, 233.
Devil's Punch Bowl, 1887, 399 ; Water, 1888,
385; Causeway, 1889, 114; Due, 1891,
330.
Dialect, Curiosities of, 1887, 220.
Dick, Guinea, 1890, 42.
Dickens, Charles, and Master Humphrey's
Clock, 1887, 294, 390 ; in the North, 1889,
57, 82.
Dickey of Kintrswood, 1889, 255.
Dickie o' the Den, I860, 355.
Dickinson, Joseph, on Highest Habitations,
1887, 473 ; Thomas, 1889, 197 ; Robert,
Death of, 1890, 332 ; Alderman William,
Death of, 1891, 18&
Dickson, William, Clerk of the Peace, 1890,
205.
Dicky Bird Society, 1887. 443; (Local Anec-
dote), 1888, 285 ; Baroness Burdett-
Coutts, 1890, 239 ; 524 ; Lord Tennyson,
526; John Ruskin, 526.
Dilke, Mrs. Ashton, Portrait of, 1889, 47.
Dilston Castle. 1888, 168.
Dinmont, Dandie, Original of, 1888, 125.
Dinsdale Spa, 1889, 157.
Dipper, 1891, 158.
Dirleton Castle, North Berwick, 1888, 545.
Dispensary, Newcastle, 1391, 17, 20.
Dlxon, Sir Raylton, 1889, 110; 1890, 237;
Thomas, Cork-Cutter, 1889, 447; Jere-
miah, 1890, 245; Robert, Killed on
Helvellyn. 563; John, C.E., Death of,
1891, 140.
Dobson, Alexander, 1888, 650; John, Archi-
tect, 1889, 105; John, Clerk, and the
Mail Coach Robbery, 1889, 402; Alder-
man John, Death of, 1890, 140; Thomas,
298.
Doctors, the Whitworth, 1891, 370.
Dod Man or Hermit of Skiddaw, 1890, 43.
Dodd, William, on Mrs. Jameson in New-
castle,, 1887, 15 ; Daniel Defoe in Gates
head, 318 ; the Poind and his Man, 389;
Death of, 1890, 139 ; his Books, Sale of,
1891, 479 ; Rev. William, 1890, 299.
Doddington, 1891, 112.
Dodds, George, Death of, 1889, 44 ; Joseph.
189 ; Alderman Ralph, 275 ; 1890. 294.
Dods, Thomas Pallister, Death of, 1891,. 236.
Dog, the Pointer, 1887, 429 ; "Help," 1889,
297; Wild Dog of Ennerdale, 1890, 555.
Dogs' Feet, Cutting, 1889, 535.
Dolly, the Wooden, North Shields, 1890. 161.
Donkin, Samuel, Death of, 1888, 238;
Armorer, and Lord Armstrong, 1889, 2;
and J. T. Brockett, 14: 1890, 300; John
George, Death of, 93 ; on a Nook of the
Borders, 363 ; William, Marriage of, 378.
Donnison, Thomas, Suicide of, 1890, 143.
Dorrian, John. 1388, 44.
Dotheboys Hall, Story of, 1887, 294.
Doubleday, Robert, 1890, 206.
Doubledav, Thomas, 1887, 79 ; Denton Ghost,
137 ; 1888, 485 ; Tune of Captain Bover,
1889, 136 ;
Douglas, Walter Scott, Prison Breaker, 1887,
367 ; Dr. Mordey, Death of, 1889, 572 ;
Martin, a Sunderland Hero, 235; Sir
George, on a Roxburghshire Poet, 1889,
79 ; (in the Poet of the Seasons, 199.
Dove Cottage. Grasmere, 1891, 104.
Dove, Robert, Death of, 1890, 476; the
Family, 1891, 280.
Dowie, Menie Muriel, in Newcastle, 1891, 143.
Dragon, the Old, llarrogate, 1888, 40.
Drama in Newcastle, 1888. 343.
Drayton's (Michael) Description of Northern
Counties, 1890, 446.
" Dream, Luckey's," 1891, 410.
Drummond, Sunderland Highwayman, 1888,
317 ; Pitman of Biddiok, 1889, 145, 426.
Drury, E., and Willington Ghost, 1887,178;
Dr. Clanny, 373.
Dryburgh Abbey, 1890, 233.
Dryden, William, Death of, 1890, 236,
Duane, Matthew, 1890, 302.
Duokett, Thomas, Death of, 1890, 379.
Ducking Stool, 1888, 433.
Duddo Tower and Stones, 1889, 200.
Duel, the Cotton Ball, 1887, 466.
Duddon Valley, 1891, 563.
Duff, Sir M. E. Grant, 1891, 287.
Dunbar, the Falls of, 1891, 205.
Duncan, Colonel, M.P., 1888, 144 ; Death of,
1889, 43 ; Bust of, 1890. 239 ; William,
Resignation of, 1891, 383.
Dundas, David, 1891, 469.
Dunford, Mrs. Elizabeth, Death of, 1888, 524.
Dungannon, Lord, and John Bright, 1889,
Dungeo'n Gill Force, 1890, 345, 346.
Dunmail Raise, Cumberland, 1889, 417.
Dunn, Alder, 1887, 35.
Duns Scotus, 1890, 45a
Dunstanborough Castle, 1888. 8.
Dunston, Attempted Murder at, 1888, 383.
Dunure Castle, 1891, 305.
Durant, William, 1890, 337.
Durants, the, and Quicks' Burying Ground,
1889, 24a
Durham :— Cathedral of, 1887. 263; Mus-
tard, 422 ; College of Medicine, New-
castle, 1388, 45; College of Science,
Newcastle, 575 ; County Palatine of,
279 ; First Earl of, 400 ; Allom's View
of, 1889, 40 ; County Council, 142 ; John
Bright's Election for, 207 ; Sanctuary in
Cathedral, 289 ; Sun-Dial at, 294 ; Wags
of, 301, 434 ; Hut Alderson, 401 ; Uni-
versity, 422 ; Dean, Dr. Lake, 426 ; Baron
Brown. 433 ; St, Giles's Church, 448 ;
William Comyn and the See, 520:
Kepier Hospital, 535 ; Fairy Pipes, 562 ;
Deer Parks, 1890, 36; Dr. Lightfoot.81 ;
Cathedral. 117; St. Oswald's Church,
152; Castle, 166; Henry Dawson, Firet
M.P. for County, 203 ; the City, 207 ;
Thomas Morton, Bishop. 283 ; Consecra-
tion of Bishop Westcott, 287; John
Leland, 289; William Camden, 387;
Miners' Demonstration, 429 ; Election,
Mid-Durham, 429 ; Sanctuary, 447 ;
Illicit Whisky, 510 ; Bishop Bury's Lend-
ing Library, 517 ; City, 1891, 234 ; Bishop
Van Mildert's Entry into, 289 ; Ruins at
Bearpark, 318 ; Collierv Explosion, 330 ;
Sir Walter Scott, 390 ; Historian of, 569.
Dutens, Louis, Rector of Elsdon, 1891, 322.
Dwarfs, the Simonside, 1891, 543.
" D'ye ken John Peel?" 1887, 185.
E.
Eadie, James. Death of, 1891, 187.
Earl Brand and the King's Daughter, 1891,
318.
Earldom of Northumberland, Claim to the,
1888, 348.
Earsdon, Edward Elliott of, 1891, 413.
Earth-Quack, Dr. Graham, the, 1887, 157.
Easby, St. Agatha's Abbey, 1891, 440.
Eckersley, Rev. H. a, Death of. 1891, 525.
Eden Hall, Luck of, 1889, 529.
Editor, Newcastle, and the French Dragoon,
1891, 366.
Edlingham, Castle, 1888, 393; Witch of, 393 ;
Vicarage, Burglary at, 1889, 46, 95, 189 ;
1890, 137.
Ednam, and Poet Thomson, 1891, 24L
Edom of Gordon, 1890, 403.
Education, Free, in Newcastle, 1891, 478.
Edmonds, Mrs., Menagerie Proprietress,
1888, U43.
Edwards, Amelia B., in Newcastle, 1891, 94.
Egglescliffe Church, 1890, 367.
Egglestone Abbey, 1891, 497.
Egglestone, William Morley, on Charms for
Venom, 1889, 132; Bishop Butler at
Stanhope, 358 ; Fairy Pipes, 561 ; Deer
Parks in the North. 1890, 36 ; Weardale
Knitting Stick, 90; Weardale Holy-
VI.
INDEX.
Stone, 330 ; Weardale Stay Busk, 378 ;
Two Notable Weardale Hen, 1891, 49 ;
Lee Penny, 378 ; Weardale Linns, 399.
Ehlrrt, Jacob, Murder of Capt. Berokholtz,
1891, 123.
Eichholtz, Robert, Death o(, 1889, 381.
• Ekins, Jeffrey, 1890, 443.
Eldon. Lord, 1888, 198, 201, 271 ; 1889, 436,
458 ; 1890, 183, 215 ; Square, Newcastle,
1889, 104.
Electric Lighting in Newcastle, 1890, 96.
Elephant, Revengeful, 1888, 244 ; Keeper,
523.
Elephant Rock, Hartlepool, 1889, 526.
Elgey, Mrs. Mary, Death of, 1890, 140.
Elleray, Christopher North at, 1889, 47L
Elliott, Tom, Coalhewer, 1887, 111;
Thomas, Surgeon, 1890, 441; Willie,
Liddesdale Farmer, 514; Chief-Con-
stable, of Gateshead, Presentation, to,
1888, 574; Retirement of, 1891, 286;
Jean, a Border Poetess, 341 ; Edward,
of Earsdon, 413.
Elliotts and Armstrongs, 1890, 529.
Ellis, Joseph Baxter, Portrait of, 1889, 45 ;
Mayor of Newcastle, 1890, 576 ; James,
442.
Ellison, Cuthbert, 1890, 339; Henry, 341 ;
John, 342; Nathaniel. 411 ; Robert, 413 j
Ralph Carr, on Faws, 1887, 109.
Elsdon, Tragedy, 1887, 106, 186; Winter's
Stob, 1890, 134; Village. 159; Louis
Dutens, Rector of, 1891, 322.
Elstoh, William, 1890, 444 ; Elizabeth, 445 ;
Elswick, Haughs, 1888, 233 ; Station, 1889 :
480 ; Works, 513 ; Road, 551 ; Hall, 554 ;
Lough's Statuary, 1891, 201 ; Overseer-
ship, I860, 524.
Elvet Bridge, Durham, 1890, 212.
Elwes, Sir W. H. (Shanky), 1888. 269.
Elwick Hall, near Hartlepool, 1891, 137.
Embleton Bog, 1890, 329.
Embleton, Dr., and Mary Jobson, 1887, 369.
Emeldon, Richard, 1800, 489.
Emerson, William, Mathematician, 1888, 29,
627; Ralph Waldo In Newcastle, 1839,
495.
Eromerson, H. H., 1888, 217 ; 1889, 193.
Emery, Robert, 1889, 486.
Engineers' Strike, Newcastle, 1890, 237.
Ennerdale, the Wild Dog of, 1890, 555.
Epitaph on an Engineer, 1887, 436; on
"The Toad," 1888, 5; a Sunderland,
bH3 ; at Lesbury, 1889, 282.
Ermyn Street, 1889, 114.
Erringtons, the, 1887, 303 ; William Erring-
ton and Edward, Jesters, 1889, 543 ;
Roger, Death of, 1891, 476.
Ersklne's Clandestine Marriage, 1883, 201.
Erskine, Mrs., and the Border Trance, 1889,
494.
Eskdale Moor, Fatal Skirmish on, 1P91, 101.
Esther, Queen of the Gipsies, 1891, 164.
Ettrick Shepherd, 1891, 459.
Ettrick, William, Magistrate, 1890, 69.
Eugenie, Empress, and Miss Shaw, 1889, 670.
Evans, Canon, Death of, 1889. 331.
Everett, Rev. James, 1890, 490.
Evers, Henry, Teacher of Science, 1890, 439.
Ewbank, Michael, Death of, 1891, 44.
Execution of Earl Derwentwater, 1»90, 100 ;
at York 1891, 95 ; Mrs. Pearoy, 96,
Expedition, Arctic, and a Newcastle Elec-
tion, 1890, 498.
Explosions :— Ann Pitt, Walker, 1887, 480 ;
Town Moor, Newcastle, 1888, 145; of
Boiler near Swing Bridge, Newcastle,
1889, 573: Ellison Terrace, Newcastle,
1890, 142; Llanerch Pits, Monmouth,
144; Jarrow, 190; Morfa Colliery,
Glamorganshire, 192 ; Government
Powder Mills, China, 576.
F.
"Faa, Johnnie," the Ballad of; Sir John
and Lady Cassilis, 1891, 206.
Faas or Faws, 1887, 109 ; 1891, 164, 206.
fair bairn, Joseph, Death of, 1888, 45.
Fairfax, General, in Newcastle, 1890, 507.
Fairies, North-Country, 1889, 548 ; 1691, 26.
Fairies, Nicholas, and the Lifeboat, 1887,
305 ; Murder of, 1888, 83 ; Wm. Watson,
Death of. 1890, 523.
Fairless, Mr., of Hexham, 1888, 170, 482, 532.
(•airman, Robert, Death of, 1890, 428.
Fairs, Northern, 1891, 163.
Fairy Pipes, 1889, 561 ; 1890, 185.
Falchion, the Conyers, 1891, 291.
Fall, Daniel, a Noted Privateer. 1889, 545.
Falloden Hall, 1890, 281 ; the Greys of,
1891, 354.
Fallows, William, Reminiscences of Stock-
ton, 1888, 164; Portrait, 1889, 111;
Death of. 477.
Falls of Dunbar. the, 1891, 205.
False Alarm, the, 1887, 226.
Falstone, the Last Laird of, 1890, 174.
Fame Islands, Bird Life on, 1890, 463; View
of, from Bamburgh, 1891, 172.
Farrington Brothers. 1889, 412.
Farthing Giles and Guinea Dick, 1890, 199.
Farthing Pants, 1887, 350.
Fawcett, Philippa, 1890, 336; Christopher,
492 ; Dr. Richard, 493.
Fawdon Hill Fairies, 1891, 28.
Fawp. (See Faas.)
Fawsitt, Amy, the Sad Storv of, 18SO, 126.
Featherstone Castle, 1888, 401; Oaktree
Coffins of Featherstone, 1890, 185.
Featherstnnehaugh, the Ghostly Bridal of,
1888, 564.
Felkin, Dr. R. W., in Newcastle, 1838, 190.
Fell House, Gateshead, 1889, 337.
Felling Chemical Works, Disaster at, 1891,
431.
Felton, Village of, 1890, 550.
Fenham, Cowgate Mill, 1891, 532.
Fencibles, Northumberland, 1890, 439.
Fenwick Family, 1887, 18 ; John, and Ferdi-
nando Forater, 18 ; Mrs. Mary, and an
Ancient Comet, 1888, 425; Sir John,
Jacobite, 1889, 431. 570; 1890, 537; Sir
Ralph, in Tynedale, 1890, 406 ; Lieut-
Col. John, 540 ; Colonel George, 541 ;
John, Attorney and Antiquary, 1891, 11.
" Fenwyke," Gathering Ode of the, 1891. 118.
•• Ferry Hill," or " Fairy Hill," 1889, 549.
Field, John, Death of, 1891, 187.
Fieldfares, 1888, 366.
" Fiery Clock Fyece," the, 1887, 116.
Fife, Sir John, 1891, 12.
Fighting Fifth, 1888, 126.
Fighting Cocks Yard, Newcastle, 1888, 494.
Finchale Priory, 1887, 406, 408.
Fire, the Great, in Newcastle and Gates-
head, 1888, 549.
Firemen, Disaster to in Newcastle, 1890, 525.
"Fish and the Ring," Newcastle Version,
1887, 243.
Fiskin, Rev. W., Inventor of Steam Plough,
1889, 91.
Fitzgerald, Lord, Death of, 1889, 576.
Fit/Simmon*, Maria, Murder of, 1891, 266.
Flambard, Bishop of Durham, 1890, 167.
Fleming, James, Bookseller. 1887, 414 ; John,
Death of, 1890, 187; Will of, 191, 286;
Sale of Furniture, £c., 287.
Fleming Hospital, Newcastle, 1888, 525.
Flesh Market, the Old, Newcastle, 1888, 497.
Fletcher, Edward, Death of, 1890, 92
Fletcher's Entry, Newcastle, 1889, 333.
Flight, Frank Pickering's Fatal, 1891, 343.
Flint Jack, 1887. 323, 37&
Flodden, Battle of, 1888, 557.
Flower Garden, Northumbrian, 1888, 554.
Flower, Professor W. H., 1889, 516.
"Flower of Northumberland, Fair,'' 1889,
462.
Fotgitt, Alderman, Death of, 1891, 188.
Football in the North, 1889, 54, 139 ; at
Chester-le-Street, 180, 191; at Work-
ington, 550.
Foote and Sir Francis Delaval, 1887, 438 ;
Letters from, 1889, 134.
Ford Castle, 1887, 455 ; 1888, 130 ; 1890, 253 ;
1891, 127.
Forde, Lord Grey, and Lady Henrietta
Berkeley, 1890, 241.
Fordyce, T., on the Forged Assignats, 1888,
62 ; Death of, 1889, 381.
Forfarshire, Wreck of the, 1888. 267.
Forster, Ferdinando, Murder of, 1887, 18 ;
John, 1888, 49 ; 1889, 57 ; 1891, 330,
Alderman Thomas, 1889. 378 ;
Thomas, of Adderstone, 1890, 2 ; 1891,
58 ; Remains of the Forsters of Bam-
hurgh, 18EO, 282 ; George, Francis, and
Joseph, 1891. 60 ; Jonathan Longstaff,
62 ; Westgarth, 105 ; Christian, Death
of, 429.
Forsyth, R. W., Murder of, 1890, 575;
Portrait of, 1891, 46.
Forth Bridge, Opening of, 1890, 192.
Forth, the Newcastle, 1887, 167.
Poster, Dorothy, her Visiting Card, 1889,
205 ; Lumlev, a Reputed Miser, 239 ;
Robert, a Quaker Lieutenant, 1891,
389; Sir Charles. M.P., Death of, 1891,
429, 432; John, 495.
Fowler, John, Death of, 1883, 524.
Fox, George, 1889, 423 : 1891, 68.
Fox How, Ambleside, 1889, 36a
Fox Hunting in a Coal Pit, 1888, 283.
Franklin, W. E.. Death of, 1887,45.
Frater, Mark, 1889, 104.
Free Love, the, 1888, loL
" Freeborn John " (John Lilburne), 1891,
483.
Freemen's Well Day at Alnwick, 1889, 253.
Freez, F., Printer, 1887, 459 ; Gerard. 459.
French Dragoon and the Newcastle Editor,
1891, 366.
Freeborn, Ralph, 1838, 119.
Friarside Chapel, 1838, 184.
Friar's Goose Disaster, 1891, 431, 47a
Frith, W. P., R.A., and Old Dragon, Harro-
gate, 1888, 40.
Frosts, Severe, 1891, 95, 141, 144.
Fuller and the Vicar of Lesbury, 1887, 1L
Fulton, John, Death of, 1891, 380.
Furniss, Harry, in Newcastle. 1888, 190.
Fury, Thomas, the Case of, 1891, 266.
Fynes, Richard, 1889, 94 ; Presentation to,
1890, 46.
G.
Gad's Hill Place. 1889, 57.
Galilee, Durham Cathedral, 1890, 123.
Gallon, John, Otter Hunter, 1887, 69 ; Death
of, 1888, 140.
Gallowgate, Newcastle, 1889, 270 ; Hopping,
274!
Galloway, Alderman, Death of, 1890, 284.
Game Birds, 1891, 453.
Gammage, Dr. R. G., Death of, 1888, 139.
Gardner, Ralph, and the Cut-Purse Ordeal,
1889,440; atChirton, 487.
Garibaldi's Sword, 1889, 130.
Garnett, Joseph, 1890, 17 ; Professor, 1888,
575.
Garrett, William, 1887, 90 ; Biography of,
1891, 107.
Garvin, J. L., on Joseph Blackett, 1891, 135.
Gas Lighting in the North, 1889, 279.
Gaschet, John, Bookseller, 1887, 459.
Gascoigne, Sir T. , and Robert Bolron, 1889,
420.
Gates of Newcastle, 1891, 546, 547.
Gateshead :— Anchorites, 1887, 276; Daniel
Defoe, 318 ; Haunted House, 382, 477 ;
the Great Fire, 1888, 549; Hospital
Fund, 573 ; Presentation to the Chief-
Constable (John Elliott) 574; Visit of
Princess Louise and Marquis of Lome,
674 ; High School for Girls, 576 ; Pro-
digy, 1889, 40; Toll Booth, 223;
Murder in, 286; St John's Church,
Uateshead Fell, 344 ; Gateshead House,
567 ;Tramcar Accident, 1890, 47; Peram-
bulation Tokens, 222 ; Thomas Topham,
283 ; High School for Boys, 449 ; Tragedy,
675 ; New Mayor, 576 ; Retirement of
Chief-Constable Elliott, 1891, 286 ; New
Chief-Constable, 335 ; Flower Show
Blown Down, 479 ; Windmill Hills, 533 ;
Fire at Park House, 575.
Gathering of Newcastle Weekly Chronicle
Contributors, 1891, 311, 333. (See also
end of Vol. V.)
Gaudy Loup, 1889, 63.
Gavelkind, Law of, Survival in Northumbria,
1887, 406 ; 1890, 502.
Ged, William, Goldsmith, 1887, 318.
Gent, T., Printer, 1887, 461.
Geographical Institute, Newcastle, Opening
of, 1891, 287.
Oeordie's, Jingling, Hole, 1887, 218.
George, Henry, in Newcastle, 1889, 285.
German Emperor, William L, 1888.192;
Frederick, 336 ; Sir Morell Mackenzie's
Book, 528 ; William IL in England, 1391,
432.
German Swordmakers at Shotley Bridge,
1888,212.
Ghosts:— The Headless, of Watton Abbey,
1888, 151; Ghostly Bridal of Feather-
INDEX.
vn.
stonehaugh, 564 ; at Tudhoe, 1889, 52 ;
Stephen Hollin's, 1890, 271 ; North-
Country Stories of, 1891, 174 ; at Knares-
dale Hall, 1891. 210.
Giant, Scottish, 1887, VIZ ; Cor, 1891. 277.
Gibbet in England, the Last, 1888, 83;
Joblinc's, 236.
Gibside, 1887, 200 ; Column, 1888, 466 ; Dial,
1889, 294 ; Hall, 390.
Gibson, Mrs. Susanna, Death of, 1889, 572 ;
William, Westmoreland Mathematician,
1891, 90 ; W. Sidney, 154 ; Thomas, 156:
the Gibsons of HexKam and Stonecroft,
ioa
Gibsone's Conches, 1890. 381.
Gilchrist, Robert, 1888, 234, 516 ; 18SO, 165 ;
1891, 222 ; George, 1890, 85.
Gillender, Robert, 1891, 188.
Gillow, Rev. Thomas, 1891, 157.
Gilmore, J. T., on John Forster, 1888, 54.
Gilpin, Bernard, 1887, 31. 92 ; 1889, 375 ;
Richard, 1891, 226.
Gipsies of the Border, 1891, 54, 100, 163, 205.
(See also under ** Faas.")
Gladstone, W. E., and the Freedom of New-
castle, 1891, 432 ; Newcastle Liberal
Club, 463 ; in Newcastle, 527 ; W. H.,
Death of, 384.
Glassmaking at Monkwearmoutb, 1888, 246.
Gleed-Neckit Will, 1891, 56.
Glenny, Thomas H., Death of, 1891, 282.
Gloucester House, 1888, 137.
Glyun, Serjeant, 1888, 566 ; Edward, 1891,
228 ; Joseph, 1891, 250, 330.
"God Rest You, Merry Gentlemen," 1838, 563.
Goddard, F. R., Death of, 1691, 477.
Godric, St. 1887,406.
Golden Mine, Knight of the, 1889, 205.
Goldsmith, Oliver, on the Tyne and Wear,
1888, 164.
Gooch. Sir Daniel, 1889, 568, 572.
Goodchild, Laurence, 1889, 405.
Goodfellow, J. C., on Hawick Common
Riding, 1887, 207.
Goodfellow, Robin, on Thomas Ironsides,
1891, 90.
Gooding, John. Printer, 1887, 317, 365, 414.
Goose Pies, Cuddy Alder's, 1887, 469.
Gordon, Jean, of Yetholm, 1888. 123.
Gosforth :— Freebooter, 1887, 426 ; Turnpike,
1888, 296 ; Colliery, Ball in, 1890. 171.
Gosforth, Cumberland, Ancient Cross at,
1890, 473.
Gosman, Fred., Death of, 1890, 523.
Gosse, Edmund, in Newcastle, 1890, 189.
Gougn, Charles, and Helvellyn, 1890, 562.
"Grieme, Hughie the," 1890, 558.
Graemes, the Gallant, 189U, 600.
Graham, Dr. , Earth-Quack, 1887, 157 : Baron,
Hero of "My Lord 'Size," 39, 421 ; Mrs.
Cuninghame, 1890, 191.
Grahame, John, and Lumley Ghost Story,
1889, 339.
Grain Warehouse, Newcastle. 1889, 455.
Grainzer, Richard, 1888, 354 ; 1889, 21, 79 ;
1890, 28, 90.
Grammar School, Newcastle, 1888, 409, 410 ;
1869, 554.
Grand Hotel, Newcastle, 1890, 526, 627.
Grange, Cumberland, 1890, 175.
Granger, T. C., 1891, 492.
Grant, James Gregor, 1888, 392.
Granville, Earl, in Newcastle, 1890, 573.
Gra.-incre, Dove Cottage, 1891, 104.
Grasshopper Warbler, 1891, 566.
Graves, John Woodcock, Portrait, 1887, 183;
Death of, 1390, 140.
"Gray, Auld Robin." Author of, 1891, 211.
Gray, Lucy, of Allendale, 1888, 510 ; Alder-
man Thomas, Death of, 1889, 43 ; Rector,
137 : William, Author of " Choro-
graphia," 1889, 313; 1891, 253; Sir
William, 1889, 280 ; 1890, 333, 429 ;
Thomas, C.B., Death of, 235; Gilbert
and George, 1891, 300.
Greathead, Henry, Portrait of, 1887, 306.
Gregson, Alderman, and Mayor's Salary,
1887, 114.
Green, Dr Charles, Death of, 1890, 141;
John and Benjamin, 1891, 224.
Greenfinch, the, 1889, 358.
Gretnhead, Birthplace of Lough, 1891, 199.
Greenhow and Martineau Families, 1889, 138.
Greenhow, Conrad H., on the Margetts
Mystery, 1889, £0; Edward lluadlam,
Death of, 1889, 44; Thomas Michael,
1891, 251.
Greenwell, G. C . on Willie Carr, the Blyth
Samson, 1887, 141 ; Old Street Calls in
Newcastle, 1890, 379 ; Dora, 8 ; Sir Leo-
nard. 1891. 251.
Greenwells of Broomshields. 1891, 43.
Greta Hall, Keswick, 1890, 175.
Gretna Green Marriages, 1888, 198.
Grey, Hon. Mrs. Charles, Death of, 1890,
572 ; F. R., Death of, 255 ; Lord (Forde)
and Henrietta Berkeley, 241 ; James,
525, 574 ; Councillor George, 1891, 297 ;
Robert, D.D., 299; Lady Elizabeth,
Death of, 331 ; Sir George Greys (three)
of Falloden, 354 ; Henry, 356.
Grey Man of Bellister, the, 1887, 351.
Orev's Monument, Newcastle, 1889, 22 ; 1891,
"524.
Grieve Family of Alnwick, 1888, 173.
Groat Market, Newcastle, 1888, 554 ; 1891, 23.
Grouse, Red, 1891, 453 ; Black, 454.
Grundy, Mrs. ("What will lira. Grundy
Say ?"), 1888, 563.
Gubbyn, Thomas, Bookseller, 1887, 460.
Guildford, Lord Keeper, in the North, 1887, 97.
"Guinea Dick," 1890, 42, 199,
Gully, John, Pugilist and Legislator, 1888,
74, 185.
Gustavus of Sweden, Assassination of, 189U,
3ia
"Guy Mannering," Scenes and Characters
in, 1889, 202.
Guy, Sir, the Seeker, 1888, 7.
H.
Habitations, Highest, in Gt Britain, 1888, 43.
Hackworth, Timothy, 1891, 358.
Haddington, 1891, 63.
Hails, William Anthony, 1887, 306 ; 1891, 394.
Hairy Jamie, Miser, 1887, 400.
Half-Hanged Macdonald, 1887, 330.
Halfnight, Richard, Artist, 1890, 280.
Hall, Joseph, Bookseller, 1887, 365; William
Henry, "Captain." 1889, 117; Rev.
George R. , and Chipchase Castle, 119 ;
a C., Death of, 240; George, D.D.,1891,
396 ; Thomas Young, 396.
Hall, Sergeant C., on Football at Working-
ton, 1889, 550; Workington Hall, 1890,
352 ; Wild Dog of Ennerdale, 1890, 55b.
Halleck, Fitz-Greene, on Alnwiok Castle,
1890, 309.
Hallgarth Tragedy, 1891, 221.
Halliwell, G., on Edward Elliott, 1891, 413.
Halls, the, of the Borders, 1890, 502.
Halton Castle, 1889, 8.
Haltwhistle Church, 1889, 497 ; Harried and
Avenged, 1890, 529 ; Bellister Castle, 545.
Halvorsen, P. G., 1891, 285.
Hamilton, Lady, Portrait of, 1887, 161;
Joseph (Peter Waggy), 1888, 463.
Hammerfest, Meridian Pillar at, 1891, 91.
Hammond, Thomas, jun., Printer, 1887, 461 ;
Samuel, 1891, 441.
Hamond, Alderman, 1890, 574.
Hampden, John, Death of, 1891, 144.
Hancock, John, on Crows, 1888, 181 ; on
Chats, 568 ; John and Albany, 1890. 566 ;
Death of John, 572.
Hanging on New castle Town Moor, 1889, 271.
Harald. Lord of War, 1891, 433.
Harhottle, 1890, 365; Wull the Slowan at,
1888, 519.
Hardcastle Bey, Death of, 1891, 45.
Hardcastle, M. S., on Clifford, the Shepherd
Lord, 1889, 373; Miracle Plays and
Mysteries. 1890, 461 ; Anne Clifford, High
Sheriff of Westmoreland, 1891, 97 ; the
Author of "Auld Robin Gray," 211;
Border Heroine, 246; Dorothy Words-
worth, 291 ; Two Border Poetesses, 340 ;
Allan Ramsay, 404; Ettrick Shepherd,
459 ; Mary of Buttermere, 556.
Hardy, James, on Calaly Castle, 1889, 378.
Hareshaw Lmn, 1889. 343 ; 1891, 327.
Harle, W, Lockey, 1888, 49 ; on John Forster,
50, 138 ; Justice Cresswell, 1890, 68.
Harney, George Julian, and Garibaldi, 1889,
130 ; Chartist Spear, 150.
Harold's Ship, 1889, 451, 453.
Harris, Augustus, Knighted, 1891, 430, 432 ;
Inspector, Appointed Chief-Constable of
Gateshead, 335 ; Rev. George, 443.
Harrison, John, Bookseller, 1887, 414;
Thomas Elliott, Death of, 18S8, 227, 237;
J. T., Death of, 1891,573.
Harrison's (William) Description of the
North, 1890, 373.
Harrogate, the Old Dragon at, 1888, 40.
Hartburn. Northumberland, 1890, 591.
Hartlepool, a Ginevra of, 1889, 235 ; West,
279, 287 ; Elephant Rock, 526 ; East, St.
Hilda's Church, 1890, 65 ; By-election,
1891, 141 ; Free Library, 333, 335.
Hartley, Jesse, and Lord Armstrong, 1889,
3; John, Death of, 1890, 45.
Harvey, John, 1891, 372; William, 444.
Hassocks, the, 1887, 427.
Haswell, John A., on Sunderland Bridge,
1887, 402 ; George H. , on Old Street Cries,
1890, 473 ; Thomas, Death of, 1890, 91 ;
Unveiling of Portrait, 1891, 47; Bio-
graphy, 498.
Hatfield, John, the Forger, 1887, 110, 187,
3888, 520
Haughton Castle, North Tyne, Purchase of,
1888, 572 ; the Castle Spectre, 1891, 133.
Haughton-le-Skerne, Church. 1890, 470 ; and
Waterloo Wetheral, 1891, 234.
Haunted House, Gateshead, 1887, 382, 477 ;
Mill, Willington, 177.
Havelook, Sir Henry. K.C.B., 1888, 29L
Hawick Common Hiding, 1887, 207 ; Songs,
210; Slogan, 211, 331 ; Flood, 1888, 183 ;
Battle of Hawick Bridge, 1891, 101.
Hawkes. Mervyn L.. Death of, 1890, 572.
Hawks Family, 1887, 23, 91 ; Hawks's Men
at Waterloo. 141 ; Hawks, Crawshay, and
Sons, Gateshead, 1889, 479.
Hay, John, Death of, 1888, 285.
Haydon, a R., in Newcastle, 1888, 567.
Haydon Bridge, Sun Dial at, 1889, 293.
Haymarket, Newcastle, 1889, 275.
Hazlerigg, Sir Arthur, 1887, 376; 1891,500.
Hazlitt, the Highwayman, 1888, 114.
Headlams, the. 1891, 538.
Hebburn, Colliery Explosion at, 1889, 576 ;
Hall. 1890, 42.
Hedgeley Moor, Battle of, 1888. 2SO.
Hedley, Joseph (Joe the Quilter), 1887, 221 ;
William, Death of, 1889, 92 ; Puffing
Billy, 262 ; Ralph, 1889, 196 ; Sketch of
"The Sanctuary," 1890, 448 ; "The
Pitman," 1891, 208 ; "The Pitman's
Saturday Night," 416; "Two Pitmen,"
569 ; John, Death of, 1890, 285 ; Alder-
man Thomas, 1891, 44.
Heenan, Mrs. (Madame Tomsett), 1890, 396.
" Hell, the Earls of," 1891, 163.
Hell Kettles, 1887, 353, 427 : 1890. 374.
Hell's Hole, 1887, 247; Kitchen, 1888, 555.
Helm Wind, 1887, 474 ; 1889, 186 ; 18SO, 11.
"Help," the Railway Dog, 1889, 297.
Helvellyn Fatalities, 1890, 561.
Hemy, Charles Napier, 1890, 417 ; Tom M.,
418 ; Bernard B., 419.
Henderson, Fanny, 1888, 362; Archibald,
"Bold Aruhv," 1890, 165; Sebastian,
Death of, 1891, 33£
Henhole, the Cheviots, 1889, 549 ; 1891, 27.
Hennessy, Sir John Pope, Death of, 1891, 528.
Henry VI., Statue of, Alnwick, 1889, 525.
" Henwife Jack," 1890, 522.
Henzell, W. M., Death of. 1891, 573.
Berber Tower, Newcastle. 1891, 544.
Hermitage Castle, 1889 (see Frontispiece),
562 ; 1890, 513.
Hermits, at Gateshead, 1887, 276 ; Skiddaw,
18EO, 43, 90, 231; Warkworth, 346;
Northumbrian, 1891, X2.
Hernaman, John, and Chas. Larkin, 1889, 22
Heroine, a Border, 1891. 246.
Herrington Tragedy, 1887, 14a
Hesleyside Estate, 1887, «2 ; the Charltons
of, 1891, 328.
Heslop, Rd. Oliver, on the Bewcastle Cross,
1887, 471 ; on the Northumbrian Burr,
1888, 59; the Linnels, 385; "Candy-
man," 1889, 6; the Gaudy Loup, 63:
Chartist Spear, 148; "Canny,1' 183;
Crowdy, 278; Cut-Purse Ordeal, 439;
the Battlefield, Newcastle, 1891, 379.
Hetherington, Thomas, 1888, 382 ; William
S., 1890, 229.
Hetton Coal Co., 1888, 185.
Hetton-le-Hole, Murder at, 1891, 575.
Hexham, Town and Abbey, 1888, 22 ; Battle
of, 26, 159 ; Old House at, 1889, 496 ;
Great Riot of (in 1761), 557; the Gibsons
VIII.
INDEX.
of, 1891. 108; Frank Pickering's Fatal
Flight, 541
Hexhamshire, 1890, 502. .
Hi"h Level Bridge, Newcastle, Cunous
Accident at, 1887, 275; 1890, 263; 1891,
qi A 7ft
High Schools for Girls, Gateshead, 1888, 576.
Highest Habitations, 1887, 175.
» Highlander, the Old," N. Shields, 1890, 326.
Highlanders at Wolsingham 1890. 246.
Highwayman, Nevison the, 1888, 18 ; High-
wayman, 1889, 91; and the Preacher,
1890, 138 ; Northumbrian, 229 ; CapUm
Zachary Howard, 506.
Higgins, Parachutist. Killed 189V 432
Hills, the Burning, of Shields, 1890, 276.
Hinde, John Hodgson. 1889, 551, 555 ; John,
Death of, 1890, 235.
Historian of Northumberland, the, 1891, 4ZU ,
of Durham, 569.
Hodgkin, Barnett, and Co.'s New Banking
Premises, 1891, 249.
Hodgkin, Thomas, 1891, 250.
Hodgson Mrs. B. W., Death of, 1887, 45 ;
Rev. John, and the Thorngrafton Find,
1888 483, 529; Memoir and Portrait,
1891 420 ; Mrs. Solomon, Thomas and
James, 18£0, 224, 225; John, of Hart-
burn, 391.
Hog?, James, the Ettrick Shepherd, and the
Long Pack, 1887, 250; 1889 Ibl ; 1891,
459 ; Sergeant, Death of, 1888, 571.
Hollin's (Stephen) Ghost, 1890, 27L
Hollinside Manor, 1880, 128.
Hollon, Richard W., Death of, 1890, 427.
Holmes, R. H. , Alderman, 1891, 94
Holy Island Castle, Capture of, 1887, 3O5 ,
Pilgrimage to, 335 ; Petting Stone at,
1889, 475; Accident to Excursionists,
T890 240
Holy Wells in the North, 1888, 148.
Holy-Stone, a Weardale, 1890. 330.
Homildon Hill, Battle of. ««!«•.._
Honister Crag, Cumberland, 1888, MO.
Horn, Thomas S., Death of, 1831, 429.
Hornsby, Captain, and Privateer. 1887, SO.
•• Horrid War i' Sangyet," 1889, 398
Horse-Racing in the North, 1889, 394.
Horse-Stealers of Last Century, 1890. 532.
Horse-Stealing, Public Purgation for in Saint
John's Church, 1888, 412; 1891, 16*.
Horses, Pack, in the North, 1890, 397.
Horsley, James, Death of, 1891, 189 ; John,
Antiquary, 445.
Hoskins. George Gordon, 1883, 111.
Hospitals :— Thomas knight, Blyth, 1888.
95 ; Holv Jesus, Manors, 322 ; Fleming
Memorial. 525 ; Walker, 526 ; Children's,
at Gateshead, 526.
"Hotpots," Curious Custom at Whitburn,
1RQ1 239
Hotspur'ciub Annual Dinner, 1889, 239.
Hotspur Tower, Alnwick, 1890, 496.
Hotspur at the Battle of Otterburn, 1891, 363.
Houghton Feast. 1887, 31, 92.
Houghton-le Spring, 1888, 149.
Houldey, Rev. W. E., Death of, 1888,: 188.
Household Book, Northumberland, 1891, 278.
How, Ralph, Centenarian. 1887 12.
Howard, Lord William, 1888, 533; 1890, 2b7;
Captain Zachary, 506.
Howarth, Mark Littlefair, 1889, 659.
Howdie, the, of Elsdon, 1891, 28.
Howick Hall, 1888, 466; Howick Pie. 1887,
428
Howltt, Wm., 1887, 118 ; 1891, 479.
Howstan'5 (Cuthbert) Tombstone, 1891 490.
Hoyle. W. A., and Denton Hall, 1887, 135 ;
John Theodore, and James Thain, 1890,
319 • on Baron Watson, 1891, 494 ; Rev.
Jonas, Death of, 1890, 427; Percy, on
Mrs. Montague, 1891, 295.
Hudson, Thomas, Story of the Willmgton
Ghost, 1887, 179; of "Wandering
Willie," 1889, 233; Tyne Conservancy
Contest, 1890. 132 ; George, the Railway
King, 1887, 392; Rev. Joseph, Death of,
1891, 573.
Hughie the Grame, 1890, 608.
hullock. Baron, 1890, 43.
Hulne Abbey, 1888, 119; 1890, 416.
Humphrey's Clock, Master, 1887, 389.
Humphreys, William, Clock-maker, 1887,
23V, 390 ; Ann, Death of, 1891, 282,
Hunter) Rev. W. M., Death of, 1887,479;
James, Death of, 1890, 45; Croabie,
Tvneside Showman, 1891, 346, 278.
Hurst, T. O., Death of, 1890, 427; Blythe,
1R91 1^3.
Hutch, Maison Dieu, 1887, 56 ; Town's, 105.
Hutt, Major-Gcneral. 1889, 572.
Button, William, Visit to the Roman Wall,
1887, 260; Charles, 1888, 137; Birth-
place of 1839, 272 ; Thomas, Death of,
1891,284; Will of, 382.
Hylton, and the Hyltons, 1888, 86; the
Cauld Lad of, 88.
Icterine Warbler, 1891, 566.
" Imagination, Travels of the, 1891, ooi
nglewood, Forest Thieves, 1890, 50L
ngham, Robert, 1891, 493.
nsurrection, the Derwentwater, 1890, 1,49, 97
nvasion, the Threat of, 1891, 474.
ron in Boatbuilding, First used on Tyne,
1887, 30.
Ironsides, Thomas, 1891, 90, 284.
Irvine's (Henry) First Appearance, 1891, 86.
J.
Jack Tar Inn, Newcastle, 1890, 112.
Jack the Beadle, 1888, 11 ; the Sweep (John
Pybus), 96 ; " Whisky," 1891, 125 ; Lang
Jack, 35Z
Jackdaw, the, 1889, 231.
" Jaoky Brough," 1890, 3L
Jackson, Ralph Ward, 1887, 475 ; 1889, 279 ;
Clithero Abduction Case, 1891, 239.
Jaoky-Legs, 1887, 282.
Jacobite, Sir John Fenwick, the, 1889, 481.
James, Rev. Octavius, Death of. 1889, 95.
Jameson, Mrs., in Newcastle, 1887, 15 ; Jane,
Execution of, 1889, 27L
" January Searle" (G. 8. Philips), Death of,
1889, 140 ; 1891, 209.
Jarrow, St Bede's at, 1888, 247 : Monastery,
1889, 261 ; Murder and Suicide at, 383 ;
Explosion at, 526.
Jay, 1890, 375.
Jedburgh Abbey, 1890 (see Frontispiece),
565.
JeddartAxe, 1890, 294.
Jeffery, Rev. A. D.. 1891, 384.
Jeffreys, Judge, 1888, 259, 3CO.
Jemmy Joneson's Whurry, 1887, 377.
Jenkins, William, 1890, 574.
Jennings, Ed., V.C., Death of, 1889, 284, 330.
Jesmond— Chapel, 1888, 78; Dene, 315;
Old Mill, 1890, 282; •' Jessamond Mill,"
1891, 235, 330.
Jesters, Newcastle, 1889, 543.
"Jim Crow," 1891,503.
Jingling Geordie's Hole, 1887 (see Frontis-
piece), 218 ; 1890, 349.
Jobling, Robert, 1889, 194 ; Isabella, Death
of, 1891, 284.
Jobling's Gibbet, 1888, 236.
JoUon, Mary, and Dr. Clanny.1887, 36a
" Jock o' the Syde," 1888, 68 ; 1890, 531.
Joe Piper, of Toft Hill, 1889, 182.
Joe the Quitter, 1887, 221.
John the Pieman, 1889, 295.
" Johnny Newcombe in the Navy," 1888, 521.
Johnson, Dr. at Denton Hall, 1887, 137 ; Mr.
(Sims Reeves\ 1888, 234.
Jones, Paul, Plan of the Tyne, 1888, 3ol ;
Major Evan R., on Lord Armstrong, 1889,
1 • Rev. Isinael, Death of. 237 ; J. Rock,
1890. 183 ; Lloyd 1891. 571.
Joyce's Patent Stove, 1891, 455.
Jubilee, Celebration of Queen's, 1887, 285.
Judges, Coming »nd Going of the, 1889, 222
Jurgenson, C, 1891, 285.
Kemble, Stephen, 1888, 343 ; and •' Barber's
News," i860. 52 ; Fanny, 1891, 411 ; the
Kembles, 411.
Kemmel's Path, 1891. 426.
Kendal, Journalistic Enterprise at, 1890, 28d.
" Kenedy, Lord," Bigamist, 1890, 481.
Kenmure, Earl of, Execution of, 1890, 99.
Kenton, Oriel Window at, 1890, 327.
Kepier Grammar School, 1889, 375 ; Hospital,
535.
Kerr, Mrs., Centenarian, 1887, 13.
Kerrs, the Raid of the, 1890, 405.
Keswiok, Cumberland, 1890. 175.
Kettlewell, Luruley, Eccentric, 1890, 563.
Ketton, the Miser of, 1889, 84.
Killingworth, Races at, 1889, 394.
Klnch! Henry, Death of, 1888, 379.
King John's Palace, 1887, 88 ; Well, 89.
Kingfisher, 1891, 158.
King-Harman, Colonel, Death of, 1883, 336.
Kingswood, Dickey of, 1889, 255.
" Kinmont Willie." 1890, 453, 530.
Kirby Fight, 1889,330.
Kirk Yetholm, 1891, 55.
Kirkharle Church, 1890, 495.
Kirkley Hall, 1888, 91 ; 18SO, 311 ; Robbery
at, 314.
Kirkstall Abbey, 1889, 209 ; Fairy Pipes,
562.
Kirkstone Pass. 1887, 473 ; Fatal Accident
in, 1890, 4bO.
Kirkwhelpington Church. 1890, 350.
Hitching, Robert, Execution of, 1891, 9o. •
Knaresdale Hall Ghost, 1891, 210.
Knight. Thomas, Hospital, Blvth, 1888, 95.
Knitting Stick, Weardale, 1890, 90,
Knox, John, in Newcastle, 1890, 59.
Kohen. Sophia, Death of, 1890. 96.
Kossuth's Vists to Newcastle, 1889, 276.
Kow, the Hedley, 1889, 19.
Krapotkine, Prince, in Newcastle, 1890, 47.
Kyle, John, Portrait of, 1887, 209.
L.
Laidley Worm, 1890, 193.
Laird of the North Countree, 1890, 174.
Lake, Dr., Dean of Durham, 1889, 426.
Lake District, Curious Customs of, 1890. 130,
186 ; 1891, 263 ; Wordsworth, 417 ; Moun-
taineering Feats, 138.
Lambert's Leap, 1887, 16, 331.
Lamberton Toll-Bar, 1883. 320.
Lambton Worm, 1888, 398 ; Castle, 1889, 16L
Lambton, Ralph, and hid Hounds, 1887, 33.
Lambton, Joseph, Martyr, 1887, 78.
Lanchester, Views of, 1888, 73, 74 ; Roman
Remains at, 138.
Lanchester, Mrs. Ann, aged 107, Death of.
1890, 92.
Lanercost Priory, 1883, 538 ; and Beeswing,
1890, 270.
"Lang Jack," aTyneside Samson, 1891, 3oi
Lane, Simon (see'Gretna Green Marriages\
Langdale Pikes, Cumberland. 1889, 32.
Langley Castle, 1889, 117 ; Old Castle and
Fairy Pipes, 562.
Langton, Thomas, and Redmarshall Church,
1890, 543.
La Pevrouse and the Stockton Captains,
Laplanders at Ravensworth Castle, 1887, 14.
Lark Hall Sprite, 1890, 568.
Larkin, Charles, 1887, 467 ; 1889, 22.
Lartington, 1889. 75.
Law Society, Incorporated, 1888, 57i
Lawson, Rev. John, Death o«, \aX>, 475.
Leakes. the, of Bedlington, 1890, 393.
Lecture Room, Newcastle, 1889, 80.
Lee Penny, 1891, 378.
Kane. John (" Whisky Jack "). 1891, 125.
Katterfelto and his Wonders, 1891, 16.
Katy's Coffee House, 1888, 162, 489 ; 1889,
369.
" Reach i' the Creel, the," 1891, 342.
Kearney, Matthew, Death of, 1891,331.
Keelmen's Strike, 1887, 280; Hospital, 18S1,
" Keel Row," History of the, 1887, 266 ; in
Old Manuscript, 379.
Keene, P.C Charles, Death of, 1891, 140.
Keilder, Cout of, 1887, 326 ; Castle, 328.
Kelk, Mrs. (a Hartlepool Ginevra), 1889, 235.
Kelly, Richard, Death of, 1887, 478.
Lee,*Wllliam,"on' Hew Hewson (Hugh Strap).
1887, 342 ; Northern Superstitions, 374 ;
Death of, 1891, 380.
Leland, John, in Northumberland, 1890, asa.
Lemmings, 1891, 523.
Leonard, John, 1890, 6.
Leprosy in the Northern Counties, 1889, 465.
Lesbury, Vicar of, 1837, 11 ; Epitaph, 1889.
Lesley, Sir John, and Sir Thomas Riddell,
1889, 566 ; General in Newcastle, 1891,
LevensHall, Westmoreland, 1891, 296.
Levy, J. M.. Death of, 1888, 628.
Leyden, John, M.D., 1888, 275.
INDEX.
Library, Public, Newcastle, Bequest to, 1839,
191 : Bishop Cosin'a, 1890, 532 ; Bishop
Bury's, 517.
Liddell, Sir Henry Thomas, 1890, 172.
Liddesdale Thieves, 1890, 501 ; Farmer, 513.
Liddle, R. K., Death of, 1890, 523.
Lietch, T. C. , and Tyne Conservancy Con.
test, 1890, 132. '
Lieutenant, a Quaker, 1891, 389.
Life Brigade, Tynemouth, 1890, 319.
Lifeboat, Wouldhave's, 1887, 305.
Litton House, Newcastle, 1890, 524, 525.
Lightfoot, Dr., Bishop of Durham, 1890, 81,
92 ; Will of, 96. 240 ; Library, 575.
Lighting of Towns, 1890, 218.
Ulburn Tower, 1891, 351.
Lilburn, Charles, Death of, 1891, 380.
Lilburne, Master George, and the Muggles*
wick Conspirators, 1889, 371; John,
1891, 483 ; Robert, 486.
Lilliard, Fair Maiden, 1888, 245.
Lind, Jenny, in Newcastle. 1887, 476.
Lindisfarne, Cathedral. 1887, 407 ; 1889, 228.
Lindsay, C. 8., Death of, 1888. 380, 384
Linnels. the. 1888. 385.
Linnet, Brown, 1890, 163.
Linnet Family, Three Members of the, 1891,
232.
Linton, W. J., and Brantwood, 1890, 513.
Lion Tamers, Recollections of, 1888. 4SO.
Lister, Rev. J. Moore, on Richard Grainger,
1890,90.
Listen, the Comedian, 1888, 345.
Literary and Philosophical Society, New-
castle, 1887, 297 ; Founding of, 1888, 407.
Liulph, a Saxon Noble. 1888, 566
Locke, W. F., Memorial to. 1890, 285.
Lodbrog, Regner, 1891. 128.
Lodge of Industrs". 1888. 185.
Lodore, Falls of, 1889, 64.
Loftus, William, 1888, 328; W. K.. 329;
Captain A. J., 1890, 190.
London, William, Bookseller, 1887, 363.
Londonderry, Marquis of, 1889, 341; at
Seaham Harbour, 525; at Hartlepool,
525; Wynyard Hall, 1890, 565.
Long Benton and Cuddy Alder, 1887. 469.
Long Horsley, Tower atj 1888, 405 ; 1891, 561
Long Lonkin, 1388, 459.
Long, Luke, Quack Doctor, 1890, 27a
Long Mug and her Daughters, near Penrith.
1890, 273.
Long Pack, the, 1887, 250.
Loraine, Sir William, 1890, 496.
" Lord 'Size, My," 1887, 37, 91 ; Author of,
1887, 37a "
Lome, Marquis of, in Newcastle, 1888, 574.
Losh, W. S., Death of, 1888, 524.
Lottery Offices in Newcastle, 1889, 101 ;
Wearmouth Bridge, 254.
Lough, Mrs., Death of, 1889, 93; Models,
141,556; John Graham, 1891, 199; the
Lough Family, 233.
Louise, Princess, in Newcastle. 1888, 574.
Low Lights, Battle of the, 1891, 519.
Lowe, Rev. Dr. Alex. H., Death of, 1888, 429.
Lowell, James Russell, Death of. 1891, 480.
Lowrie's Den, Fight at, 1891, 102.
Lucas, John, Mayor of Gateshead, 1889, 46.
" Luckey's Dream," 1891, 410.
"Lucy Gray of Allendale," 1888. 510.
Lully. Ras'mond, at Raby Castle, 1887, 26.
Lumley Castle, Sir John Vanbrugb, 1891, 16.
Lumley Ghost Story, 1889, 3S9.
Lumleys, Effigies of the. 1888, 305.
Lunardi in Newcastle, 1887, 349.
Lupton, Frances EX, on Greenhow and
Martmeau Families, 1889, 138.
Lushburn Holes, 1890, 437.
Lyceum, Burning of Sunderland, 1891, 86.
Lyon, Emma, Lady Hamilton, 1887, 160.
M.
Macaulav, T. a. Letter about the Betsy
Cains, 1887, 32.
.Macbeth, James Anderson as, 1889, 244.
.M action aid , J. G. , on the Ha wick Slogan, 1887,
331 ; Volunteer Movement in the North,
1888, 54 ; James, Death of, 1889, 140.
Macfarlane, the Recluse, 1891, 303.
Mackay, Dr. Charles, Death of, 1890, 96.
Mackenzie, Sir Morell, and the German
Doctors. 1888, 528; .-Eneas Mackenzie,
on the Side, 1889, 314 ; James A. a W.,
1890, 173; Captain G. H., 1891, 288.
Macklin, Thomas Eyre, 1891, 373.
Maclagan, Dr. W. D., Archbishop of York,
1891, 333, 526.
Maoliver, P. 8., Death of, 1891, 282, 283.
Macomo, the Lion Tamer, 1888, 491.
Macreadv in the North, 1891, 547.
Maddison, Monument, 1891, 294.
Maddison. Ralph (Mad Maddison), 1887, 70.
Magdala, Lord Napier of, 1890, 144.
Magee, Rt Rev. Wm., Archbishop of York,
1891, 96, 141 ; Enthronement, 237 ;
Death of. 283, 288.
Magistrate, an Eccentric, 1890, 69.
Magpie, 1889, 277.
Mahon, the O'Gorman, 1891, 384.
Maiden Way, 1889, 115.
Mail Coach Robbery. 1889. 402.
Mainsforth, Robert Surtees of, 1891, 569.
Maison Dieu, Newcastle, 1887, 56 ; 1888, 159.
Mallett, William, Bowes Tragedy, 1887, 41.
Man. Edward, Merchant Adventurer of New-
castle, 1891, 117.
11 Man the Lifeboat," 1888, 131.
Man-Stealors, Northumbrian, 1887, 109.
Manders-and Macomo. 1888, 244.
Manisty. Justice, 1890, 136.
Manor Chare, Newcastle, 1888, 321,
Mansion House, Newcastle, 1887, ill ; Clock,
114 ; 1889, 351.
Hanson, Jas. Bolivar, and the French Dra-
goon, 1891, 366.
Map of. the Great North Road, 1888, 29a
Maplisden, Peter. Bookseller, 1887, 364.
Marat, Jean Paul, in Newcastle, 1887, 49 ;
1890, 499.
Margetts, Mystery, the, 1887, 58 ; 1889, 90.
Maricourt, Count de, and J. B. Manson,
1891,366.
Marjoribanks, Lady, Death of, 1839, 477.
Markets. Newcastle, 1889, 83.
Marlay, Sir John, 1888, 225.
" Marley, Elsie," 1887, 39a
Marriage, an Invitation to, 1891, 139.
Marsden Rock, View of, 1887, 128 ; Marsden
Grotto, 129; Recollections of, "130;
1891, 567.
Marsh, Arthur H., 1890, 182.
Marshall, John, 1888, 322 ; " Dr. Marshall,'
of Durham, 1889, 301; Thomas, 1891,
410.
Marske Hall, 1888, 184.
Martin, William. 1887,343; his High Level
Bridge, 348; Jonathan, and York
Minster, 418 ; John, 434 ; 1888. 43 ;
Leopold Charles (on the Martin Family),
1887,436; 1889.93,318.
Martineau, Harriet, at Tynemouth. 188T,
415; Church at Langdale, 1889, 35;
Superstition in Wastdale, 185 ; and
Macread.v, 1831. 549.
Marvin, Charles, in Newcastle, 1889, 573;
Death of, 18J1, 45, 4a
Mary of Buttermere, 1891, 556.
Massacre of Amboyna (1623), 1891. 195.
Master Humphrey's Clock. 1887, 38a
Match, Lucifer, Invention of. 1880, 145.
Matfen Murder, the, 1888, 252
Matthew Bank Farm. 1891, 53L
Maund, E. A., 1891, 189.
Mavin, Walter, 1891, 45a
Mawson, John, and Town Moor Explosion,
1888, 146.
Maybrick, Mrs., Trial of, 1889, 431, 480.
Mayor's Clock, the. 1887, 115.
Mayoralty, Newcastle, Cost of, 1889, 174.
McCloud, Peter, Hanged at Tyburn, 1891,
439.
McCallum, John, Death of, 1889, 573.
McDonald, Donald, Smuggler, 1891, 270.
Mclntosh, Charles. Old Soldier, 1888, 274 ;
Death of, 1891. 525.
McKinley, Bridget, Death of, 1890, 475.
McKiuley Tariff Bill, 1890, 528.
McNeil!. Archibald, Death of, 1888, 94.
Mease Family, the, 1891, 426.
Mechanics' Institutes, Northern Union of,
1888. 282.
Medicine College, 1888, 45.
Meg of Meldon, 1887, 84.
Meg Merrilees, 1888, 123 ; 1889, 202 ; 1891,
206.
Meissonnier, M., Death of, 1891, 144.
Mercenaries in Northumbria, 1889, 326.
Meridian Pillar at Hammerfest, 1891, 9L
Merrinjrton Tragedy, 1887, 65.
Methodism in Newcastle, 1891, 261.
Mewburn, James, 1891, 3a
Middlesbrough, Birth of, 1888, 103 ; Town
Hall, &c., 1889, 110.
Middleton, Captain Christopher, 1891, 30.
Midsummer Boneflres, 1887, 404.
Milan, King, Abdication of, 1889, 192.
Hilbanke, Ralph, and Sunderland Bridge,
1887, 403 ; Anne Isabella (Lady Byron),
1888,65; Lady, 1890, 19a
Milburn, Muckle Jock, 1887, 476.
Mildert, Bishop van, Entry into Durham,
1891. 28a
Milfleld, near Wooler. 1891, 112.
Mill, Old, Jesmond Dene, 1890, 282.
Miller, the. and his Sons, 1890, 372 ; Clock
Mill, 487.
Miller's Cottage, the, Newcastle, 1889,234,
275.
Millet's "Angelas," 1889, 384, 442 ; 1890, 676.
Millie, Jos.. Savings Bank Tragedy, 1890, 76.
Milling, John, Death of, 1889, 188.
Milne, James Thompson, Death of, 1890, 427.
Milne- Home, David, Death of, 1890, 623.
Milner, Ursyn, Printer, 188V, 45a
Mills, Andrew, and Merrington Tragedy,
1887, 65.
Milvain, Aid. Henry, Death of, 1890. 188.
Miners' Strike, Northumberland, 1887, 190.
Miracle Plays and Mysteries, 1890, 461.
Miser of Ketton, 1889, 84.
Miss or Mistress, 1889, 205.
Mitchell, Alexander, a Border Poet, 1887, 400.
Mitcheson, William, Death of, 1888, 380.
Mitford, Castle, 1887, 152 ; 1890, 324 ; Church,
150; Village, 1891, 344.
Mitford Family, the, 1887, 152, (Jack, 153 ;
1888, 521 ; Dr. and his Daughter, 1887,
154; Marv Russell, 157) ; William (Local
Poet). 1837, 311 ; 1889, 237, 323 ; 1891,
510 ; Thomas, 1889, 237.
M'Kendrick, Thomas, Death of, 1890, 573.
Moises, Hugh, schoolmaster, 1888, 411.
Moltke, Count von, Death of, 1891, 238.
Monday, Windy, 1889, 418.
Monk, General, 1888, 281 ; 1889, 235.
Monk's Stone, Legend of the, 1887, 254.
Monkwearmouth Pit, 1883, 392; Church,
1891, 503.
Montagu, Mrs. Elizabeth, 1887, 132; Re-
miniscence of, 1891, 295.
Montpensier, Due de, Death of, 18£0, 144.
Moors, Brown Man of the, 1891, 84.
Morpeth, 1889, lob ; Bell Tower, 474 ; Exe-
cution of Peter Patterson, 559 ; Road, a
Story of, 1890, 39 ; Stabbing Affair at,
1891, 237.
Morrison, John, 1890, 320, 527.
Morritt and Scott at Rokeby, 1887, 319;
1890. 33 ; Death of R. A. Morritt, 672.
Mortham Tower, View of, 1887, 320.
Morton the Dramatist, 1888, 342; "Mrs.
Grundy," 663; Thomas, Bishop of
Durham, 1890, 283.
Mosorip, Isabella (aged 102). 1891, 474.
Mosley St., Newcastle, 1888, 342 ; 1891, 140.
Mosstroopers, 1888, 9 ; 1890, 354, 402, 436, 500,
529.
Mountaineering Feats in Lakeland, 1891, 138.
Muckle Jock Milburn, 1887, 476.
Muggleswick Conspirators, 1889, 370.
Mugs, Toad, 1890,396.
Mulcaster. John Peter, Death of, 1887, 38L
Mumps' Ha'. 1888, 125 ; 1889, 203. .
Muncaster Castle, 1890, 40.
Murdoch. William, and Lighting of Towns.
1890, 218.
Murphy, William, 1890, 525, 574 ; Serjeant,
1891, 493.
Murray, John, and Sunderland Lighthouse,
1887, 249 ; Grace, and John Wesley, 1883,
503 ; James, 1889, 23 ; 1891, 563 ; Ches-
ter-le-Street Football, 1889, 180 ; Liudley
at York. 1890, 267.
Musgraves of Eden Hall, 1889. 52a
Mutineer, the Pardoned, 1889, 247.
•• My Love has 'Listed," 1891, 43&
Mysteries and Miracle Plays, 1890, 46L,
Mvstery, a North-Country, 1889, 18L
Nab Cottage, Rydalmere, 1890, 272.
Nag's Head Inn, Newcastle, 1889, 354.
Nanson, John, Death of, 1891, 625.
Naoroji, Dadabbai. in Newcastle, 1889, 189.
X.
INDEX.
Napoleon, Prince, Death of, 1891, 240.
Naples. Prince of, in Newcastle, 1891, 477.
Natural History Society, Newcastle, Foun-
ded, 1888, 39.
Navigation, Steam, on the Tyne, 1891. 309.
Navigators, Arctic and Antarctic, 1891, 29.
Naworth Castle, 1888, 536, 537, 538 ; House-
hold Book, 1890, 257.
Nelson, Lord, and Lady Hamilton, 1887, 162.
Nelson. H,, Death of, 1891, 381 ; Will, 526.
Nent Force Level, 1888, 546.
Nest on the Tomb, 1889. 282.
Nestor of the Tobacco Trade, 1891, 378
Netherwitton, 1891. 74
Neville, Kanulph de, 1887, 26 ; John, Lord,
1888, 51 4 ; Rose of Raby, 1890, 4.
Neville's Cross, Battle of, 1887, 256.
Nevilles, the, 1888, 406.
Nevison the Highwayman, 1888, IS.
New Bridge Street, Newcastle, 1889, 102.
Newall, Aid. R. a. Death, 1889, 283.
Newbiggin-by-the-Sea, 1891, 223.
Newburn, Battle of, 1888, 373 ; Opening of
Mills at, 1891, 477.
Newbrough Centenarian (Mrs. Teasdale),
1890, 522.
Newcastle (see Streets) :— Old Tradesmen.
1887, 35; Royal Exhibition. 91, 480;
Newcastle General Magazine, 365 ;
Prison Breaker, 367 ; Orange Woman,
475; Speed's Plan of, 188B. 33; Ander-
son Place (see Frontispiece), 82 ; Munici-
pal Elections, 45, 573; Denton Chare,
135 ; Back Row, 137 ; Literary Club,
143; a Bit of Old Newcastle, 232;
Orphan House, 501, 570; Pillory, 523;
Great Fire, 549 ; R R. Havdon in, 567 ;
Law Society's Conference, 572 ; Hospital
Fund, 573 ; Princess Louise, 574 ; Col-
lege of Science, 575 ; Sir R. S, Ball, 575 ;
Burying the Colours of a Regiment in.
1889, 42; Markets, 83; School Board
Election, 95; Hospital Sundav Fund, 95,
676 ; Lottery Offices in, 101 ; Eldon
Square, 103 : Carliol Tower, 104 ; Public
Library, 105 ; Fatal Balloon Ascent
from, 117 ; Trinity House, 176 ; Newgate,
214 ; St. Andrew's Church, 217 ; White
Cross, 219; Black Horse Inn, 220;
Scotch Arms, 221 ; Moot Hall, 222 ; The
Side, 225; Miller's Cottage, 234; St.
Nicholas' Church and the Scottish
Prisoners, 235 : General Monk, 235 ;
Ridley Villas, 236; Turf Hotel, 233;
James R. Anderson, 241 ; River Police
Station and Dead House, 248; "The
Quicks Buring Plas in Sidgate," 249 ;
Kossuth's Visit, 276 ; Henry George, 285 ;
Mystery, 287; Old Newcastle on the
Tuthill Stairs, 319; X.Y.Z. at Newcastle
Races, 323 ; Traeedy in, 332 ; Fletcher's
Entry, 333; Poisoning Case in, 334 ;
Thunderstorm, 334 ; St Michael's and
All Angels' Church, 335 ; Bull Bait-
'
,
ing, 366 ; Katy's Coffee House, 369 ;
Cross House, 377; Pants, 378; Tem-
perance Festival, 382; Races on the
Town Moor, 396 ; St Nicholas' Church-
yard, 399 ; Amen Corner, 401 ; Castle
Garth, 406 ; Windy Monday, 418 ; Shah
of Persia, 429 ; Apprentices, 435 ; Three
Tuns Inn, 446; Central Station Hotel,
464 ; Leprosy, 466 ; Barnum, 475 ;
Dr. Parker. 478; Extraordinary Oc-
currence, 479; Elswick Station, 480;
Ralph Waldo Emerson, 495; Cen-
tral Railway Station, 610; Infirmary,
511 ; Scotswood Road Tragedy, 514 ;
British Association, 515, 624; British
Pharmaceutical Society, 624 ; Col-
lege of Medicine Opened, 526; Uncle
Toby's Musical Treat, 527 [Jesters, 543 ;
Newcastle and the Side, 571 ; Boiler Ex-
plosion near Swing Bridge, 573 ; Charles
Marvin, 573; Exhibition Surplus, 674;
Presentation for Bravery, 574 ; Lady
Parachutist, 574 ; Hospital Sunday, 674 ;
Professor J. E. Hodgson, 574; Death
from Starvation, 574; Municipal Elec-
tions. 575; Max 9'Rell in, 675; H.
H. Emmerson's Pictures, 575 ; Earl
Spencer, 576 ; New Mayor, 676 ;
New Assembly Rooms, 18SO, 46 ; John
Knox, 59 ; Pandon Dene, 71 ; Savings
Bank Tragedy, 76; Riot of 1740, 83;
Uncle Toby's Exhibition of Toys, 94 ;
Murder, 9o ; Mysterious Disappearance
of a German Governess, 96 ; Elec-
tric Lighting, 96 ; Fires, 141 ;
Literary Club, 141 ; Bewick Club, 143 ;
Sir Edward Watkin, 144 : Charles Cow-
den Clarke's Visits, 148; William the
Lion, 180 ; Hospital Fund, 189 ; Edmund
Oosse, 189 ; Execution, 190 ; the Quay-
side, 216; Ifeu'caitle Chronicle, 223;
Plumbers' and Engineers' Strike, 237;
Sir J. Crichton Browne, 238; H. M.
Stanley and the Freedom of Newcastle,.
239, 381; Sandow, Strong Man, 240;
Pope Pius II., 261; Bridges, 263;
Newcastle in Danger, 283; Miss Helen
Gladstone. 287 ; John Lelaad, 291 :
First Public Concerts, 326 ; Bern-
hard Stavenhagen, 333 ; Charles Avi-
son's Tombstone, 334 ; Street Calls,
379 ; Sunday Music, 381, 431 ; Tem-
perance Festival, 3b2; John Clayton,
422 ; Old Street Cries, 473 ; Oystershell
Hall, 474 ; the Mayor and H. M. Stanley's
Valet, 476; Rose Inn, Pudding Chare,
479 ; Town Moor Allotments; 479 ; John
Taylor, Water Poet, 486 ; an Arctic Ex-
pedition and a Newcastle Election, 498 ;
General Fairfax, 507; Hospital Sunday
Fund, 624 ; Elswick Oi-ereeership, 524 ;
Lif ton House, 524, 525 ; Disaster to Fire-
men in Mosley Street, 525, 574 ; Grand
Hotel, 626, -527; Remnant of Roman
Wall, 628; Three Norwich Soldiers'
Description, 535 ; Failure of the District
Bank, 548 ; John and Albany Hancock,
566 ; Bath House, 571 ; Gift of Recrea-
tion Ground, 573 ; Mr. Balfonr, 573 ;
Surgeon T. H. Parke, 573 ; Earl Gran-
ville, 573 ; Madame Patti, 574 ; Herbert
Ward, 574; Municipal Elections, 575;
Press! Gang, 1891, 3 ; Sir John Fife. 12 ;
Katterfelto, 16 ; Dispensary, 17, 20 ;
Bigg Market and Groat Market, 23;
George Barrlngton, 36 ; High Level
Bridge, 91; Amelia R Edwards, 94;
Uncle Toby's Toy Exhibition, 94 ; Severe
Frost, 95, 141; Siege and Capture,
1644, 114 ; Mosley Street Disaster, 140 ;
Madame Trehelli, 142; Mr. J. Rose
Troup, 142 ; Menle Muriel Dowie, 143 ;
Whitworth Wallis, 143; Ordination of
Rev. Joseph Rorke, 143; Sir William
Brereton's Visit, 162 ; John Wesley,
180; E. A. Maund, 139: Hon. J. B.
Patterson, 190; Uncle Toby's Musical
Treat, 190 ; The Murder of Dennis
O'Neil, 190; Census, 239; New Post
Office Buildings, 248; New Banking
Premises, 249; Billy Purvis, 259;
Methodism. 261 ; Catherine O-Hara,
Oldest Inhabitant, 286 : Barge Day,
287 ; Maddison Monument, St. Nicholas'
Cathedral, 294 ; Bumler Box, 297 ; St.
Crispin's Day Celebration, 310 ; Snow-
storm on Whi( Sunday, 333 ; H. M.
Stanlej , 333 ; Horse Procession, 333 ;
Census, 335 ; Newcastle and Carlisle
Railroad and Canal, 34V ; Riot on the
Town Moor, 353 ; French Dragoon and
the Newcastle Editor, 366; Battle- Beld,
379 : Temperance Festival, 382 ;
Tragedies, 384 ; Stage Coach, 427 ; Mr.
Gladstone and the Freedom, 432, 527 ;
Baliols, 464 ; Prince of Naples, 477;
Free Education, 478 ; Destruction of
Flower Show, 478 ; Trades Union Con-
gress, 480; Plague and Cholera, 481,
553; John Foster, the Essayist, 495;
Keelmen's Hospital, 496 ; Blackfriars,
505 ; Newcastle from Gateshead, 511 ;
All Saints' Church, 521 : Grey's Monu-
ment, 624 ; Surplus of Exhibition, 527 ;
Liberal Federation, 528 ; Chimney Mills,
b30; Todd's Nook Mill. 631; St.
Nicholas' Steeple, 541 ; Walls, 645;
Maoready, 647; St. Michael's Church,
574 ; Wesley Memorial, 574 ; Engineers'
Dispute, 575 ; Municipal Elections, 675 ;
Election of Mayor and Sheriff. 575.
Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, 1888, 35.
" Neweombe, Johnny, in Navy," 1888, 52L
Newman, Cardinal, Death of,"l890, 480.
Nicholas, Grand D jke, at Wallsend, 1889, 150.
Nicholls, John, Centenarian, 1887, 12.
Nicholson, Mary, the Story of, 1888, 214 ;
Nicholas, North-Country Sexton, 476;
Ralph, Landlord of Hell's Kitchen, 555 ;
John, Death of, 1890, 475.
Nicks, the Highwayman, 1888, 22.
Nioky-Naok, 1890. 37.
Nichols, Arthur, Portrait of, 1889, 43.
Niell, William, Death of, 1890, 235.
Nielsen, Herman F., Death of, 1887, 479.
Nightingale and other Warblers, 1891, h.
Nimmo of the Rocking Tower, 1891, 113.
Nitric Acid Disaster, 1890, 526, 574.
Noodles, Origin of, 1889, 248.
Norgate, Edward. 1887, 22.
Norham Castle, 1889, 151.
North, Lord-Keeper, 1887, 97 ; Christopher,
and Will' Ritson, 1889, 185 ; at Elleray.
47L
North Berwick, 1888, 544.
North Northumberland, 1888. 128.
North Road, Two Bits of the, 1890, 48&
North Shields Mvstery, 1887, 58 ; Old Mills
near, 1891, 550, 534.
North, the :— Superstitions, 1837, 374 ; Vam-
pires, 1888, 518 ; North-Country Mystery,
1889, 181 ; Gas-Lighting, 279 ; Abortive
Rising, 350 ; Bull-Baiting, 365 ;
Fairies, 548; Artists, 1890, 181. 417,
673; Deer Parks, 36; Rising in the,
1891, 337 ; Slogans, 470.
Northbourne, Lady. Death of, 1890, 140.
North-Countree, Laird of the, 1890, 174.
Northumberland :— Miners' Strike, 1887, 144,
190; Fusiliers,'1888, 126 ; Claim to Earl-
dom of, 348 ; Duke of, and Thorngraf ton
Find, 483. 531 ; Wallace's Raids, 1&89.
34 ; County Council, 141 ; Mercenaries
in, 326 ; Danes, 260, 450 ; Rob Roy, 459 ;
" Fair Flower of Northumberland,"
462 ; Leprosy, 466 ; Sir John Fenwick,
482 ; Rock Hall, 490 ; Blanchland, 500 ;
Sale of Estates, 526 ; Beacons, 1890, 44 ;
Highwaymen, 229 ; Farmer's Wedding,
378 ; Fencibles, 439 ; Duchess of, Death,
1891, 82, 93 ; Contemplated History of,
191, 526 ; Household Book, 278 ;
Historian of, 420.
Northurabria, Saints of, 1887, 75 ; 1888, 132 ;
the Burr, 59 ; Flower Garden, 654 ; Early
Wars of, 1889, 26, 59, 106, 171, 227, 258,
298, 347, 414, 450, 490, 632 : Decline of,
258 ; Bakestick, 522 ; Hermits, 1891, 302.
Norton Church, 1889, 345.
Norway. Journalists' Tour in, 1891. 285.
Norwich Soldiers, Three, 1890,533.
Numerals, Shepherds', 1891, 77.
Nungate Brig. Haddlngton, 1891, 64.
Nunn, Robert (•• Bobby"), 1839, 485.
Nutcracker, the, 1890, 375.
O.
•• O 1 the Oak and the Ash," 1888, 253.
Oatlands, Surrey, John Hancock's Resi*
denoe. 1890, 569.
O'Callaghan, Bishop, 1888, 141.
O'Connell, Daniel, in Newcastle, 1888, 390.
O'Connor, Feargus, in Newcastle, 1888, 254,
330.
O'Donnell.F. H., 1888, 384.
U'Hanlon. Michael, Death of, 1890. 572.
O'llura, Catherine, Old Woman, 1891, 286.
O'Rell, Max, In Newcastle, 1889, 575.
O'Shea, John Augustus. 1889, 142.
"Ode, Gathering of the Fenwyke," 1891.
118.
" Ogilvie's (Sawney) Duel," 1890, 198.
Ogle Castle, 1890, 328.
Ogle, Dean, and Kirkley Hall, 1890, 314.
Old News (first number of Kevxsattte
Chronicle), 1887, 426.
Old Newcastle Tradesmen, 1887, 35.
" Oldbuck, Jonathan " (W. W. Robson),
1887,271.
Oliphant, Dr., andOld Tyne Bridge Tragedy,
1887, 202 ; Laurence, Death of, 1889, 96.
Oliver, Wro., Local Pott, 1887, 116 ; James
W., 1891, 91.
Oliver's Plan of Newcastle (1830X 1887, 167.
Orange Woman, Newcastle, 1887, 475.
Ordeal, the Cut-Purse, 1889, 439.
Organ. First Mention in Newcastle Records,
1887, 2L
Oriel Window at Kenton, 1890, 327.
Orphan House, Newcastle, 1888, 504, 570,
Osbaldistone, Francis, 1889, 459.
INDEX.
XI.
Ossulston. Lord, and Camilla Colville, 1887,
274.
Oswald, Coming of, 1889, 171 ; Legend, 1891,
203.
Otter Hunting, 1887, 69.
Otterburn, Battle of, 1891, 362, 402, 450.
"Outlandish Knight," 1889, 198.
Ouzel, the Ring, 1888, 493.
Over the Churchyard Wall, 1887, 20.
Ovingham Church, 1888, 17 ; 1890, 7.
Oystershell Hall, Newcastle, 1890, 474.
Pack Horses in the North, 1890, 397.
Packet, the Tyne Steam, 1891, 306.
Page, Dr. David, Death of, 1890, 188.
Paige, Rev. Lewis, Death of, 1889, 477.
Paine, Thomas, and Sunderland Bridge,
1887, 401.
Paley, Dr., at Bishopwearmouth, 1687, 422;
and " Guinea Dick," 1390, m
Pallas's Sand Grouse, 1888, 413.
Palmer, James, Centenarian, 1887, 12 ; 1888,
226.
Pandon, Newcastle, 1888, 265 ; Dene, 1890,
71 ; Home of Julia St. George, 104.
Panorama, Inventor of, 1887, 173 ; Centenary
of the, 1888, 330.
Pants, Newcastle, 1889, 378.
Parachutist, Higgins, Killed, 1891, 432.
Paradise and the Flood, 1887, 280.
Parcy Reed, Death of, 1888, 370 ; Ballad of,
371.
Park House, Gateshead, Fire at, 1891, 575.
Park and Watt, the Story of, 1887, 60;
Mungo, the African Traveller. 1888, 436.
Parke, Surgeon, in Newcastle, 1890, 573.
Parker, Kev. Dr., in Newcastle, 1889, 478.
Parish, a Peculiar, 1891, 137.
Parish Registers, Our, 1891, 517, 558.
Parnell Commission, 1888, 576 ; 1889, 192 ;
1890, 48; Divorce Case and the Irish
Party, 1891, 48 ; Mr. Parnell in New-
castle, 430 ; Death of, 528.
Partridge Family, Members of the. 1891,
423.
Path, Kemmel's, 1891, 426.
Paton, Robert, of Rutnbury, Death of, 1890,
142, 486.
Patterson, Adam, Death of, 1889, 44 ; Peter,
Execution of, 559 ; W. H., 1890, 542 ;
Hon. J. B., 1891, 190; John Brown, 271.
Patti, Madame, in Newcastle, 1890, 574.
Pattison, Thomas, and the Thorngrafton
Find, 1888, 482, 530 ; Hugh Lee, and the
Great Fire, 551.
Paul Jones's Plan of the Tyne. 1888, 351.
Pearson, Dicky, Jester, 1889, 543.
Pease, Joseph, 1888, 103; Edward Lucas,
Death of, 1889, 139 ; Will of, 333 ; John
William, 1891, 250.
Peat, Lady, and the Herrington Tragedy,
1887, 148; Her Property, 1891, 137.
reabody, Charles, Death of, 1890, 576.
Pedestrian, An Old Newcastle, 1887, 427.
Peel, John, 1887, 183 ; Death of, 1888, 45 ;
William, 1890, 5YO ; Death of, 284.
Peel Tower, a Typical, 1888, 376.
Pele Tower, Corbridge, 1891, 217, 218.
Penley, Sam, and James Anderson, 1889, 242.
Pennicuik House, the Siege of, 1891, 11)2.
Penny, Lee, 1891, 37a
Penrith, Castle, 1890, 249; Long Meg and
Her Daughters, 273 ; Brougham Castle,
559 ; Beacon, 1891, 1J4.
Pensher Hill, Monument, 1888, 400 ; Fairies
on, 1891, 27.
Perambulations, Gateshead, 1890, 222.
Percies, and Westminster Abbey, 1891, 82.
Percy, James (Claimant to Earldom of
Northumberland), 1888, 348; Dr. and
the Hermit of Warkworth, 1890, 346;
Earl, 1891, 287.
Percy Street, Newcastle, 1889, 270.
Percymyre Castle, 1891, 173.
Peicy's Cross, Legend of, 1888, 290.
Perth, Earldom of, the Pitman of Biddick
and, 1889, 145, 426.
Peter Waegy, 1888, 46£
Peterborough, Bishop of, 1891, 184, 190.
Pettigrew, Wm., the Recluse, 1891, 303.
Petting Stone at Holy Island, 1889, 475.
Pheasant, 1891, 453.
Phillips, G. S. (January Searle), Death of,
1889, 140 ; 1391, 209.
Phillips, Maberley, on " The Quicks' Bury-
ing Ground," 1889, 249.
Philpotts, Dr., Bishop of Exeter, 1889, 359.
Phipps, Hon. Constantino, 1890, 49&
Pickering, T. D., Death of, 1890, 380 ; Frank,
Fatal Flight of, 1891, 343.
Pickled Parson, the, 1887, 100.
Pioktree Brae, the. 1891, 407.
Pierson. Thomas, Dramatist, 1890, 387.
Pigg, Thomas. Mathematician, 1887, 221.
Pigg's Folly, 1888, 118.
Piggott, K. , and the Parnell Commission,
1889, 192.
Pilgrim Street, Newcastle, 1888, 77.
Pillar Rock in Ennerdale. 1891, 472.
Pillory, the, 1888, 433, 523.
Pinnacles. Fame Islands, 1890, 463.
Pipes, Fairy, 1889, 561 ; 1890, 186.
Pipits, the, 1890, 124.
"Pitman's Pay," 1889, 337; the Pitman,
1891,208: "Pitman's Saturday Night,"
416: "Two Pitmen," 569.
Pitt, Wm., Fired at for a Housebreaker, 1888,
220.
Plant Lore, Yorkshire, 1890, 474.
Plays and Mysteries, Miracle, 1890. 461.
Pledge, Rev. J. P. de, Death of, 1891, 141.
Plough, the Steam, Inventor of 1889, 91.
Plummer, Benj., J.P., Death of, 1889, 380;
Will, 573.
Plummer Tower, 1889, 105.
Poet Close, 1891, 42 ; 185.
Poetesses, Two Border, 1891, 340.
Poind and his Man, the, 1887, 389.
Police (Riyer) Station, Newcastle, 1889, 243.
Polka, the, 1891, 329.
Pollard, Joseph, Death of, 1888, 237.
Pollard Worm, the, 1889, 556.
Pompey's Pillar, North-Country Sailors,
1889,375.
Ponteland, 1890, 503 ; Tower, 1889, 367.
Poor, tha Wandering, 1891, 5la
Pope Pius II. in the North, 1890, 261.
Porter, Jane and Anna Maria, 1891, 415, 474.
Post-Office, New, in Newcastle, 1891, 248.
Postman, Newcastle's First, 1890, 398.
Potter, William Aubone, Death of, 1887, 284.
Potts, E., Death of, 1888. 188 ; Peggy, 175.
Prelate, the Captured, 1890, 323.
Presbyterian Church, Jesmond, 1888, 480.
Press Gang, Tale of the. 1887, 470 ; 1888, 91,
178, 236 ; in the North, 1891, 1.
Preston " Hoppings," Revival of, 1889, 525.
Price, John, Death of, 1890, 523.
Priestly, Jonathan, Death of, 1889, 477.
Priestman, Elizabeth (Mrs. Bright). 1889,
206 ; Jonathan, Death of, 92 ; Will, 431.
Prince of Wales and the Chillingham Bull,
1889, 113.
Pringle, Agnes, Artist, 1890, 399.
Printers on the Tvne, Early, 1887, 314.
Privateering Incident, 1887, 331.
Proctor, John Richard, Death of, 1888, 524 ;
R. A., Death of, 478.
Prophecies, Mother Shipton and Her, 1890,
61.
Prosser, Joseph, Death of, 1888, 1R8.
Proud, Miss ilary, Death of, 1891, 283.
Proudfoot, Rev. E. F., Death of, 1891, 189.
Prudhoe Castle, 1891, 6. (See Frontispiece,
' 189L)
Prudhoe Street, Newcastle, 1889. 275.
Pudding Chare, Newcastle, 1887, 225 ; 1889,
186 ; 1890, 138.
Pudsey, Bishop, and Kepier Hospital, 1889,
535 ; 1890, 119.
Punch, Tom Taylor, Third Editor of, 1891,
542.
Purvis, Isabella, Death of, 1887, 237 ;
Billy, 1889, 353; 1891, 259, 314,
373; Robert, a Noted Smuggler,
270.
Pyat, Felix, Death of, 1889, 432.
Pybus, Robert, Death of, 1890, 572.
Pyman, James, Death of, 1887, 479 ; George,
1889, 280.
Q.
Q.E.D., the First Screw Collier, 1890, 200.
Quack Doctor, Luke Long, 1890, 275.
Quail, the, 1891, 425.
Quaker Lieutenant, 1891, 389.
Quayside Shaver, 1889, 175.
Quayside, 1889, 453 ; 1890, 215.
Quicks' Burying Ground, 1889, 24a
Quin, S., Sheriff of Newcastle, 18SO, 576.
R
Raby, Raymond Lully at, 1887, 26 ; Castle,
1888, 514 ; the Rose of, 1890, 4.
Racing in the Northern Counties, 1889, 394
Radoliffe, Charles, 1888, 166 ; 1890, 101 ;
James, the last Earl of Derwentwater, 1.
Railway System, Beginning, 1887, 368 ;
Opening of Alnwick Section, 383 ; Deve-
lopment, Illustrations of, 1889, 262 :
Newcastle and Carlisle, 1891. 347.
Raines, Canon, Resignation of, 1891, 673.
Ramsay, John, Death of, 18aO, 427 ; Allan,
1891, 404.
Randall, Richard, Bookseller, 1887, 364.
Random, Roderick, in the North, 1887, 340.
Ranulph de Granville, 1890, 180.
Haven, the, 1890, 221.
Ravensworth, and Sir W. Scott, 1891, 390 ;
Death of Countess of, 45 ; Castle, Lap-
landers at, 1887, 14; View of Castle, 468.
Rayne, Dr. Septimus Wm. , Death of, 1887,333.
Heaping Machine, Invention of the, 1887, 373.
Reay, John, 1888. 392 ; Samuel, 1891, 325.
Recken Dyke, 1889, 114.
Redesdale Thieves, 1890, SOL
Redmarshall Church, 1890, 541
Redpole, Lesser, 1890, 161
Redstart, 1890, 554.
Red Tarn and Striding Edge, 1890, 56L
Redwings, 1888, 366.
Reeds of Troughend. the, 1888, 475.
Reed, Henry, bookseller, 1887, 414 ; Thomas
Allen in Newcastle, 1889, 526 ; Joseph,
iun., 1891, 430.
Reedwater Witches, 1889, 151.
Reeves's (Sims) First Appearance in New-
castle, 1888, 234.
Registers, Our Parish, 1891, 517 ; 1891, 558.
Regner Lodbrog, 1889, 299 ; 1891, 128.
Reid, Rev. Alexander, Death of, 1887, 45 ;
Edward, Death of, 429 ; Christian Bruce,
Death of, 1890, 91; Christian John,
Death of, 1891, 282.
Reidswire, Raid of, 1888, 325.
Relph, Joseph, of Sebergham, 1890, 468.
Renforth, Stephen, Presentation to, 1890, 384.
Rewcastle, James, Death of, 1891, 429.
Rhodes.Robert, 1891, 540.
Richardson's History of the Forth, 1887, 169.
Richardson, Mrs. Jonathan, Death of, 429 ;
Joseph, Dramatist, 1888, 220 ; Thomas,
Mayor of Newcastle. 1889, 45; T. M.
and the Academy of Arts, 90 ; Sheriff's
Procession, 227 ; M. A. and G. B., 103;
Wigham and Northern Dials, 292 ; T. M. ,
jun., Death of, 1890, 93 ; James, Death
of, 379 ; Thomas, M. P. , Death of, 1891, 91
Richmond, Yorkshire, 1891, 119; a Ramble
Round, 151 ; Castle, 344.
Richmond, David, Death of, 1891, 187.
Riding the Stang, 1887, 122, 125. 126, 187.
Riddell, Sir Thomas, and Sir John Lesley,
1889, 566 ; Henry P. A. R , Bequest to
Newcastle Public Library, 191.
Ridley, Sir Matthew White, Portrait of,
1887, 191 ; and the County Justices,
1891, 383 ; John, of the Walltown, 1889,
499 ; Nicholas, Bishop of London, and
Willimoteswicic Castle, 517 ; Dr. Henry,
538
Ridley Villas, Newcastle, 1389, 236.
Rignold, Mrs., Death of, 1888, 332.
Riot, Hexham, 1889, 557; the Newcastle, 83 ;
Sunderland Seamen, 608.
Risingham, Robin of, 1888, 61
Rising in the North, 1891, 337.
Ritchie, C. T., atTynemouth, 1888, 572.
Ritson, Joseph, 1888, 546; Will, and Chris-
topher North, 1889, 185, 473 ; Francis,
Death of, 332 ; Old Will, Death of, 1890,
189, 282.
Road, the Great North, 1888, 294.
Roads, Our Roman, 1889, 38, 51, 114.
Robbery at Kirkley Hall, 1890, 314 : a York-
shire, and its Detection, 1889, 42;
Mysterious Mail Coach Robbery, 402.
Robin of Risingham, 1888, 63 ; Robin, the.
1889, 31 ; of Redesdale, 51.
"Robin Spraggon's Auld Grey Mare," 1888,
170.
Robins, Thomas, Death of, 1888, 332.
Robinson, Jacky, of Whickham School, 1888,
475 ; John, and the Delaval Papers, 1889,
133 ; Dorothy Foster's Visiting Card,
205 ; John, Shipowuer, Death of, 284 ;
XII.
INDEX.
J. N., Death of, 427 ; Crusoe (Bracey R.
Wilson), Death of. 1890, 91 ; G. *"., 181 ;
Rev. Thomas, Death of, 476 ; John,
Death of, 476 ; Gerard, Death of, 1891,
236.
Rob Roy in Northumberland, 1889, 459
Robson, William Wealands, 1887, 270 ; on
Justice Creeswell, 1890, 69 ; Turnip
Husbandry, 101 ; on the Northern
Circuit Fifty Years Ago, 1891, 467, 491 ;
J. P., 1889, 222, 398 ; Trust, the New-
castle, 1891, 335.
Roche, Miss, and Sir F. Delaval, 1888, 283.
Rock Dove, 1891. 280; Hall, Northumber-
land, 1889, 490.
Rocking Tower, Nimmo of the, 1891, 113.
Rodes, Robert de, 1889, 410.
Rodham, Joseph, 1887, 111, 236.
Rogers, J. E. Thorold, Death of, 1890, 576.
Rokeby, Scott and Morrittat, 1887, 319.
Roker, Boating Fatality at, 1890, 430.
Roman Bath Found at Westerton Folly, 1890,
431 ; Wall, Remnant of, 528.
Romanuo Polynmrchy, the, 1891, 100.
Rome, Storming of. Banquet in Com-
memoration of, 1891, 526.
Rook, the, 1889, 231.
Rookhope Ryde, 1890, 223.
Rosa, Carl, Death of, 1889. 288.
Ropner, Major R., and Stockton, 1891, 143.
Rorke, Ordination of Rev. Joseph, 1891, 143.
Roscamp, Corporal, 1891, 430.
Rose Inn, Newcastle, 1890, 479.
Rothbury, Storm at, 1890, 142 ; Town, 1891,
457.
Rousbey, Arthur, Vocalist, 1891, 303.
Routledge, George, 1889, 85 ; Will, 1890, 142.
Rowlandson, Thomas, Bookseller, 1887, 364.
Roxby, Robert, 1887, 79 ; 1888, 486.
Roxbys and Beverleys, 1889, 327.
Rudby, Buried Alive at, 1891, 427.
Runciman, James, Death of, 1891, 381.
Kuskin, John, at Wallington, 1888, 42 ;
Brantwood, 1890, 513 ; Dicky Bird
Society, 526.
Russell, Henry, "Man the Lifeboat," 1888,
131 ; in Newcastle, 1889, 331.
Rutherford, Dr. John Hunter, 1890, 226, 235 ;
Will of, 288; John Henry, Death of,
429 ; Alison, a Border Poetess, 1891, 341
Rutland, George, Bookseller, 1887, 69.
Rydalmere, Nab Cottage. 189U, 272.
Rydal Water and Rydal Mount, 1889, 560.
Ryhope, Railway Accident at, 1889, 479.
a
Sadler, Joseph, Death of, 1890, 92.
Sailing Coaches at Middlesbrough, 1891, 37&
Sailors' Strikes on the Tyne, 1891, 52,
Saint, Joseph, Centenarian, 1887, 13; Wm.,
Death of, 1889, 332.
Saints, Northumbrian, 1887, 75.
"Sair Feyl'd Hinny," 1890, 3H5.
Salkelds, of Rock Hall, 1889, 490.
Salmon, Apprentices and, 1888, 85.
Salt Mines at Middlesbrough, 1887, ?a
Salters' Tracks, the, 1889, 366.
Salvation Army, Founder of the, 1891, 137.
" Sanctuary, the," 1890, 477.
Sanctuary, the Privilege of, 1888, 253 ; 1889,
289.
Sand Desks, 1891, 233.
Sand Grouse, Pallas's, 1888, 413.
Sanderson, Tommy, 1888, 301 ; Professor
Burden, 1889, 517.
Sandgate, 1388, 222, 283.
" Sands-ate Lassie's Lament," 1889, 486.
Sandhill, the, 1888, 159.
Sark, the Battle of, 1890, 292.
Sark Weddings, 1887, 186
"Saufey Money," 1890, 437.
"Saunterer, the," Author of, 1891, 149.
Savings Bank Tragedy, Newcastle, 1890, 76.
Scawfell Pike, 1891, 368.
Scholefleld Henry. Death of, 1888, 44.
School Board Election, Newcastle, 1889, 95.
Schopenhauer on the Elephant, 1888, 244.
Scorer, Alexander, Death of, 1889, 284.
Scotch Arms Inn, Newcastle, 1889, 221.
Scotswood Road, Tragedy, 1889, 514.
Scott, Sir Walter, at Rokeby, 1887, 319 ; in
the North, 1891, 391 ; Murder of Super-
intendent, at Durham, 1888. 334; Walter,
Publisher, Portrait of, 1889, 464; Wm.
Bell, 449; 1891, 40; Alderman John O.,
Death of, 1890, 187, 287 ; Percival, Death
of, 379 ; Adam, King of the Border, 438.
Scottish Giant, 1887, 478.
Scotus, Duns, 1890, 459.
Screes, Wastwater, Cumberland, 1889, 185.
Seaham, Byron at, 1888, 65; New (Nickj-
nack) Colliery. 1890, 37.
Seam, the Busty, 1890, 414.
Seamen's Riots at Sunderland, 1890, 508.
Searle, H. E., Death of, 1890, 43 : "January,"
1890, 209.
Seaton Delaval Hall, 1887, 440 ; 1890, 251 ;
Seaton Sluice, View of, 1887, 441.
Sebergham, Joseph Relph, of, 1890, 468.
Sedge Warbler, the, 1891, 565.
Seeker, Sir Quy, the, 1888, 7.
Selkirk, J., 1888, 102 : Souters of, 1387, 293.
Senna Wells, the, 1888, 235.
Seven Dials, 1889, 294.
Sewingshields, 1891, 567.
Seymour, Judge Digby, and the Dicky Bird
Society, 1889. 527. 576 ; 1891, 494.
Shadforth, Robert, 1890, 575.
Shafto, R. D.. Death of, 1889, 237.
Shah of Persia, in Newcastle, 1889, 129.
"Shanky Elwes," 1888, 269.
Sharp, Sir Cuthbert, 1888, 230 ; Archdeacon,
of Hartburn, 1890, 391.
Sharpe's Folly. 1891, 464.
Shaw, Jane, a Prince's Nurse, 1389, 570.
Sheldon, Frederick, 1887, 119.
Shepherd, Lord Clifford, 1889, 373.
Shepherd, the Ettrick, 1891, 459.
Shepherds' Numerals, 1891. 77.
Sherburn Hospital, 1889. 165, 468.
Sherwood, Mark, 1889, 271.
Shield, John, local poet, 1887, 37, 282 379 ;
1889, 252 ; 1890, 52 ; William, 14 ; Mem-
orial at Whickham, 1891, 574.
Shields, the Castle of the Seven, 1851, 567.
Shields :— A Mystery, 1887, 58 ; the Volun-
teer Movement, 1888, 54 ; Ghosts, 345 ;
Wooden Dolly, 1890. 161 ; Bull Ring,
232; Burning Hills, 276; Old Highlander,
326 ; Seventy Years Ago, 390 ; Strange
Marriage, 1891, 285; South, Market
Place, 410 ; Fort Captured by Scots, 426 ;
Youth Hanged, 439 ; Carlyle's Estimate
of the Folks, 475 ; Battle of the Low
Lights, 519.
Shiels, Tibbie, in Yarrow, 1891, 81.
Shilbottle Blue Bonnet, the, 1890, 244.
Shipton, Mother, 1890, 61 ; Cave at Knares-
borough, 63.
Shortreed, R., and Liddesdale, 1890,613.
Shotley Spa, 1888, 150.
"Show me the Way to Wallington,"1890, 421.
Shows, Wild Beast, in the North, 1888, 241.
Shrike, or Butcher Bird, 189U, 247.
Shrimpton, F., Highwayman, 1888, 318.
Shrove Tuesday Football, 1887, 327.
"Shuffle, Darby, Shuffle," 1891, 503.
Siddons, Mrs., 1891, 548.
Side. Newcastle, 1887, 80; 1889, 311, 426,
671 ; Jock o- the, 1890, 531.
Siege and Capture of Newcastle, 1891, 114.
Sigurdson, Regner, 1891, 128.
Silksworth, Strike at, 1891, 190, 192, 429.
Silvertop, H. C., 1888, 45.
Silky, Ghost of Denton Hall, 1887, 136.
Simeon of Durham, 1888, 235.
Simonside Dwarfs, 1891, 543.
Simpkin, Miss Alice, 1891, 47.
" Simple Simey," 1889, 53.
Singleton House, Newcastle, 1889, 158.
Siward, Earl, Death of, 1889, 49i
Skiddaw, Hermit of, 1890, 43, 90, 23L
" Skipper's Wedding," 1890, 269/-
Skylark, 1889, 129.
Slack, Thomas, Printer, 1887, 317; Mrs.,
1890, 224 ; John. Death of, 1890, 92,
Sleuth or Bloodhound, 1889, 3o.
Slogans, North-Country, 1891, 470.
Smith, John, Accident on High Level Bridge,
1887, 27b ; Miss, Lady Peat, 148 ; Vicar,
1888, 453; W. H., at Middlesbrough, 573;
Death of, 1891, 628 : J. K., Death of, 1889.
280 ; Valentin*, 1880, 135, 143 ; James,
Draughts Champion, Death of, 188 ;
William, Navigator, 1891, 31 ; Elizabeth,
Linguist, &c. , 535.
Smithson, G. E. T., 1891, 287.
Smollett, Roderick Random, 1887, 341 ; Hugh
Strap, 1888, 80 ; Afcenside, 1890, 330.
Smugglers, Siories of, 1891, 269.
Snape, Dr., Long Word, 1889, 187 ; 1890, 196;
Memorial Window, 1891, 525.
Snowball, Joseph, Death of, 1891, 331.
Snowdon, Ann, Death of, 1890, 427.
Snowflake, 1891, 103.
Snowstorms in the North, 1888, 191 ; 1891,
192. 239.
Soams, Cutty, 1887, 269.
Sockburn Worm, 1889, 5ia
Soldiers, Three Norwich, 1890, 533.
Solway Moss, 1888, 229.
Sopwith, Thomas, 1888, 546 ; 1889, 154.
Soulis, Lord William, 1889, 563.
Souter Fell, Aerial Armies at, 1891, 383.
Souters of Selkirk, 1887, 293.
Southey, Robert, 1890, 175.
Sparrow, the House and the Hedge, 1889, 86.
" Speed the Plough," 1888, 663.
Speed's 'Plan of Newcastle, 1888, 33, 91.
Spence, Thomas, 1887, 296 ; Joseph, Death
of, 1890, 91 ; John Forster, 321, 527 ;
Robert, Death of, 429 ; John, Death of,
573 ; Elizabeth Isabella, 1891, 90.
Spencer, John, Death of, 1888, 238.
Spindlestone Heugh, the Laidley Worm of,
1890, 193.
Spital Tongues Tunnel, 1887, 302.
Spittle Dene Mill, Tynemouth, 1891, 535.
Spotty's Hole, 1887, 63.
Spring, Tom, Pugilist, 1887, 108.
Sprite, Lark Hall, 1890. 558.
St, Acca, 1887, 75 ; Aelred, 76 ; Aidan, 77 ;
Alchmund, Bartholomew, Bede, 1888.
132; Cuthbert, 1889, 290'; Oswald,
Legend of, 1891, 203; Crispin's Dav
Celebration, 1891, 309 ; Cuthbert's Beads,
41 ; St. George, Julia, 1890, 74, 103 : St.
John's Churchyard, Newcastle, 1887, 20;
St John's Eve, Boneflres on, 1887, 404 ;
St. Mary's Island, 1889, 441 ; Loch, 1891,
80 ; Sir Horace St. Paul, Death of, 1891,
332; Will, 384; Sfc Thomas's Chapel,
1887, 329.
Stage Coach, Reminiscence of, 1891, 427.
Stagg, Mrs., Sister of Sir F. Blake, 1890, 451.
Staindrop, Village of, 1888, 515.
Stainthorpe, Wm. , Sheriff's Officer, 1889, 315.
Staite, W. E., and Electric Lighting, 1890, 22o.
Stanhope, Castle, 1888, 463 ; Bishop Butler
at, 1889, 358 ; Deer Park at, 1890, 36 ;
Linns, 1891, 399.
Stanley, Wreck of the, 1889. 17.
Stanley, H. M., 1890, 48, 288, 333, 336 ; Free-
dom of Newcastle, 239 ; in Newcastle,
331 ; " Darkest Africa," 384 ; Edinburgh
and Manchester Freedom, 384; Marriage,
432; and Aid. Thomas Bell, 1891, 287;
in Newcastle, 333.
Stapylton, Miles, 1890, 532.
Starling, the, 1888, 319 ; at Alston, 1889, 475.
Stavenhagen, Herr Bernard, 1890, 333.
Staward, Farm House, 1890, 2.
Staward Peel and Dickey of Eingswood,
1889, 255.
Stay Busk, a Weardale, 1890, 37a
Steamboat, the First Tyne, 1891. 306.
Stella Hall, 1888, 469 ; Chapel, 1891, 56 1.
Stephens, John, Supt. of River Police, Death
of. 1887, 479: 1889, 248 ; W. D., Presen-
tation, to, 1888, 572 ; Portrait of. 675 ;
1890, 19i
Stephenson, George, and Railway System,
1887, 368 ; Robert and Rowland Burdon.
402; and Thomas 1C. Harrison, 1888,
228; George and Robert, 359; George,
and Charles John Brandling, 1839, 69 ;
Railway Development, 262; William,
175 ; 1890, 269 ; Josiah Charles, of Toft
Hill, 1889, 182 ; C. H., Recollections of
Billy Purvis, 1891,375.
"Stepniak" in Newcastle, 1889. 190.
Stilton and Cotherstone, 1891, 57.
Stobbs, John, Death of, 1888, 45 ; " Shuffle
Darby," 1891, 503.
Stock Dove, 1891, 281.
Stocks, the, in Newcastle, 1888, 436.
Stockton.-Reminiscences of, 1888, 164 ; Cap-
tains from, and La Perouse, 293 ; Parlia-
mentary Election at, 1889, 94 ; S. and
Darlington Railway, 264; Invention of
Lucifers, 1890, 147 ; Free Library, 575 ;
Major Ropner, 1891, 143.
Stonechat, the, 1888, 668.
Stonecroft, the Gibsons of, 1891, 108.
Stoney (Bowes), Andrew Robinson, 1887, 196.
INDEX.
XIII,
Storey, John, Death of. 1888, 189; Rev.
Arthur, 150; Samuel, M.P., 1890, 575;
Sunderland Police, 1891, 192 ; Silksworth
Strike, 332.
State's Hall, 1887, 282. 378.
Stote, Madame, and her Salve, 1890, 33.
Stote-Manby Case, the, 1889, 30.
Stothard, Margaret, 1888, 394.
Stove, Joyce's Patent, 1891, 155.
Stranton Church, 1889, 281.
Stiap, Hugh, Smollett's Barber, 1887, 342.
Strutbmore. Lady, 1887, 196, 325 ; 1889, 422.
Street Cries, 1890, 379, 473 ; 1891, 41.
Streets of Newcastle :— Introductory, 1888,
34 ; Pilgrim Street, 77 ; its Offshoots,
111 ; Sandhill. 159 ; Sandgate, 222 ;
Pandon, 255 ; Manor Chare, 321 ; Mosley
Street and Dean Street, 542 ; Wests-ate
Street, 406 ; and Westgate, 451 ; Bigg
Market, 494 ; Groat and Cloth Markets,
554; Grey Street, 1889,21; Grainger
Street, 79; Blackett Street and New
Bridge Street, 102 ; Northumberland
Street and its Offshoots, 158 ; Newgate
Street, 214 ; Gallowgate and Percy Street,
270 ; Side, 311 ; Close, 350 ;St. Nicholas's
Churchyard and Square, 399 ; Quayside,
453 ; Neville Street andScotswood Road,
510 ; Elswiok Eoad District, 551.
Strength, Wull, 1888, 424.
Striding Edge and Red Tarn, 1890. 56L
Strong Men (the Commons), 1890, 234.
Stuart, James, Tweedside Patriarch, 1887,
116 ; John Graham, Poem by, 477.
Stybarrow, Crag and Ullswater, 1890, 61
" Success to the Coal Trade," 1890, 494.
Sullivan, Barry, Death of, 1891, 288.
Sun Dials, Northern, 1889. 292.
Sunderland :— Bridge, View of, 1887, 401 ;
Leaps from, 1888, 334, 335 ; Removal of
Lighthouse, 1887, 249 ; a Challenge, 428;
Epitaph, 1888, 523 ; Babbies, 1889, 16 ;
Hero, 235 ; Sunderland Bridge Lottery,
255 ; Marquis of Hartington in, 285 ;
John the Pieman, 235 ; Bull Baiting,
365 ; Ancient Doorway, 475 ; M. L.
Howarth, 459 ; Tragedies at, 190 ; Resi-
dence of Thomas Dixon, 448 ; Tragedy
in, 1890, 94 ; Jack Crawford Memorial,
239 ; St Columba Church, Southwick,
335 ; Town and Port, 406 ; Seamen's
Riot (1825), 508 ; New Town Hall, 575 ;
a Storey, M.P., 575; Town Hall, 1891,
16 ; Bridge, 71 ; Burning of the Lyceum
Theatre, H. Irving's First Appearance,
86 ; Andrew White, First Mayor, 111 ;
Murder of Captain Berckholtz, 123 ;
William Allan, Local Poet, 221 ; Case of
Thomas Fury, 266; H. Christie,
Draughts Champion, 284 ; New Presby-
terian Church, 285-; St. Crispin's Day
Celebrations, 309 ; Tragedy, 526 ; Tom
Taylor, 642.
Sunken Treasures in Broomley Lough, 1887,
325.
Superstitions, Northern, 1887, 374.
Surtees, Bobert, 1887, 75 ; 1888, 388, 389 ;
1891, 569 ; Bessie. 1888, 198, 271 ; 1890,
183, 215 ; John, 1889, 195 : William, 330.
Sutherland, B. J., Sheriff of Newcastle, 1891,
575,
Sutherland-Button, H., Death of, 1888, 572.
Button, William. Sheriff ol Newcastle, 1889,
45 : Mayor, 1891, 575.
Swaledale, from Willance's Leap, 1891, 153.
Swallow, the, ISatf, 469.
Swallowship. 1889, 56.
"Bwalwell Hopping," 1888, 102.
Swan, J. W., 1890, 220; William's Misfor-
tune, 273.
Swarland Hall, 1888, 441.
Swarthmoor Hall, 1891, 70.
Sweden, Gustavus of, 1890, 318.
Sweepers' Entry, Newcastle, 1889. 319.
Swift, the, 1389, 469.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, 1889, 474.
Swing Bridge, Newcastle, 1890, 263.
Sword Dancers' Song, 1887, 462.
T.
Tablet Society, Newcastle, 1889, 336, 480.
" Tales of the Borders," Author of, 1889, 363.
Tambourine Tavern, the, 1888, 226.
Tanfleld, Arch, 1887, 424 ; Stephen Collln's
Ghost and, 1890, 27L
Tinkerville, Lord, at Darlington, 1887, 365.
Tate, T., Death of, 1888, 188; Archbishop,
1891, 370.
Taylor, Sir Henry, 1888, 423 ; " Lord
Kenedy," the Bigamist, 1890, 481 ; John,
" Water Poet," 485 ; Whitworth Doc-
tors, 1891, 370 ; Tom, Editor of Punch,
542.
Tearney, James (" Blind Jimmy"), Death of.
1890, 523.
Teasdale, Mary, a Centenarian, 1890, 522.
Telegraphic Message between Newcastle and
London, First, 1891, 91.
Temperance Festival, Newcastle, 1887, 286 ;
1888, 381 ; 1889, 382 ; 18SO, 382 ; 1891, 382.
Temperley, Joseph, Death of, 1891, 140;
John, Notable Coalhewer, 1887, 111.
Tempest, Lady Vane, Death of, 1891, 525.
Temple, Simon, Shipbuilder, Jarrow, 1888,
426 ; William, Alderman, 1891, 19L
Tennant, Dorothy, 1890, 333 ; at Wallington,
432 ; Marriage, 432 ; Henry, 1891, 136.
Tennyson, Lord, and the Dicky Bird Society,
1890. 526.
Teviotdale, Raids in. 1890, 405.
Thain, James, and the Assassination of Gus-
tavus of Sweden, 1890, 319.
Theatrical Incident, a, 1888, 539.
Theatre Itoyal, Newcastle, 1889, 22.
Thirlwall Castle, 1889, 9.
Thomas, William, 1887, 20.
Thomlinson, Dr., 1889, 400; 1891, 487.
Thompson, Isaac, Printer, 1887,317 ; William
(Frederick Sheldon), 119; Thomas,
author of "Jemmy Joneson's Whurry,"
378 ; William, Crew of the, and Pompey's
Pillar, 1889, 375 ; Lewis, 286, 322 ;
Thomas Thompson's Grave, 478 ; John,
Death of, 1890, 572; Wm. Gill. 85;
Lewis, Bequest of, 477 ; William, Death
of, 1891, 140.
Thomson, James, author of " The Seasons,"
1889, 199; 1891, 241; James, a Rox-
burghshire Poet, 1889, 79 ; Archbishop of
York, 1891, 93.
Thorngrafton Find, 1888, 481, 529.
Thornton, Roger, 1B87, 56; Pandon Dene,
1890, 74 ; Joseph Lillie. 1888, 282.
"Thornton Brass," Restoration of, 1890,
191; 1891, 191.
Threepwood Case, 1889, 315.
Thrushes, 1888, 366.
Thunder Mutton 1887, 42a
Tichborne Claimant in Newcastle, 1889, 144.
Titmouse Family, 1890, 86.
Toad in the Hole, 1888. 4.
Toad Mugs, 1890, 396, 474.
Toboggan, the, 1887, 236.
Tobacco Trade, the Nestor of the, 1891, 372.
Toby, Uncle, 1887, 443.
Todd's Nook, Mill, 1891, 53L
Tolstoi, Count, Death of, 1889, 238.
Tomb, Nest on the, 1889, 282.
Tomlinson, W. W., on Views of North North-
umberland, 1888, 128; on Alnmouth,
1889, 392; St, Mary's Island, 441: on
Blanchland, 500 ; Bothal Village, 537 ;
on Ovinfham Village, 1890, 7; Elsdon
Village, 159 : Clavering's Cross, 546 ; on
Whitley-by-the-Sea, 1391, 21 ; Netherwit-
ton, 74 ; Whittingham, 78 ; Hamburgh,
165; Bywell-on-Tyne, 272; Mitford, 344 ;
Lilburn Tower, 351 ; Derwentwater
Veteran and Recluse, 385.
"Tommy on the Bridge" (Thomas Ferns),
18891 566, 571.
Tomsett, Madame (Mra Heenan), 1890, 396.
Toole, J. L., in Newcastle, 1888, 539.
Topham, Thomas, in Gateshead, 1890, 283.
Tower, the Rocking, Redesdale, 1891, 113.
Towers, Hannah (niece of George Stephen-
son), Death of, 1891, 525.
Town Moor, Explosion on the. 1888, 145;
"Stob." Newcastle, 1889, 271; Riot on
the, 1891, 353.
Towneley Family, the, 1890, 125.
Towns, the Lighting of, 1890, 218.
Tracks, Salters, the, 1889, 336.
Trades Union Congress, Newcastle, 1891, 480.
Trafalgar, Battle of, 1891. 514.
Tragedies:— Herrington Tragedy, 1887. 148 ;
Cockle Park, 1888, 11 ; Nicholas Fairies,
83; Mary Nicholson, 214; Dorothy
Bewicke, 252; Supt Scott, 334; Man-
chester, 336 ; Bajdale Banks, 461 ;
Birtley Fell, 526; Whitechapel, 480, 528;
Major Barttelor, 480; Bishop Walcher,
566 ; Wrekenton, 1889, 141, 190 ; New-
castle, 238, 514; Gateshead, 286; Jar-
row, 383 ; near Carlisle, 384 ; Newcastle,
1890, 76, 95, 190; Sunderland, 94; Crewe,
240 ; Gateshead, 381 ; Cleveland, 385 ;
New Cross, London, 432 ; Leeming, near
Bedale. 525 ; Switzerland, 528 ; Canada,
528; Kentish Town, 576 ; Captain Berok-
holtz, 1891, 123; Denis O'Neil, 190;
Hallgarth, 221 ; Sunderland, 266 ; Hors-
forth, 384, 432, 480; Stockton, 478;
Liverpool, 480 ; Huddersfleld, 480 ; New-
castle, 526; North Cumberland, 527;
Hetton-le-IIole, 575.
Train, Edward, the Hermit, 1891, 303.
Tramw ay Accident in Newcastle, 1891, 432.
Trance, Border, Story of a, 1889, 494.
"Travels of the Imagination," 1891, 563.
Trebelli, Madame in Newcastle, 1891, 142.
Tree, a Remarkable, 1888, 91.
Tree Culture Society, Newcastle, 1888, 335,
430, 527.
Trevelyan, Mrs. Elizabeth, Will.of. 1891, 382.
Trinity House, Newcastle, 1889, 176.
Trotter, H. J., M.P., Death of, 1889, 44.
Troup, J. Rose, in Newcastle, 1891, 14i
Truelove, the, 1888, 131.
Tudhoe, Waterton at, 1888, 450 ; Ghosts at,
1889, 52.
Tuer, Andrew W. , on Fairy Pipes, 1890, 186.
Tunstall, Bishop, and John Knox, 1890, 59.
Tupper, Mnrtin F., Death of, 1890, 48.
Turf Hotel, Newcastle Old Coaching Days,
1888, 327 ; Sale of, 1889, 191, 238.
Turnbull, Adam, Centenarian, 1887, 12 ;
Michael, Bookseller, 414 ; William (Wull
the Slow»n), 1888, 519 ; John, " Hen-
wife Jack," 1890, 622 ; Mr., and Lark
Hall Sprite, 55a
Turnip Husbandry, 1890, 101.
Turpin's Ride to York, 1888, 22.
Turtle Dove, 1891, 281.
Tuthill Stairs, 1889, 319. 351.
" Twelve Days of Christmas," 1888, 41.
Twizell House, Northumberland, 1890, 249 ;
Castle and Bridge, 451.
Tyburn, Shields Youth Hanged at, 1891, 439.
Tyne, Bridge, 1887, 23 ; Tower on, 181 ; Ro-
mance of, 202; Fall of, 206; Vessels,
Old, 1888, 131 ; Paul Jones's Plan of the,
351 ; Theatre, Newcastle, 455 ; Clown
and his Geese on the, 1889, 522 ; Conser-
vancy Contest, 1890, 131; Bridge, 2b6:
Sailors' Strike on the, 1851, 52 ; Barge
Day on, 275, 287 ; Steamboat, the First,
306 ; Mouth of the, 520.
Tynedale, Apprentices, 1887, 424 ; Four Sur-
names In, 476.
Tynemouth. View of, 1887, 417 ; Priory, 215 ;
Castle, 1889, 228 ; Naval Manoeuvre!, 479 ;
Volunteer Life Brigade, 1890, 319, 527 ;
Jingling Geordie's Hole, 349; Dicky
Bird Society Boats, 430 ; Gun Accident
at, 1891, 237 ; Cliffs, 407 ; Wreck at, 573.
TyneMe Echo. Death of, 1888, 479.
Tyneside Hero, 1889, 545 ; Showman, 1891,
346.
Tynesiders in Birmingham, 1891, 142.
Tyson, Joseph, Death of, 1889, 188.
Tyzack, Wilfrid, Death of, 1890, 427.
U.
Ulgham Estate, Sale of, 1889, 573.
Ullswater and Stybarrow Crag, 1890, 63.
Ulric, James Anderson as, 1889, 242.
Umfreville, Leonard. Printer, 1887, 317.
Umfravilles and Prudhoe Castle, 1891, 6.
Uncle Toby's Dicky Bird Society, 1887, 443 ;
Picture, 1888, 43, 47, 90: Exhibition at
Toys, 1889. 87; 1890, 94; 1891, 85,94;
Family (Local Anecdote), 1889, 331;
Musical Treat, 1889, 527; 1891, 190;
Boats at Tynemouth, 1890, 430; U.B.S.,
524; Lord Tennyson's Letter, 526.
Union Bank, Newcastle, 1889, 401.
United States, Census of, 1890, 576.
Urwin, David, Presentation to, 1890, 527.
Utopia, Wreck o! the, 1891, 240.
V.
Valckenaere, Jean B., Death of, 1888, 28!x
Vampires, North-Country, 1888, 518.
Van Amburgh, 1887. 245.
XIV.
INDEX.
Vanbrugh, Sir John, in the North. 1801, 15,39.
Veitch, William, Covenanter, 1889, 165.
Venom, Charms for. 1889, 132.
Vicars of Newcastle, 1888, 417.
Vicar's Will. 1888, 138.
Vicarajre, Old Newcastle, 1888, 452.
Vickers.Jonathan, Starved to Death, 1889, 574.
Victoria, H.H.S., 1883, 239 : Hall, Disaster at
Sundcrland, 1889, 97.
Vint, Robert, Death of, 1891, 45.
Volunteer Movement in the North, 1888, 54.
W.
Waddle, William, Execution of, 1889, 94.
Wade, Marshal, 1838, 293 ; Road, 1889, 245.
Wagtails, Pied, Yellow, and Grey, 1889, 564.
Wags of Durham, 1889, 301, 434.
Wakenshaw, Thomas, Death of, 1890, 379.
Walcher, Bishop, Murder of, 1888, 566.
Waldron, George, alias Barrington, 1891, 36.
Walker, John, and Lumlcy Ghost Story,
1889, 341 ; Inventor of the Lucifer
Match, 1890, 146 ; Wylam, Death of, 476.
Wallace, Dr. A. R., in Newcastle, 1883, 189;
Wallace's Raid in Northumberland, 1889,
H
Waller. John, Valuable Book of, 1887, 172 ;
1888, 673; John Bovrell, on "The Pit-
man," 1891, 208.
Wallington, John Ruskin at, 1888. 42 ; 1890,
358; "Show me the VVay to," 421;
Dorothy Tennant at, 432.
Wallis, Rev. Richard, 1890, 42 ; Whitworth,
in Newcastle, 1891, 143.
Walls of Newcastle, 1831. 545.
Wallsend Old Church, 1888, 153 ; Witches at,
154 ; Grand Duke Nicholas at, 1889, 150 ;
Discovery of Baptismal Font at, 1891,431.
Walpole, Ed., and Mary Clement, 1887, 86.
Walsh, John, Death of, 1891, 192.
Walters, Rev. John, Death of. 1887, 479 ;
Rev. Frank. 1890, 557, 575 ; Robert,
Death of, 572.
Walton, Thomas, Death of, 1890. 523;
George, Death of, 1891, 93.
Walwick Chester?, 1890, 570.
" Wandering Willie," 1889, 233.
Warblers, 1890, 515 ; the Three. 1891, 565.
Ward, T. Humphrey, in Newcastle, 1839, 96;
Herbert, 1890, 574.
Wardell, John, Miser of Ketton, 1839, 84.
Warden Law, 1887, 229.
Warkworth Castle, 1890, 23 ; Hermit, 346 ;
Bridge Tower, 1891, 255.
Wars, Early Northumbrian (see NorthumbriaX
Washington Hall, Opening of Waifs and
Strays' Home, 1891, 28&
Washington, English Homes of, 1888. 203.
Wasney, Rev. Robert, 1889, 638.
WasUvater, Cumberland, 1889, 184.
Wat o' Harden, 1890, 357 : Buccleugb, 530. I
Watchmaker, S. Boverick, 1891, 234.
Watchman's Rattle, 1889, 138.
"Water Poet," in the North, 18SO, 485.
Water Tower, Newcastle, 1889, 553.
Waterford, Lady, Death or, 1891, 331.
Waterloo Wetheral, 1891, 234.
Waterson, Edward, Martyr, 1887, 140.
Waterton, Charles, 1888, 447 ;atTudhoe,450.
Watkin, Sir E., in Newcastle, 1890, 144.
Watling Street, the, 1889, 61.
Watson, James, Bookseller, 1887, 68 ; Henry,
J. P. , Death of, 1888, 45 ; Mason, Death of.
18SO, 284 ; George, Mathematician, 1891.
138 ; William, and "Dance toThy Daddy,"
245 ; the late Baron, 494 ; General, 491.
Watt, Henry Alexander, Death of, 1888, 379.
Watton Abbey, Headless Ghost of, 1888, 151.
\Vaugh, Edwin, Death of, 1890, 288.
Wear, Procession of Boats, 1889, 424.
Weardale, Fairy Pipe, 1889, 561; Knitting-
Stick, 1890, 90 ; Rookhope Ryde, 228 ;
Holystone, 330 ; Stay Busk. 378 ; Two
Notable Men of, 1891, 49 ; Linns, 399.
Wearmouth Bridge Lottery, 1889, 254.
WeatherleyThos., Presentation to, 1891, 94.
Wedderstone, the, 1889, 426.
Wedding, a Cumbrian Bidden, 1891. 475.
" Wedding, the Skipper's," 1890, 269.
Weedy, James, Murder of, 1890, 525.
Weekly Chronicle Cycling Cup, 1891, 479.
Weighing Machine, the Delaval, 1891, 126.
Welford, Richard, on " Men of Mark Twixt
Tyne and Tweed," 1887, 3, 53, 101, 145,
193, 241, 289, 337, 385, 451 ; 1888, 36, 55,
107, 156, 193, 258, 306, 354, 418, 442, 498,
b39 : 1889, 10, 66, 122, 162, 210, 266, 306,
354, 38b, 442, 506, 538 ; 1890, 19, 66, 114,
154. 202, 250, 289, 337, 411, 441, 489, 537 ;
1891, 11, 58, 105, 154, 224, 250, 297, 354,
394, 441, 493, 538 ; Coal in the North,
1887, 34 ; Northumberland Saints. 75 ;
1888, 132 ; Inventor of the Panorama,
1887, 172 ; a Gateshead Anchoret, 276 ;
the Great North Road, 1888, 294;
Gateshead Prodigy, 1889, 40; Press
Gang, 135; Gas Lighting in the North,
279 ; St. Helen's Auckland Hall. 325 ;
Cross House, Newcastle, 37V ; Cost of
Newcastle Mayoralty, 174 ; Robert
Bolron, 4£0 ; Dr. Cradock, 1890, 78 ;
Gateshead Perambulations, 223 ; Luke
Long, Quack Doctor, 275 ; Hewson
Clarke, 1891, 149 ; Maddison Monument,
294 ; Joseph Glynn, F.R.S., 330.
Well, Senna, 1888, 235 ; the Capping, 474.
Wellesley Training Ship, 1891, 239.
Wellington in the North, 1888, 349.
Wells, Ben, the Dancing Master, 1891, 523.
Wells, Holy, in the North, 1888, 14a
Werston, Bishop of Sherborne, 1889, 416.
Wesley, John, in Sandgate, 1888, 225 ; and
Grace Murray, 503 ; Orphan House, 604,
570; 1889, 158; in Newcastle and the
North, 1891, 180 ; Centenary of. 191, 192;
Memorial Fountain, Newcastle, 574.
Westcott, Bishop, 1890, 236, 332.
Westerton Folly, Relics found at, 1890, 451.
Westgate St.. Newcastle, 1888, 406 ; Hill, 451;
Westminster Abbey and the Percies, 1891,82.
Westmorland Place, Newcastle, 1888, 408.
Westmorland, the Earl of, 1888, 406; 1891,
333; Mathematician of, 90; Anne, High
Sheriff of, 97.
Wetheral, Waterloo, 1891, 234.
Wharton, J. L., M.P., 1888, 143.
Wheatear, the, 1838. 568.
Wheldon, John, 1891, 131.
Whickham, School, 1888, 475 ; Black Cock
of, 1891, 4 ; Village, 486.
Whigs, Gathering of the, 1887, 90.
Whjnchat, the, 1888, 66a
Whisky, Illicit, in Durham, 1891, 125.
Whitbnrn, Curious Custom, 1891, 239;
Villaftt, 448.
Whitby Ab'bey, 1889, 230.
White Cross, Newcastle, 1837, 19 ; 1889, 219 ;
White Horses of the Hambleton Hills,
1887, 397 ; White Lady of Blenkinsopp,
1888, 104.
White, John, Printer, 1887, 316, 365 : Grace,
Printer, 461 : Dr., Old Newcastle Phy-
sician. 1838, 278 ; Kobert, 1888, 519 ; 1890,
487; 1891, 270; Andrew, First Mayor
of Sunderland, 1891, 111.
Whitechaoel, Murders in, 1888, 480, 528.
Whitefleld, George, in the North, 1890, 321.
Whitfleld, Robert, Coal Hewer, 1887, 111, 235.
Whitley-by-the-Sea, 1891, 2L
Whittingham, Vale of, 1888, 129 ; Fair, 254 ;
1889, 7 ; 1891, 78, 80.
Whittle, Thomas, 1890, 198.
Whitton Tower, Rothhury, 1889, 136;
Sharpe's Folly, 1S91, 464.
Wian, Patrick Makel, 1887, 11.
Wicht, the Birtwhistle, 1887, 74.
Widdrington, the Man-Stealer, 1887, 109.
Widdrington Family, 1888, 471 ; Estates,
1891, 559 ; Lord,' 560.
Wiggins, Captain, 1888, 429, 527, 572;
1889, 526, 547 ; 1890, 47.
Wild Beast Shows in the North, 1883, 24L
Wilfrid, Founder of Hexham Abbey, 1887, 75.
Wilkins. Rev. John, Death of, 1890, 187.
Wilkinson, Mary, Centenarian, 1887, 12 ;
John, Mayor of Newcastle, 21 ; Bishop
of Hexham and Newcastle, 1890, 190 ;
Northumbrian Highwayman, 229 ; Rev.
George P., Death of, 475 ; Robert
Thomas, Will of, 1891, 284.
William the Lion, 18EO, 178.
Williamson, Sir Hedworth, 1887, 64 ; Rev.
Robert H., Death of, 1891, 236.
Willie, Blind, 1883, 80, 516, 570; Kinmont,
1890, 453, 530.
Willimotes*lck Castle, 1889, 517.
Willington Ghost, the, 1887, 177.
Willis, James. Death of, 1891, 232,
Wilson, F. R., on the Hutch. 1837, 56; a
Typical Peel Tower, 1888, 376 ; Alnwick
Castle, 1890, 303; Thomas, Poet, 1889,
337; Professor (Christopher North), 471,
5^2 ; John Mackay, 363 ; Sir Jacob, 382 ;
William, 572 ; Sarah, on Hulme
Abbey. 1890, 416 ; Brislee Tower, Aln-
wick, 440 ; Bondgate Tower, Alnwick,
496; Bracey R., Death of, 91; John
(Cuckoo Jack), 110 ; Alexander, Death
of, 332 ; Joe, 1891, 38 ; Alderman
Thomas, Resignation, 94.
Wintlermere, 1889, 621 ; 1891, 263, 265.
Windmills, 1889, 237 ; 1891, 529.
Windy Monday, 1889, 418.
Wine Pant. 1888, 164.
Winlaton, Hopping, 1890, 6 ; Mill, 535-6-7.
Winter, William, 1837, 107 ; T. a, Alder-
man, 1891, 46.
Winter's Stob, 1887, 186 : 1890, 134.
Winters, the, 1891, 98, 100.
Witch of Edlinrham, 1888, 393.
Witchcraft in the North, 1887, 211.
Witches at Wallsend, 1888, 154.
Witham. H. T. M., and Lartington. 1889, 75.
Witherspoon, Robert, Death of, 1889, 381.
Wolsingbam, Highlanders at, 1890, 246 ;
Crages, Family of, 1891, 49.
Wombwell's Menaeerie, 1888, 242, 491. * -i
Wood, Ralph, Death of, 1888, 572 ; Rev. J.
0., Death of, 1889, 192 ; Thomas, and
Coxhoe Hall, 305.
Woodford, Major-General Sir J. G., 1891, 385.
Woodhorn Church, 1891, 256.
Woodpeckers, the, 1891, 320.
Woodpigeon, the. 1891, 280.
Wooler, and its Environs, 1888, 289.
Woolhouse, W. a B., 1890. 327.
Woollen, Burial in, 1891, 518.
Wordsworth, William, 1889, 561 ; Dungeon
Gill Force, 1890, 346 ; Scawfell Pikes, 1891,
370 ; Lake District, 417 ; Dorothy, 291.
Workington, Football at, 1889, 550"; Hall,
1890, 352.
Worm, The Lambton, 1883, 398 ; the Sock-
burn, 1889, 518 ; the Pollard, 556 ; Laid-
ley, of Spindlestone Heugh, 1890, 193.
Worswick, Rev. James, 1888, 113.
Wouldhave, W., and Lifeboat, 1837, 305.
Wrekenton, Tragedy at, 1889, 141, 190.
Wren, the, 1890, 16.
Wrightson. Edwin, the Bowes Tragedy, 1887,
41 ; Thomas, 1890, 575.
Wroe, Prophet, 1888, 337.
Wull the Slowan, 1888. 519.
Wycliffe, John, 1890, 518; Church, 530, 521.
Wynyard, 1887, 427 ; Hall, 1890, 564, 574.
X.
X. Y. Z. at Newcastle Races, 1889, 323.
Y,
Yarmouth, Sea Fight ofl, 1889, 545.
Yarrow, Tibbie Shiels in, 1891. 8L
Yellow Doors Tavern, Newcastle, 1889, 352.
Yetholm Tinkers, 1891, 54.
York, Early Press at, 1887, 459 ; Turpin's Ride
to, 1888, 22 ; Castle, 1889, 533 ; Lindley
Murray at, 1890, 267 ; Lumlcy Kettle-
well, 563 ; Sir John Vanbrugh,
1891, 16 ; Ramble Round, 32 ; Dr.
Thomson, Archbishop, 89 ; Execution at
Castle, 95 ; Dr. Magee, Archbishop, 141,
237 ; Death of, 283, 288 ; Dr. Maclagan,
Archbishop, 333, 526.
Yorkston, Mary, 1891, 56.
Youll, Alderman, Resignation, 1890, 431.
Young, Tnomas, Death of, 1888, 331 ; Michael,
Death of, 1889, 572.
Younge, R. W., Death of, 1887, 237.
(Errata in Volume for 1891.
Page 346, col 2, line 41— for 1843 read 1845.
Pago 366, col. 1— delete last line.
Page 369, col. 2, line 22— for page 308 read page 368.
Page 392, col 1, line 31— "Then to consult Grose" should read,
"Mem: to consult Grose."
1
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